The Labour Party is as moribund as the Anglican Church. Both are founded on supposed fundamental truths, on the side of the Persecuted, the Poor, and the Weak, and on an unshakeable ideology grounded in the teachings of two of the most misinterpreted men in history (although Marx edges it, just.) Both privateered by the […]
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Coronavirus held an evidence session on Tuesday on the impact on key workers. Four key workers gave compelling and heartbreaking accounts of how Covid -19 was contracted whilst working. Part 1 of the APPG on Coronavirus Layla Moran, the chair of the APPG on Coronavirus, said: “The harrowing evidence […]
Did the media’s description of penalty ‘saves’ at the Euro 2021 football competition as ‘misses’ fan the flames of racial abuse? England lost the shoot-out, and when a loss occurs we English seem to need to have someone to blame. Blaming the England players for not scoring, rather than praising the Italian goalkeeper for his […]
Esken, the company behind struģgling Stobart Aviation Ltd, has returned its quarter-share in Teesside International Airport for a “nominal” sum. The aviation sector has been blindsided by Covid-19. However, Stobart Aviation Ltd posted losses of £53 million in the year to 29th February 2020 – before the first lockdown. Should the airport be sold before 25 […]
Dear Diary, I never thought I’d be writing to you, trying to wrap up the last 19 months in a bow. I wanted to write an article on mental health and students. Given how difficult it feels, writing it like this might be a nice change of pace. So here goes nothing. February 2020 I […]
Our weekly cartoon, Boriiis, actually started life as Bo and Do. As North East Bylines has now been going for one year, we thought that you might like to see Boriiis’s journey since we started. Here is Part 3 of our collection by Suzy Varty. You can see the earlier parts below. Part 1 Part […]
Dawn Butler, MP was removed from the chamber last week for saying that the Prime Minister: “lied to the House and the country over and over again”. It seems that you can be called out for exposing lies but not for telling them in the first place. Pigs live in sties, Yorkshire puds rise, wet […]
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 […]
Thousands of EU flags are expected to pop up outside public buildings around the UK very soon. This is because the Westminster government is keen to receive eligible post Covid funding from the European Union. The Independent reports that: “Guidance issued to local authorities by the communities ministry this summer says the blue and yellow […]
This week the government offered a 3% pay award for NHS England staff. I have friends not in the healthcare sector who have been enquiring if this was a good thing because the government has clearly backed down from earlier in the year when 1% was proposed. Let us look at this deal in more […]
ORCA is one of the UK’s leading whale and dolphin conservation charities dedicated to the long-term protection of whales, dolphins and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) and their habitats in UK and European waters. Founded in 2001, ORCA work to monitor vulnerable cetacean populations and help to protect threatened marine habitats. Working with governments, research […]
Cummings followed the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) with two easy, false arguments: the money spent on more politicians could be spent on doctors; and the Assembly would raise Council Tax. In hindsight it could be Brexit: The Prequel.
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 […]
The last time that we explored the education committee meeting led by Sir Kevan Collins, we explored the importance of parental involvement within education, the future of Ofsted and more about the education recovery package. This are a few of the highlights from the next twenty minutes. Further funding? Sir Kevan was asked if there […]
I tested positive on Tuesday 13 July following a PCR test the previous day. However, I feel like I have dodged a bullet as so far, my symptoms have been relatively mild. I did a lateral flow test on Sunday 11 July just prior to the big England v Italy match and that was negative but I […]
2021, and a number of media owners and MPs declare that 19 July will famously strike a blow “for freedom”. For face masks will not be mandated for anymore, people can “happily” return to work, squashed together in cattle class on “our great public transport system”, and social distancing rules “will end”. All of us […]
Our weekly cartoon, Boriiis, actually started life as Bo and Do. As North East Bylines has now been going for one year, we thought that you might like to see Boriiis’s journey since we started. Here is Part 3 of our collection by Suzy Varty. You can see the earlier parts below. Part 1 Part […]
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 […]
This morning it was announced that Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak would not be self-isolating. Instead they would take part in a pilot scheme to test daily. However, after a somewhat tumultuous morning there has been yet another U-Turn. They will self-isolate after all. This comes after the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid recently tested positive […]
I’m an international student at INTO Newcastle University. I study International Foundation in Business and Management course right from my home country Myanmar (Burma). During the pandemic period, schools, universities and colleges were forced to close by law. The transition in delivering education has made the students to study from their home and teachers to […]
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 […]
Nic tells me, in response to the Government’s relaxation of Covid -19 rules and so called ‘Freedom Day’: “It’s hard to realize that you’re thought so little of in your society. We are dispensable.” Nic has blood cancer. She wrote to her MP: “I am writing to express my extreme concern and dismay at the […]
In preparing for this article I promised myself that I would not mention Orwell. His brilliant and undervalued essay ‘The Sporting Spirit’ is the only analysis of the horrible collective psychology inculcated by international sporting events one need read. (But please do read on anyway.) And his ‘Notes on Nationalism’ are a handy and imperishable […]
As the UK wonders how safe it is to remove restrictions with ‘only’ 52 percent of the country vaccinated, spare a thought for countries where vaccinations are currently very limited and the Delta variant has arrived. For example, I wrote in March about Tanzania, which I called a ‘country of concern’. Since that article, a […]
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 […]
A vote in the House of Commons yesterday reaffirmed the government’s commitment to reducing the UK’s overseas aid budget. This, it maintains is necessary on account of the unprecedented conditions arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. Figures published today by the BBC show that, while overseas aid amounted to £14.5bn in 2019, it is projected to […]
Our weekly cartoon, Boriiis, actually started life as Bo and Do. As North East Bylines has now been going for one year, we thought that you might like to see Boriiis’s journey since we started. Here is Part 2 of our collection by Suzy Varty. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
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 […]