Most Seaton voting for the General Election will be at the Marshlands Centre, Harbour Road, not the Town Hall
Because The Gateway was booked, Marshlands will be used. However I suspect that people living in the Beer Road Ward (part of the Beer district ward) may still be voting in the Mariners’ Hall, Beer. Look at your polling card which should be arriving shortly.
If you don’t get a card in the next couple of days, you may not be registered to vote at your current address.
REGISTER TO VOTE HERE (IT’S VERY SIMPLE ONLINE) – you must apply by the 26th
YOU CAN ALSO APPLY FOR A POSTAL VOTE FROM THE SAME PAGE, UP TO THAT DATE.
Johnson threatens a democratic emergency: why haven’t the opposition parties risen to the occasion?
I’ve frankly been depressed by the failure of the opposition parties to rise to the occasion. We face the threat of a majority Boris Johnson government which will force through a hard Brexit, do a trade deal with Donald Trump which will compromise our NHS, environmental and food standards, continue its chronic underfunding of health and schools, and make mainly token gestures towards the climate emergency.
All this is being massaged by the most deceitful election campaign ever, as the Tories pump out lying propaganda on an industrial scale. Johnson himself can’t open his mouth without lying, and is clearly wholly unfit to be Prime Minister. Victory for this PM would represent a democratic emergency.
Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens all recognise the dangers of Johnson’s new hard-right Conservatives. They are all offering policies which are vastly superior to those of the Tories. They cooperated (together with the independent-minded Tories who were thrown out of their party) to curb Johnson’s worst excesses in the last Parliament.
Yet they are now fighting election campaigns as though we had a perfect Proportional Representation system, when in fact we have First-Past-the-Post which gives the Tories an overwhelming advantage if the opposition is divided between Lab/Lib/Greens.
- Labour refuses to stand down anywhere, despite there being many seats where the LibDems, Independents or Greens can win. They got 6,000 in the East Devon constituency last time, compared to Independent Claire Wright’s 21,000 and the Tories’ 29,000. But will they back a candidate who can win and agrees with them on many issues, or do they want to push a hopeless case?
- The Lib Dems are standing down in Exeter – to support the Greens who cannot win, but not in East Devon (where they got an even more miserable 1500 votes in 2017) for Claire Wright who shares many of their policies.
- The Greens appear to be standing down in East Devon (well done!) but by pushing their challenge in Exeter with the help of the Lib Dems, threaten to help the Tories steal the seat from excellent Labour MP, Ben Bradshaw.
I’ve voted Labour, Liberal Democrats and Green at different elections over the last few years, when there hasn’t been a good Independent candidate. I’m supporting Claire’s campaign although I don’t live in her constituency.
In Tiverton & Honiton (which includes Seaton and Colyton), there are now candidates for Labour (Liz Pole), the Liberal Democrats (John Timperley) and the Green Party (Gillian Westcott). I will vote for one of them, but my enthusiasm is dimmed by their parties’ failure to treat this election as the democratic emergency which it is.
Seaton Environmental Action, SEA, set up at public meeting and is moving quickly to plant trees
A meeting of residents decided on Wednesday to set up Seaton Environmental Action (SEA) to address the climate and environmental crisis. SEA is an independent group working closely with the Town Council’s climate emergency working group, who called the initial meeting in October which led to this week’s step.
The meeting drew up agendas for the council (including issues to take to EDDC and DCC), for local businesses, and for the community, and three groups will discuss separately during the next meeting of SEA on Wednesday 27th November at 7pm in Pebbles Coffee House (all welcome).
A trees sub-group was set up and has already been offered 400 native saplings! If any landowners would like to offer land for planting, please contact me and I will put you in touch with the sub-group.
Free energy advice leading to help with energy saving, insulation etc. available to people in Seaton area with a wide range of health conditions, those on low income and anyone in receipt of any benefit, including child benefit
Contact Exeter Community Energy direct on the number below. 
Seaton climate follow-up meeting to organise local action, this coming Wednesday
Devon Carbon Plan process is launched – residents called on to give their ideas
A top team of environmental experts, charged with ensuring that Devon reduces carbon emissions as quickly as possible, is calling on residents to submit their ideas on how to do it.
The Net-Zero Task Force has been appointed by the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group – made up of Devon’s councils, emergency services and business groups – to deliver the Devon Carbon Plan.
The Carbon Plan will lay out in stark terms what every resident, organisation and business has to do to reduce emissions and safeguard the planet for the next generation.
This Call for Evidence is open to everybody, and every submission will be reviewed by the Task Force.
Submissions will feed into the creation of the Carbon Plan, which includes a series of thematic hearings in November and December.
Each hearing will focus on the different parts of our society that produce most of the emissions, like transport for instance.
Recent data compiled by Exeter University show that homes and buildings, road transport, and farming account for 83% of all emissions in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay.
The hearings will seek to understand what needs to happen to achieve rapid decarbonisation in Devon, and how it can be delivered.
