In a democracy every citizen should have the right not only to vote, but also to have someone in parliament who speaks for them, which simply does not happen in First Past the Post races. For Sussex, and the rest of the country, a fair proportional representative voting system seems overdue.
The arts sector more than pays its way – and deserves the extra support it has received during the pandemic, whichever way you look at it.
Can one of the most ancient and last remaining bridleways in Mid Sussex be saved from being turned into a cycleway? Ginny Smith uncovers a controversy involving Mid Sussex District Council, furious residents, environmentalists, developers, landed estates, the vice-sheriff of West Sussex and a seemingly endless maze of complications.
Theatre maker Tamsin Shasha is passionate about the power of story-telling through live performance. Here she talks about two theatrical adventures during lockdown, in Brighton and in Berlin.
Hastings takes to the beaches with banners to defy the ‘migrant invasion’ narrative embraced by its MP and offer a warm welcome to refugees.
East Sussex MPs join ranks of Tories prepared to defy the party line
Brighton & Hove City Council has a problem. It represents a population where 12.4% are not white, yet there is only one councillor of colour and the employees of the council are only 7% non-white.
Lewes, the county town of East Sussex, does not fit the stereotype of communities where food poverty is on the rise – but beneath the surface there is very real deprivation. On Halloween dozens of volunteers turned out, collecting thousands of food items for people in need.
Our pre-Covid existence was not normal. We normalised greed, inequity and depletion. We should not long to return.
The government’s wanton destruction is bent on dividing us. We will resist. We choose unity.
The basic aim of this Code was to produce a dwelling built in an eco-friendly way from sustainable materials that generated a low carbon footprint
Lewes MP Maria Caulfield tries to wriggle out of media storm over free meals for hungry kids
The future of British food and farming is at stake
The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of Windsor is the oldest international agreement, anywhere, that is still in force. While there have been wars between England and France and England and Spain, there have been none between this country and Portugal. Friendly relations have endured for centuries. Even bottles of port all seem to have English names (Graham’s, […]
The fishermen of Hastings once dreamt of a return to a Britain that charted its own course, freed from having to share its coastal waters and fishing opportunities with French, Spanish and Dutch rivals. It was a powerful message behind Brexit – symbolising ‘our island nation’, which once ruled the waves and now had to […]
When Make Votes Matter Lewes began forming in early 2020, we knew we’d need to work hard to build connections in a time of painful political division – but not that we’d have to do so while social distancing. Yet the Covid-19 restrictions forced us to find new ways to connect – across parties, our […]
Since the local elections of May 2019, councillors of all parties and the residents they represent have been thrown from crisis to crisis. The word ‘unprecedented’ has never been used so many times. The following events have coincided with my time as a local councillor: Brexit, a snap general election, the Covid-19 pandemic, the Black […]
The dark days for British democracy are coming in battalions at the moment, but Tuesday’s House of Commons vote on the Internal Market bill still stands out. MPs approved the bill by 340 votes to 256, despite fears that it could lead to the UK breaking international law. The bill is controversial because it contradicts […]
In the face of Brighton’s housing crisis, imaginative solutions are required – and two local groups have found one. The Brighton and Hove Community Land Trust (BHCLT) has launched a share offer to purchase its first property which it will lease to SEASALT, a student housing co-operative. The share offer, which closes on 31 October, is designed […]
As many children in the UK come to the end of their first few weeks of schooling after the first Covid-19 lockdown, we are reminded of a very different time a year ago. Children and young people in Sussex, and across the world, were marching out of school and making their voices heard for action […]
During lockdown, I narrowly missed being run down by a speeding van on an otherwise empty road, its driver giving me two fingers as I tried to slow him down. My angry reaction was: us older people are dispensable now. The feeling has been growing – fed by the enveloping Covid crisis. And I’m not […]
When the government announced the furlough scheme for workers hit by the coronavirus lockdown, they initially forgot about the estimated five million self-employed people in the UK. After campaigning from several MPs and lobbying groups, they did announce a scheme for the self-employed, the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), on 26 March. This caused temporary […]
This government’s ridiculous attempt to criminalise a movement that sees the planet as sacred’
it is extremely concerning that an elected MP has such an inadequate grasp of the issues
After several months of Covid-19 confinement, the prospect of an ocean passage from the Canaries to Plymouth might seem like a rather extreme choice of escape. And to be honest, back on 3 August 2020, as I set off to meet up with two fellow sailors at Gatwick, it felt that way to me as […]
Plumpton College joined a national call to Save British Farming yesterday amid claims that the double-whammy of the government’s agriculture bill and a no-deal Brexit could drive one in three farms out of business by 2025. Local campaigners warned that smaller farms would be worst hit. Thanking Plumpton College for its support, Save British Farming […]
Syrians fleeing their war-torn country have had a mixed reception in Britain – depicted as besieging our borders in Nigel Farage’s infamous ‘Breaking Point’ poster. Elsewhere they have been welcomed, and in some unexpected quarters. Such as the leafy Sussex villages of East Hoathly and Halland. The villages (pop 1,600) may seem an unlikely link […]
This has been a miserable month for anyone on the move in Europe, but especially for asylum-seeking refugees trying to cross the Channel from France to England. Both the UK and French Governments are seeking to wash their hands of responsibility for this humanitarian crisis, which has seen a young man drown and wash up […]
Thousands of renters will have breathed a sigh of relief as the government further extended the deadline that protects them from summary eviction. As well as the new deadline of 20 September, there is a six-month ban on most evictions taking place until the end of March 2021. So those who would have risked losing […]
