Strikes by bus workers employed by Stagecoach on Teesside have been suspended following an improved pay offer. The strikes scheduled for Thursday 18 November, Saturday 20 November and Monday 22 November have all been called off to allow members to ballot on the improved pay offer. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This is a potential breakthrough in the dispute. […]
Water, water, everywhere… (but no PM and not a drop to swim in?) Tories 283, Opposition 163. Blink and you missed it! So what did happen yesterday? It all started with a video from DEFRA, a report from ENDS, both discussed in an appearance of Fergal Sharkey on Good Morning Britain, and a critique on […]
Protestors from North East for Europe waited at Hexham General Hospital to greet Boris Johnson today. Kim Sanderson, spokesperson for North East for Europe said: “We are here to meet the Prime Minister to voice our concerns over corruption in the Conservative party at national and County Council levels.” “We also want to show our […]
Three vulnerable EU citizens living in the UK were locked out of accessing the justice system to challenge deportation orders because of conflicting government procedures and lengthy delays. These are the findings of a Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) investigation published today. A law centre charity that provides legal representation for people who have […]
Firefighter, Annabel Evans, of Sunderland has gained distinction grades ‘across the board in her training with TWFRS.
Four in ten youngsters across Newcastle are trapped in child poverty according to the NE Child Poverty Commission.
Unite the Union, the United Kingdom’s largest Trades Union, has called on Ben Houchen (Conservative Tees Valley Mayor) to ensure that everyone employed at the new Freeport has their rights protected – whether they are members of a Trade Union or not. Regional Officer, Pat McCourt, said: “While we welcome the creation of potentially thousands […]
Boris Johnson was accused of cakeism, when he claimed that there would be no downsides to his hard Brexit policies. We now have evidence that it is not really possible “to have your cake and eat it”. Trade with the EU is no longer frictionless, thus resulting in a drop of UK exports. The current […]
Are those beer goggles you’re wearing, Mr Gove? Michael Gove visited the site of the South Tees Development Corporation in late September. When he spoke of that experience at the to the party faithful on Monday, many may have been enthralled by what he had to say. Many on Teesside, meanwhile, were left absolutely speechless. […]
The North East Child Poverty Commission (NECPC) has called on the Chancellor to commit to making an ambitious, joined-up plan to end child poverty ‘a central plank’ of the Government’s levelling up agenda. Put children and young people at the heart of the levelling up agenda In its submission to this year’s Spending Review and […]
This week the government voted to increase National Insurance contributions in order to fund social care. National Insurance contributions are set to rise by 1.25 percentage points. Whilst initially this may not seem a lot, it is worth noting that for anyone earning between £10,000 and £50,000 a year, it actually means an increase of […]
The UK government should retain the £20 increase to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit, which has been a lifeline to thousands of households across the city for people struggling to afford the essentials. Charities, health care professionals, foodbanks and councillors across the city are backing the Keep the lifeline campaign and are calling on […]
August is the silly month, with the press scrabbling for copy to fill column inches left empty by the political recess. It is the perfect season for Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, sultan of spin, to create a “secret radioactive waste dump” conspiracy theory. In eleven August days, he accused Hartlepool Labour Group, smeared a local charity, ousted […]
Tory MPs, John Stevenson and Peter Aldous have written to the Prime Minister with concerns about Universal Credit. They said that “there were no sensible voices calling for Universal Credit to be scrapped.” They also requested that the £20 uplift to be maintained in order to help with security and stability for families who need […]
A coalition of local people and campaign groups from across the country will protest against the proposed detention centre in Consett, County Durham, on Saturday 21 August. This will be the third demonstration organised at the site and the first of regular demonstrations happening on the third Saturday of every month. Inhumane practice of indefinite […]