The hearings will be divided into:
- food, land and sea (including agriculture, forestry, fisheries and land use)
- mobility and transport
- the built environment
- energy and waste
A draft of the Devon Carbon Plan will be created through a three-step process; firstly, Task Force members and expert witnesses, all recognised in their respective fields, will discuss and then review the evidence.
Then the Task Force will present a series of ‘options’ to a Citizen’s Assembly, which will be convened from January.
Finally, the deliberations of the Citizen’s Assembly will lead to the Draft Devon Carbon Plan, which is due for publication next spring, 2020.
Chairman of the Net-Zero Taskforce, The University of Exeter’s Professor Patrick Devine-Wright, said:
“The challenge facing us all is how we can live and prosper in a carbon-neutral economy.
“This is the goal of Devon’s Carbon Plan, to set out a clear roadmap of what we all have to do to ensure that Devon becomes net-zero and continue to thrive.
“We want everyone to be involved, including schools, members of the public, businesses and public sector organisations – we all have a say and part to play.”
Dr Phil Norrey, the Chairman of the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group, said:
“The public submissions and the thematic hearings are the first stage in a process that will lead to a comprehensive carbon plan for Devon.
“Everyone in Devon has a stake in this process and I would like to thank the members of the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group and the Net-Zero Taskforce for their contributions and hard work.”
You can read further information and submit information on this website.
As we move towards Dec. 18th decision on our fire stations’ future, tough criticism of London fire brigade by Grenfell inquiry raises questions about quality of fire service leadership
The report on the appalling Grenfell fire, while praising many firefighters and criticising the use of cladding which caused the fire to be so devastating, has included trenchant criticism of London’s fire chiefs, especially the Commissioner, Dany Cotton, who many survivors think should resign.
This report is a cruel reminder that fire service policies and leadership are of critical importance to public safety. As we await the publication of the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service’s response to the recent consultation and the delayed meeting of the Fire and Rescue Authority on December 18th which will make the crucial decisions, Authority members should reflect on the danger that in the pursuit of financial savings by selling off fire stations, chief officers (who have repeatedly avoided public scrutiny by councillors) are unacceptably increasing the risk of serious fires and other incidents affecting many parts of Devon and Somerset – particularly around Colyton and Topsham in East Devon.
Tactical voting site says vote Lib Dem in Tiverton & Honiton constituency and Claire Wright, Independent, in East Devon
The pro-EU tactical voting site getvoting.org says that voting Liberal Democrat in the Tiverton and Honiton constituency (which includes Seaton and Colyton) is the most likely way to get a pro-European MP and stop Brexit. In the 2017 election, Labour were second and the Lib Dems third, so the site’s recommendation may reflect the fact that Labour did worse than the Lib Dems in the 2019 local elections and the Lib Dems have general momentum in the polls. (Also Labour have not announced their candidate so we don’t know their stance on Brexit.)
The site recommends supporting Claire Wright is the tactical pro-EU vote in the East Devon constituency, where she was a close second in 2017 and where Independents easily outpolled the Lib Dems and Labour in the local elections.
No one who cares can vote for Boris Johnson – vote for change
When you make up your mind how to vote in this election, remember what Johnson’s own chief adviser Dominic Cummings famously said “People think, and by the way I think most people are right: ‘The Tory party is run by people who basically don’t care about people like me.’”
Johnson doesn’t believe in Brexit – he believes in himself. He doesn’t care enough about his withdrawal bill to even bother to get it through parliament, even after parliament had indicated it would support it. He didn’t care about wasting £8 billion, yes £8 billion, on an irresponsible threat to carry out ‘no deal’. He’s been caught lying so many times, people have stopped counting.
Johnson certainly doesn’t care about the NHS. He’s pretending to spend on hospitals – but it’s not 40 new hospitals, it’s 6 refurbished hospitals, and it will do nothing at all for the RD&E, where people are waiting a year for operations, or our community hospitals, still half empty after being stripped of the beds – while the RD&E has a ‘severe beds shortage’, I was told this month.
Johnson doesn’t care about schools, the police, or the environment, either. He doesn’t care about any of the things which matter to us. So we shouldn’t give him or his party the time of day. After 9 years the Tories have made a truly awful mess of this country.
Vote for change. Vote tactically for whichever candidate is likely to defeat the Johnson candidate. In Totnes, that is Sarah Wollaston, the Lib Dem. In Exeter, it’s Labour’s Ben Bradshaw. And in East Devon, it’s my Independent colleague Claire Wright (pictured) who is poised to take the seat after Hugo Swire’s welcome departure.
WHO TO VOTE FOR IN OUR CONSTITUENCY (Tiverton and Honiton)? Neil Parish, who will again be the Conservative candidate, has slavishly followed each new Tory leader’s twists and turns, including now Johnson’s. But there isn’t a clear tactical choice to beat him. Labour and the Greens haven’t even chosen candidates, so far as I can tell. The Lib Dems have, and he sounds good, but I haven’t yet met him. I’m waiting to know more, before deciding who to vote for.
