Historically, in Devon, there have always been tensions between the walled city of  Exeter and the County beyond, though you may have to be a 300 year old Owl to know it.

Are we seeing an action replay in this election where Exeter labour activists seem to be under the illusion that they can “take over” the new constituency of Exmouth and Exeter East? Despite only a small fraction of Exeter’s suburbs being added to the Exmouth side of the old constituency.  

Labour’s candidate in 2019 was Dan Wilson, an EDDC councillor for Exmouth Halsdon. This time he stands as an Independent.

Dan quit the party in March, citing amongst his reasons: Labour’s reneging on the Green New Deal and turning a blind eye to whistleblowing on candidate behaviour. Dan says “When I was in the Labour Party, that’s the kind of thing I expected of the Conservatives, and I felt [the Labour party] should hold itself up to higher standards.”

As has been reported and commented on by Owl, Labour have drawn false conclusions on their strength from polls attempting seat by seat predictions on small samples. Their illusion is beginning to dawn, though Owl can find no evidence of their campaigning cutting through in the constituency heartland in Exmouth.

Nationally, both Labour and the Conservatives are losing votes with Reform and the Lid Dems gaining.

The tectonic plates continue to move.

Martin Shaw @martinshawx

Disappointing (but predictable?) that EEE Labour has switched off replies to this. Not only has Electoral Calculus projected the Lib Dems to beat the Tories, but now the FT – whose outdated figures Labour uses on its leaflets – has the LDs moving ahead to become the challenger.

Huge sums of taxpayers’ money literally has gone up in flames. – Owl

An estimated £1.4bn-worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) bought by the government in single a deal has been destroyed or written off, according to new figures described as the worst example of waste in the Covid pandemic.

Matthew Weaver www.theguardian.com 

The figures obtained by the BBC under freedom of information laws showed that 1.57bn items from the NHS supplier Full Support Healthcare will never been used.

They were part of a £1.78bn deal the firm struck with the government to supply masks, aprons, eye protectors and respirators in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic. It was the government’s largest PPE order during the pandemic accounting for 13% of the government’s spend.

Out of total of 2.02bn items provided by Full Support Healthcare in the deal, only 232m were sent to the NHS or other care settings, the figures show. About 749m items have already been destroyed and a further 825m of excess stock is being considered for disposal or recycling, the disclosure revealed.

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, described the deal as a “staggering waste”.

He said: “We know that billions of pounds were wasted during the pandemic on corruption and incompetence by the Conservatives, but this is the worst example I have ever seen.

“£1.4bn on one contract, paying for PPE that was never used, and Rishi Sunak’s fingerprints are all over it. That is money that could have been used to pay the salaries of 37,000 NHS nurses.”

Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said it was “colossal misuse of public funds”.

She added: “This is just the latest in a series of damning revelations on the Conservatives’ record of mishandling Covid contracts.

“Instead of this troubling pattern of waste, shortcuts and lack of oversight, the public deserve transparency on the true cost of these failures.”

The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, said the £1.4bn figure was “not accepted” but her department has not provided an alternative estimate.

She defended the government’s procurement of PPE during the pandemic as “the right thing to do”. Challenged on the disclosure during a press conference on Tuesday, she said: “The whole country wanted us to get the PPE that our frontline staff needed both in healthcare and in social care, and we managed to procure billions of pieces of PPE equipment.”

In January, the Department of Health and Social revealed that of the £13.6bn spent on PPE during the pandemic, items worth £9.9bn had been written off as defective or unusable.

There is no suggestion that Full Support Healthcare, or its co-directors, Sarah and Richard Stoute, have done anything wrong.

The couple’s lawyers told the BBC: “Full Support Healthcare stock arrived quickly by summer 2020, much earlier than most and in larger quantities. It had either a two- or three-year shelf life. This means the PPE products are more likely to have passed their use-by date.”

The couple’s business is based offshore in Jersey, “solely to maintain privacy”, the lawyers told the BBC.

The couple and their company remain registered in the UK for tax.

A Conservative cabinet minister claimed that he won more than £2,000 betting on a July general election.

Joe Pike www.bbc.co.uk

Shortly after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the election date, Scottish Secretary Alister Jack told the BBC he had made £2,100 after betting on June and July election dates. He claimed one of the bets was placed at odds of 25/1.

Last week, Mr Jack told the BBC the comments were “a joke… I was pulling your leg”.

Today, the Scottish Secretary said in a statement he “did not place any bets on the date of the general election during May”.

Rishi Sunak made his surprise election announcement on 22 May.

“I am very clear that I have never, on any occasion, broken any Gambling Commission rules”, said Mr Jack.

“I did not place any bets on the date of the general election during May – the period under investigation by the Gambling Commission.

“Furthermore, I am not aware of any family or friends placing bets. I have nothing more to say on this matter.”

A spokesperson for the Gambling Commission said: “We are not confirming or denying the identity of any individuals involved in this investigation.”

Alister Jack had been telling colleagues and journalists for at least a year that he thought a June or July election made the most strategic sense for his party.

He has represented Scotland in the UK cabinet since 2019, under the premierships of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

His controversial decision in 2021 to block the Scottish government’s gender self-ID reforms was seen as a significant moment in the demise of Nicola Sturgeon’s period as Scotland’s First Minister.

In February 2024, he expressed “regret” after deleting all of his WhatsApp messages from during the pandemic.

He said he erased his files to free up storage capacity on his phone in November 2021.

Owl’s view is that tactical voters need to to stop following illusions and swing behind the other candidate with Claire Wright’s endorsement, Paul Arnott in Exeter & Exeter East as well

seatonmatters.org 

At tonight’s Axminster hustings (pictured above), Green Party candidate Henry Gent said, ‘Vote for the candidate best placed to defeat the Conservative’ – that is, for Richard Foord. Jake Bonetta. the Labour candidate, has previously said, ‘We cannot let the Tories win here’, but he did not make a clear statement like Henry Gent’s tonight. Yet that is what is needed – Richard is not sure of beating the Tory, who some projections still back to win. Every vote counts – as Henry indicated, there will be another day when it makes sense to vote Green or Labour, but not now.

A “Deaf old Buffer” writes:

Dear Owl,

My hearing aids stopped working four weeks ago, just before the Spring Bank Holiday. Chime at RD&E audiology repaired them that week and returned them by post on 30 May.

In Budleigh Salterton our household received no post, other than tracked post from the Bank Holiday until a huge bundle was delivered on 20 June, three weeks later. (Social media reported delivery desserts in Sidmouth over the same period).

Unfortunately, this did not include the hearing aids but, excitingly, did contain a letter from RD&E informing my wife of her RD&E appointment for the Monday June 3 – eighteen days previously.

Yesterday afternoon, the hearing aids suddenly turned up but after a lunch time delivery.

I have suffered over three weeks of unnecessary silence and am left utterly speechless at this failure of an essential service on which so many of us depend, especially as we get older.

Deaf Old Buffer

PS. What impact could this have on the postal vote?

[Owl adds that since 2011, Royal Mail’s universal service obligations have included offering to deliver letters Monday-Saturday and parcels Monday-Friday as well as offering two delivery speeds for its main universal service products: First Class (next day) and Second Class (within three days).]