On Tuesday the University of Exeter ran an in-person and online launch for We Are Here, a deeply moving book of poems by the Ukrainian soldier poet Artur Dron’. The university formed an editorial team...

The news came on Friday, just before we sat down for lunch with friends at the Jack Russell in Swimbridge, was a rare treat. The treat became rather more of one, with a bottle of Prosecco, when we saw...

Photo: Caroline Lucas MP addressing Extinction Rebellion demonstrators 1 May 2019 A few days ago I chatted with Extinction Rebellion (XR) colleagues in North Devon about the movement and its future. I...

In a week of so much horrible news, I start with something very positive – the waterwheel turning at Hele Mill in the video above. Rosie and I visited Hele, just east of Ilfracombe, to deliver leaflet...

Photo: Ilfracombe Rosie and I have canvassed in Ilfracombe for Cllr Sara Wilson the past two Saturdays. It was extremely breezy on the first one – easily as bracing as Skegness. Sara is a strong candi...

PHOTO – Dennington Hill, Swimbridge The Asphalt Industry Alliance’s (AIA) Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey has found that £16.81bn is required by councils to bring the network up...

Thank you, Richard Burgon MP, for what you are doing to prevent the Gaza genocide that Israel is carrying out while the world does nothing much – especially our own craven government. This is my lates...

I owe my election as a district councillor in May 2023 to my North Devon Green Party colleagues. They photographed and designed, had printed and then delivered four rounds of leaflets and cards. They ...

The moth that appeared on our summerhouse door to announce Spring on 1 March, which featured in Blog 10, is a Dotted Border, Agriopsis marginaria, which flies Feb-April. The female is flightless and t...

I have read poems from The Thermobaric Playground to the local branch of the Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT) on two occasions. The book, published in 2022, opens with a section on my North Devon habitat. T...

President Zelensky rightly said that President Trump is trapped inside a bubble of Russian disinformation. This has been widely reported for obvious reasons but I have not seen one mention of the sour...

Spring – Snowdrops in St James’s Churchyard, Swimbridge Last Monday was Holocaust Memorial Day and, like many others, I listened on the radio to heart-rending testimonies broadcast from the Auschwitz ...

Welcome to my latest blog post… I am a member of the Taw Torridge Estuary Forum, which met last Monday evening. Louise Wainwright, chair of Avon River Champions in South Devon, was our special guest. ...

Letters: Infrastructure spending means investment in people, writes Netti Pearson, while Ann Eastman suggests corporate opportunities for the NHS and Brandi Leach calls on UK billionaires to be philan...

Cookham-on-Thames Over the past week I was involved with the sudden crisis in local government inflicted on us by Labour ministers, while also spending time with the paintings of one of England’s most...

How strange it was to find the Labour government giving the country three weeks to consider sweeping new changes to local government that no one had asked for, while simultaneously specifying three ye...

An open letter from Green Party councillors to residents of Devon Labour’s Devolution plans will radically reshape local government in Devon [*]. They aim to transfer powers from Whitehall to Strategi...

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