Cllr Paul Thorogood

So happy Hannah Spencer won. It’s a huge relief for the country that hate and division were rejected on such a large scale. Hope not hate 💚

Hope triumphed over hate and division 💚

Go Hannah! Hope not hate 💚✅

Basically you’re saying the far right will use racism and prejudice to get in to power, and then use that power to cut taxes for the rich and services/benefits for middle and lower income households

The great plastic recycling delusion exposed…

In Slow Horses, "Moscow Rules" means "watch your back" (surviving hostile, external threats), while "London Rules" means "cover your arse" (surviving internal MI5 bureaucracy and political betrayal). London Rules signify a toxic blame culture where officials protect themselves over the mission

The US has two hospital ships. Both are in dry dock undergoing long-term maintenance and aren’t available to be sent to Greenland. Trump’s post appears to be a childish reaction to Denmark evacuating a submariner who needed urgent medical help from a US submarine to medical facilities in Greenland.

I don’t think the UK is “broken”. I think a better analogy is we’re walking around in a crouched position with one hand tied behind our backs. Rejoining the EU would untie the hand and help UK stand up straight

Answers: Ignorance; yes; ready meals ultra processed - buy fresh veg and prepare meals from scratch. Healthier and cheaper too

Hope not hate vote Hannah!

History will be kind to Brown

It does feel like we’re entering Skynet territory now

If we are serious about fixing SEND, we must invest in local, publicly accountable provision, rebuild in-house specialist capacity, reform the funding formula so councils aren’t structurally set up to fail, and children’s needs ahead of private profit

Local authorities are left carrying the financial risk while profits are extracted from the system. That is neither fiscally responsible nor morally correct. Vulnerable children are not “cash cows”. They need stability, expertise and long-term commitment.

The high needs deficit isn’t caused by families asking for support. It’s caused by years of underinvestment and outsourcing essential provision to companies whose duty is to shareholders, not children.

Essex – and councils across the country – are being pushed to the brink because SEND has been marketised instead of properly funded. When private equity sees vulnerable children as revenue streams rather than young people with rights, something has gone badly wrong.

Norfolk is nice and quiet. You’d be very unlucky to have your birthday plans disrupted at the last minute

We should: Equalise repayment terms wherever graduates live - link repayments strictly to income, not geography. Restore maintenance grants so students from poor backgrounds aren’t forced into maximum debt. Phase out tuition fees over time and fund universities properly through progressive taxation.

We shouldn’t be punishing young people for working. We should be fixing a broken system. Most European countries like Germany, France, and Denmark either don’t charge tuition fees or charge very little. They treat higher education as public infrastructure, not a lifetime debt sentence.

The solution is stop building in high-risk floodplains, build more on genuinely safer land (even if that means at higher density), design developments to work with water not against it, enforce proper drainage standards, and be honest about where flood defences are genuinely sustainable long term

A nationalised Royal Mail could be used as part of a broader “job guarantee” scheme where government offers employment at a basic wage to anyone who wants to work. Royal Mail would then become a public service again with the social objective of job creation

In Orwell's 1984, the world is divided into three warring superpowers: Oceania (Americas), Eurasia (Europe and Russia), and Eastasia (China and surrounding regions), existing in a state of constant, shifting warfare that serves to maintain the ruling parties' absolute power.

I am the Green Party county councillor for the Braintree Eastern division at Essex County Council and one of the two district councillors for the Kelvedon and Feering ward at Braintree District Council. The Rivenhall waste incinerator is located in my electoral county division and district ward

Instead sustainable waste management alternatives such as waste reduction, reuse, and recycling must replace landfill and large-scale incineration. Incineration harms public health and the environment, exacerbates climate change, and undermines the circular economy.

Both the government and local authorities see landfill as bad and waste incineration, or “airfill” as there are serious environmental consequences to burning waste, as good. The fact is both landfill and airfill are equally bad

For the past 10 years recycling rates have failed to increase, remaining stuck at about 41% in England - supplying waste incinerators with waste, commonly called “feeding the beast”, discourages increasing recycling as incineration is seen as the cheap and easy solution

The Local Government Association (LGA) - representing local authorities in England and Wales - expressed concerns to the BBC that these contracts have left councils unable to explore the use of more environmental solutions, such as recycling, for fear of a fine for breach of contract

This will lock-in all the new unitary authorities in Essex in to sending their waste to the Rivenhall Airfield for their first political term and beyond regardless of their political makeup or views and whether there are cheaper and greener options elsewhere

Even if local authorities wanted to move away from the use of energy-from-waste plants they are often unable to due to restrictive, long-term contracts. Tory-run Essex County Council, which is set to be dissolved in 2028, has just signed a 7-year contract with the Rivenhall Airfield incinerator

Prof Keith Bell, who sits on the UK Climate Change Committee, said after reviewing the BBC's findings: “If the current government is serious about clean power by 2030 then... we cannot allow ourselves to be locked into just burning waste.”