
Ferryhill town councillor resigns after wife barred from flower show
Last year, the couple came first in the contest for their front garden and second for their back.Mr Hewitt said: "I don't have a lot to do with the garden at all, it is all my wife's doing."She grows plants from seed and brings them on in the greenhouse - it is her baby."
The 65-year-old said he applied to join the town council to "do something for the community". He is already chairman of the residents' association. "There weren't enough applicants to hold an election, I was just appointed," he said."There are 17 councillor places for Ferryhill Town Council and at the moment there are only seven councillors."Mr Hewitt had only been in the post for a month and attended one meeting before he was told his wife, 77, would not be able to compete. He stood down on 26 June."When I found out that this year she wouldn't get to put herself forward after all her hard work I thought I am not really losing anything by giving it up without even getting my feet under the table."Mr Hewitt said he fully understood the situation and said if a "councillor or a councillor's wife won the competition then people could look at that and start wondering what is going on".The results of Ferryhill in Bloom 2025 will be announced in September.
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16 minutes ago
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‘I have never been an activist': Meet the pensioners risking prison to support Palestine Action
In an interrogation room just after 1am, 68-year-old grandmother-of-seven Marji Mansfield was sat across from counter terrorism officers after being arrested at a pro-Palestine protest in central London. She had suffered days of poor sleep in anticipation of this eventuality. Now, an 'aggressive' man was asking her repeatedly if she sympathised with a terrorist organisation, leading her through an extensive list of questions about her politics and who she knew in Gaza. A few hours earlier, on the afternoon of 5 July, half a dozen officers had handcuffed the pensioner and hauled her off the ground and into a police van, alongside her 73-year-old husband. The couple who once described themselves as small 'c' Conservatives had travelled to the capital up from near Chichester for the protest, declining to tell their children what they were about to do. It was only a day later that their son realised what had happened after he saw her in the news, suspended and flanked by the large group of officers. She had been following the conflict in the Middle East since the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2014, but only became an active protester after former home secretary Suella Braverman branded peaceful protesters as 'hate marchers' in November 2023. 'I have never been political or an activist. I was just an ordinary, middle-England person,' she says. 'But then I became outraged.' She said she was 'shocked' by the events of 7 October, when Hamas militants broke into Israel and killed around 1,200 people, taking 251 more hostage. 'But the actions that subsequently followed, where entire families are being wiped out, I had to join those urging for a ceasefire now,' she adds. More than 60,000 Palestinians are believed to have been killed since Israel launched its retaliatory aerial and ground offensive in Gaza. Humanitarian organisations have warned that, with not nearly enough aid entering the enclave, the 2.3 million residents of Gaza are now being effectively starved. Sir Keir Starmer this week warned that Britain would recognise the Palestinian state if Israel did not end its 'appalling' war in Gaza. He urged Israel to work towards a ceasefire and a two-state solution. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir of 'rewarding Hamas's monstrous terrorism'. Ms Mansfield dismissed Sir Keir's move as 'performative rather than substantial'. Fighting her own battle for Gaza, the pensioner was arrested under Section 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 for holding up a placard that said: 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action'. The charges carry a possible maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. The protest group Palestine Action had just been proscribed as a terrorist organisation, after they claimed responsibility for activists spraying red paint on fighter jets at RAF Brize Norton, making it illegal to support them. It put the group in the same legal ranks as Isis, Al-Qaeda and Hamas, leading critics to accuse the government of heavy-handedness. Ms Mansfield had known it was a possibility she would get arrested, but had no idea how the police would actually react when she and dozens of others held up placards in support of Palestine Action outside the Houses of Parliament. It was the first of what would be weekly protests, all of which resulted in arrests. As the police interview with an exhausted Ms Mansfield drew to a close around 2am, after more than 60 questions had been asked, the counter terrorism officer made one final remark. 'Look, even if you get hundreds of people, thousands of people, we're 30,000 strong,' Ms Mansfield recounts him saying. 'We'll put all our resources, and not just police forces, into arresting and interrogating you.' Then he let the 'traumatised' pensioner go free, hundreds of miles from home. She was not charged with a crime. A total of 385 MPs voted in favour of the unprecedented move to criminalise Palestine Action. Only 26 dissented. Announcing the vote, home secretary Yvette Cooper said that while the right to protest and to free speech form 'the cornerstone of our democracy', Palestine Action was guilty of 'violence and serious criminal damage' that does not constitute 'legitimate protest'. As a result, Palestine Action was proscribed alongside a white supremacist, neo-Nazi organisation called Maniacs Murder Cult and a pro-Kremlin ethno-nationalist organisation which seeks to create a new Russian Imperial State. Critics and human rights activists quickly accused the government of infringing upon people's right to protest after the proscription. In a letter to Ms Cooper, the Network for Police Monitoring said: 'Misusing terrorism legislation in this way against a protest group sets a dangerous precedent, threatens our democratic freedoms, and would be a terrifying blow to our civil liberties.' Several United Nations human rights experts, meanwhile, said criminal damage that does not endanger life was not 'sufficiently serious to qualify as terrorism'. On Wednesday, a judge ruled that Palestine Action would be allowed to challenge the Home Office in court