Boris Johnson’s crass comments praising Margaret Thatcher for closing the pits in the 1980s and wrongly attributing her with green credentials have been roundly condemned by leading figures connected to the Durham Miners’ Gala. It is the second year running that Gala organisers have reluctantly taken the decision to cancel the iconic ‘Big Meeting’ due […]
Today former Shadow Minister for Veterans, Sharon Hodgson MP, is urging local veterans across the North East to participate in the Labour Party’s consultation with veterans. They are being encouraged to participate in a survey so that their voices can be heard. As Shadow Minister for Veterans, Sharon developed the consultation, which will help the […]
Early in the morning of 18 January 1981, flames tore through a three floored combined house party at 439 New Cross Road, South London. 13 young black people lost their lives directly through the fire and the toll rose to 14, when a further party attendee tragically committed suicide, two years later. Within six weeks […]
Last Wednesday, 21 July 2021, as I Joined with the SODEM team at the regular PMQs protest outside parliament, I was told in unequivocal terms by a Covid-denier that I didn’t represent “The People”. Just what I am to make of that? I’m sorry, “The People”, but I have never made any claim to represent […]
A broad, cross-sector coalition of North East organisations has come together today (21 July 2021) to urge the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reverse the planned £20 a week cut to Universal Credit which will hit hundreds of thousands of low-income households across the region this autumn. Writing jointly to the Chancellor as organisations “committed […]
Savid Javid was pinged. We all know what that means, so it was necessary for him to inform recent associates, and it would be necessary for said associates to also isolate. This is a few days before ‘Freedom Day’. These have been the rules for us all. They’re terribly inconvenient, that’s true, but we are […]
Regional child poverty campaigners have renewed calls for an end to the government’s ‘two-child limit’, after figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions today (15 July 2021) show that almost 14,000 families – including at least 42,000 children – across the North East are now affected by the policy. The two-child limit The two-child limit […]
It must be heart warming for Gareth Southgate to know that he has the enthusiastic approval of Tory MP, Simon Clarke. Clarke had this to say on Twitter on 11 July: It wasn’t always that way. Clarke’s opinion of Southgate seems to have been transformed as recently as 29 June, when he tweeted: Unfortunately he […]
I would like to hypothesis that the greatest success of this ten-year government is to keep the underclass in their place. That is as far away as possible from the elite. And poor, uneducated and hungry. We are run by the elite for the elite. Any other thoughts are pure fantasy. I think that it would […]
We used to think that poverty was something that mainly visited the unemployed, the homeless, those who were far from the labour market through a combination of bad luck and poor life chances. However the shocking phenomena of in-work poverty has been growing year on year even before the pandemic laid waste to the economic […]
History is like the tide coming in; sometimes you see it, sometimes it floods you without warning. The 21st Century started like the tide you can see; a cleaning torrent of optimism that swept doubt aside, giving us what now seems like blissful prosperity, culture and awareness. We even had decent football with Sir Bobby […]
One shrewd editorial policy at the outset set the tone which was that, while those involved in setting up the project shared an interest in politics, Bylines was interested in everything. No boundaries were set on the scope of its content. As a result, Bylines publishes a range of material much more diverse than any regional newspaper: poetry, international affairs, profiles of local sporting legends, it’s all in there.
There’s a financial weather warning in place across the North East. Every day a blizzard of banknotes swirls around the region, smothering the press with good news: Towns Deal millions here, Freeport billions there. And with it a warm front of jobs, jobs, jobs. As we gaze on in wonderment are we seeing a U-turn […]
In this week’s Bylines Network Podcast, Katrina Best interviews Alex Toal. Alex was involved in campaigning in the Batley and Spen by-election. He reflects on what he learned on the doorstep and analyses the Labour win and what this might mean for Labour going forward. Cross border services We also hear from Kim Sanderson whose […]
“When Brexit is done or undone, we all have to live together and individual friendship and experience will always triumph over politics… I hope.the right wing will always be better at playing the divide and conquer game; we need to trump that with what we’re good at. Friendship.”