West England Bylines stands in Solidarity with Ukraine.
Donate to DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal here
Sunflowers and Ukraine.
Over the recent months Tewkesbury for Europe and Cheltenham for Europe have combined on a series of street stalls to hand out Ukraine coloured ribbons and free packets of sunflower seeds to encourage people to show their support for Ukraine and the DEC humanitarian appeal. While growing sunflowers doesn’t help directly it is one way of people showing their support and keeping the conversation on the war going. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of the UK and the rest of Europe grew sunflowers this summer and sent in photos to their members of parliament and the press.
Sunflowers have long been the symbol of Ukraine and their oil, assuming they are able to export it, are a vital part of their economy.
Welcome to your June Issue.
Ukraine is still with us. Martin Griffiths focuses on war crimes while Dr Helmut Hubel asks if nations get the leaders they deserve. We commemorated Europe Day with William Lewis’s stirring poem, but then Sue Wilson reminded us that UK-EU relations are deteriorating rapidly. Partygate and the toothless Sue Gray Report were marked by yours truly summarising what the German press thinks of Johnson’s scandals (our most popular article in May) and Claire Jones asking how our social attitudes towards Partygate make predicting Johnson’s future difficult. Paul Ryder continues to analyse how threatened our democracy is and its systemic failures. Part three to follow will offer some remedies. Claire Jones reported that electoral cooperation worked in the 5 May local elections in the West England region. On social inequality Barbara Morrison reminds us that food insecurity is major issue for an ever larger number of people.
Finally Julian Greenbank has produced an excellent video on Malcolm Atkins’ Westbury People’s Gallery in suburban Oxford – a must visit for all our readers.
Ukraine
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