over its proscription, but it could be months until a result. The outrage over the move has increased as more protesters are arrested. Private Eye editor Ian Hislop branded the arrest in Leeds on 19 July of 67-year-old Jon Farley, for holding up a printout of the magazine's front page that questioned the proscription, as 'mind-boggling'. Mr Farley has not been charged. The case was cited by Mr Justice Chamberlain on Wednesday as a reason to allow Palestine Action to fight the proscription. He said it was evidence of the 'chilling effect' the proscription was having 'on those wishing to express legitimate political views'. In total, more than 200 people have been detained since the ban. Not a single person in England and Wales has been charged. The large majority are over 60, according to Tim Crosland, a former government lawyer who now campaigns for Defend Our Juries, an organisation supporting many of the detainees. He says some of the protesters are 'well into their 80s'. The police are aware of these optics. Ms Mansfield claims her male counter terrorism interrogator even asked her at one stage: 'Was this a conspiracy to make the police look bad?' The reality, she says, is simpler: the seriousness of terrorism charges is a significant disincentive to younger protesters at the start of their careers; for pensioners determined to take a stance, it is the perfect opportunity to step up. Robert Lee, 61, another protester arrested on 5 July but not charged, who later went to support demonstrators in Bristol, says he remembers one 83-year-old woman gleefully telling him that police were too afraid to arrest her 'because they are terrified I might die in custody'. But the crowds of pensioner protesters are nonetheless peppered with younger demonstrators, a reality they say nods to the broad spectrum of opposition to the proscription of Palestine Action. For Zara Ali, 18, among the youngest people to have been arrested, her involvement felt especially high stakes. She was already on bail for conspiracy to cause public nuisance after blocking a road in March. She has not been charged. 'I was told to prepare myself for prison,' she says, admitting that she was very 'anxious' when she arrived in Parliament Square for her 19 July protest. 'But at the end of the day, I had it in my mind that this is not about me but about Palestine, and about every single political prisoner who is being held.' The Independent spoke to half a dozen protesters for this piece, all of whom mentioned their 'disgust' with Israel's war on Gaza as the primary motivation for their involvement. Claims that the proscription pointed to a 'dystopian' future in Britain were also commonly cited as key motivation.


The Independent
16 minutes ago
- The Independent
Top cabinet ministers at risk of losing seats even after Starmer recognises Palestinian state, pollsters warn
Sir Keir Starmer 's historic decision to recognise Palestinian statehood later this year will not be enough to stop some of his top cabinet ministers from facing major battles to hang on to their seats, leading pollsters have warned. Health secretary Wes Streeting and justice secretary Shabana Mahmood are among those who could be ousted from parliament at the next general election, the UK's top pollster Sir John Curtice warned, in the face of major challenges from pro-Gaza candidates. Sir Keir lost a key member of his top team, Jonathan Ashworth, to a pro-Palestine independent candidate at the last election. Mr Streeting was among those who held his seat, but saw his majority in his Ilford constituency slashed from 5,198 in 2019 to just 528. But pollsters now warn anger over the issue of Palestine, which Jeremy Corbyn's newly announced political party will attempt to capitalise on, could see Mr Streeting and other high-profile casualties from the cabinet. Labour pledged to recognise a Palestinian state in its manifesto before the last general election, and Sir Keir this week bowed to growing pressure from his own MPs – and some high-profile members of the cabinet – to lay out a plan to recognise the state of Palestine. Asked if the move on Palestinian statehood could help save Mr Streeting and Ms Mahmood next time around, Sir John told the Independent that it 'may not be sufficient given the current condition of the Labour Party'. Luke Tryl, from pollsters More in Common, was more blunt. 'No,' he said. Sir John added that it was clear that Starmer had also 'lost out' on votes in his own constituency last year because of the issue, although the PM's majority is significantly larger than some of his cabinet colleagues. After promising to tackle Labour's antisemitism crisis when he came to power, Sir John summed up the PM's problem: 'Here is somebody who spent a great deal of time and effort trying to reconnect with the Jewish community, and now he's finding himself having to spend a great deal of effort trying to reconnect with the Muslim community. It is very difficult to keep himself on board with both groups at the moment.' Mr Tryl said the war in Gaza had uncovered 'deeper' problems for Labour. 'When we have done focus groups with voters in Muslim areas, particularly some of those who backed or were thinking about backing pro-Gaza independent candidates, I compared it to speaking to voters in the red wall after Brexit,' he said. 'In the sense that Brexit was the thing which caused the split, but it actually brought to the fore much deeper resentments - that they have been taken from granted, ignored, left behind by Labour … I think we're going to see exactly the same thing with Muslim voters.' Mr Corbyn confirmed his party would campaign heavily on Palestine when he launched it last week. Sir John said that the polling suggested that the new party would take the most votes from the Greens, followed by Labour. But he added, when it came to a new party run by their ex-leader: 'Given that Labour, even without Corbyn being put onto the hypothetical ballot, are behind Reform, they don't really want this.' Sir John said the Palestine announcement could be seen, in one way, as an example of Labour's problem connecting with the wider electorate. Asked what the party could do to win back voters across the board, he said: 'Explain to people what you are about. It's the point that everybody's making now. This is a government that has no known direction. And of course, some people are painting (the Palestine move) as yet another example of policy change. 'In terms of substance, (Labour should) turn around the economy and make sure that the health service doesn't have long waiting lists. It's not complicated, just very, very difficult to do.'