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      Prime minister PMQ prep

      Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

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      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

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      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

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      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

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      Real levelling up: getting a more democratic future for the North

      The UK faces a democratic emergency with an urgent need for electoral reform, especially for the North. Join the debate this Saturday.

      Paul SalvesonbyPaul Salveson
      30-11-2021 12:18
      in Politics, Region
      Democracy by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

      Democracy by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images

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      There is growing anger across the North at the Conservatives’ broken promises on their much-hyped ‘levelling up’ agenda. The recent tearing up of commitments on high-speed rail in the North, and reform of social care to the region’s detriment has added fuel to the fire, and a sense that this government treats the North with contempt.

      Conservatives didn’t win the North

      There is a great myth that at the last election the so-called ‘red wall’ fell and the North of England voted in Boris Johnson’s Conservatives – and so the North only has itself to blame as it watches a nakedly corrupt Conservative Westminster government dish out cash to its cronies and attack our basic democratic norms and safeguards.

      In fact, at the 2019 general election, of the 7.32 million votes cast in the North, 43 percent went to Labour, 8 percent to the Lib Dems and 2 percent to the Greens, compared with 40 percent for the Conservatives and 5 percent for the Brexit Party. True, this was the best performance by the Conservatives in the North in recent history, but they didn’t ‘win the North’.

      The Conservative Party has never won a general election in the North in recent history. In 2017, when Theresa May managed to form a government with the aid of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the Tories polled 31 percent in the North compared to Labour’s 53 percent. In 2015, when David Cameron won a working majority, the Tories polled 31 percent in the North compared to Labour’s 43 percent.

      Devolution for the North of England

      So the North of England has much in common with Scotland and Wales, in that right wing Conservative governments it didn’t vote for are repeatedly foisted upon it by the electorate of the South of England. These governments act consistently against the region’s social, economic and industrial interests and in favour of the economic interests of the South of England-based elite and the City of London.

      However, both Scotland and Wales have a devolved parliament/senedd elected by proportional representation from which a government that the people did vote for is formed. This devolved government is in charge of health, education, housing, roads, railways and many other vital public services. The North of England has none of these things and, despite the valiant efforts of the Yorkshire Party and others, no strong political voice demanding them.

      Elections bill
      Politics

      Democracy under threat from the elections bill

      byVicky Seddon
      25 November 2021

      Hannah Mitchell Foundation

      The Hannah Mitchell Foundation (HMF) is a small, independent, cross-party, democratic organisation researching and campaigning for devolution for the North of England and a progressive regionalism open to everyone who has made the North their home.

      Regional history, culture and identity have always been very much a motivating force in our campaign for devolution. Nevertheless, when the HMF was originally founded ten years ago, devolution could be treated almost as a technical question about improving public services and making them more democratic and responsive to the North’s needs.

      Now, since austerity, the Scottish Indyref, Brexit and Boris Johnson, things have got much more fundamental. The North of England faces simultaneous social, economic, health and climate emergencies: this winter far too many will be unable to afford to eat properly or stay warm. HMF argues that we are also facing a democratic emergency. The traditional British unwritten rulebook of democratic good conduct has been well and truly torn up by the Johnson government, if such a thing is possible.

      Democratic emergency: the need for constitutional and electoral reform

      Discussion of Northern regional devolution must now be linked to the wider debate on the need to reform the United Kingdom’s failing constitution and bring in a fair voting system for the Westminster parliament. The North needs to get involved in that debate now, because if the region does not take steps to define its own democratic rights and fight for them, its future will be determined by what happens elsewhere, including in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

      Against this background, HMF has organised an online public meeting on Saturday 4 December 10.30am, entitled ‘Real Levelling Up: getting a more democratic, flourishing future for the North’, featuring guest speakers Baroness Natalie Bennett, Alex Sobel MP and Thelma Walker. It’s free to attend and is followed by HMF’s annual general meeting, at which there will be a debate on the options for Northern devolution.

      HMF is free to join and will be looking to work jointly with others in 2022 to define and then promote the North’s democratic rights, to underpin the flourishing region we all know the North can be.

      Tags: Democracy
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      Paul Salveson

      Paul Salveson

      Paul has spent most of his professional life in the railway industry, developing the 'community rail' movement - a national network of community rail partnerships and groups based in Huddersfield. After spending two decades in Yorkshire, Paul moved back to his native Bolton where he runs a small publishing business called 'Lancashire Loominary'. He helped form the Hannah Mitchell Foundation ten years ago as a radical democratic campaign for Northern devolution.

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