Alison Hewitt

Hampshire UK | All views my own.

[Governor Newsom Press Office @GovPressOffice]

The Trump administration is DISMANTLING the network of buoys that help California monitor for major tsunamis and earthquakes.

Cool.

[Mary Colwell @curlewcalls]

Please vote for the Curlew to be on a bank note! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 That would be so good! https://t.co/20V53W3tHG

[Duille @DuilleDesign]

Mackintosh fans: A date for your diary.

Wed 10th June - 7pm (BST).

An in-person and online event from The Hunterian ( holder of the world's largest Mackintosh collection).

"Mackintosh and the West End" - talk and film screening.

Details and tickets: https://t.co/NCYmVYnWI1

[G R I F T Y @GriftReport]

Travellers have brazenly started turning a protected 4-acre wildlife haven into a caravan site in Willows Green near Felsted, Essex,

an army of around 30 vehicles and diggers descended under cover of darkness on Friday night using floodlights and generators,

they ripped up vegetation, bulldozed protected habitats for great-crested newts, destroyed an ancient hedgerow and filled in a ditch with rubble to create a new access road,

all of this happened just hours after Uttlesford District Council closed its doors for the entire three-day Bank Holiday weekend,

locals woke up to the shocking devastation and say the council had been warned but took no pre-emptive action,

by the time offices reopen on Tuesday the field could already be a fully fledged caravan park,

residents are furious at the total failure to protect the pristine countryside and rare wildlife including albino fallow deer,

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

BBC PAID HIM 6X MORE. THE TRIBUNAL SAID THAT WAS ILLEGAL. THE BBC SAID IT WAS COMPLICATED.

Samira Ahmed @SamiraAhmedUK presented Newswatch on @BBC for years. Same format. Same length. Same job. Read viewer feedback on camera, wrap it up, go home.

Jeremy Vine @theJeremyVine did exactly the same thing on Points of View.

She got £440 per episode. He got £3,000.

Ahmed spent years trying to fix it quietly through internal BBC processes. The BBC said there was no problem.

She filed for tribunal. In January 2020, the tribunal ruled unanimously in her favour. The BBC could not explain the difference. They tried. They argued Vine needed "a glint in the eye" and to be "cheeky."

The tribunal said that was not a skill. It was a story the BBC told itself.

The total underpayment was close to £700,000. Sarah Montague, another BBC woman, settled separately for around £400,000.

The National Union of Journalists flagged around 70 more cases waiting resolution internally. After Ahmed won, 700 BBC women received pay rises.

The BBC's statement after losing? They regretted it had gone to tribunal.

Not that they paid a woman six times less than a man for the same work for years. Just that it became public.

Sources: @guardian, @BBC, @IFJGlobal, Others

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

Terrifying revelation on Fox News. A prominent anchor confirms that several of the missing US nuclear scientists explicitly warned their families that if anything happened to them, it was not suicide. The Washington establishment is actively covering up targeted assassinations.

[Artur Nadolny @ArturNadol7566]

BBC BROKE EQUALITY LAW AND GOT CAUGHT

Carrie Gracie spent 30 years at the @BBC. She spoke fluent Mandarin. She ran the Beijing bureau. She was one of four international editors, two men and two women.

Then in 2017 the BBC was forced to publish salary data. Gracie looked at what her male equivalent, the North America editor, was earning. He was on nearly double her salary. She had explicitly said equal pay was a condition of taking the China role. The BBC agreed. Then quietly paid her far less anyway.

She asked for equal pay. The BBC offered her a raise that still left her below the men. She turned it down. She resigned from the China post in January 2018 and published an open letter telling the licence fee public exactly what their broadcaster was doing.

The BBC then put her through nearly a year of an internal grievance process that went nowhere. It took three meetings with the Director-General and the threat of an employment tribunal before she got a public apology and the backdated pay owed to her. The total came to £361,000.

She donated every penny to the Fawcett Society (@fawcettsociety), the gender equality charity. She said the fight was about principle, not the payout.

A publicly funded institution, legally obligated to follow equality law, paid women less than men in identical roles, got caught, dragged it out for a year, and only coughed up under threat of a tribunal. That is not a pay oversight. That is a policy.

Gracie did not ask for a favour. She asked for what she was owed. The BBC made her fight for it like it was a privilege.

Sources: @BBCNews, @guardian, @thetimes, @Independent.

[Denby Pottery @denbypottery]

We need your help to #SaveDenby!
We are sad to share that we may be forced to close and a British institution could be lost.

We need your help:
1. Share this post
2. Sign the government petition
3. Buy Denby
4. Visit us at the Pottery Village

Read more: https://t.co/g17lHz2ETx

[Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office @FCDOGovUK]

British nationals should register their presence with the FCDO at the links here ⬇️

Bahrain: https://t.co/gfBNS0Jooc

Israel: https://t.co/ePmoLluv3v

Palestine: https://t.co/oF7DVBxTOg

Qatar: https://t.co/ziRw1YeL4P

UAE: https://t.co/JkBC49nft8

[Alison Hewitt @Alison_H61]

@DrHelenFry Yes...my dad was in the Merchant Navy in the Arctic Convoys and father in law taken pow in Arnhem.

[CommunityPlanningAlliance 🦇🦎 @CommunityPlann1]

Worried about loss of nature, parks & countryside in your local area?
Join thousands of people & show councillors, MPs & the government how much we care. 💚🫂🦋🦇🍃
DAY of ACTION 18 April 2026
https://t.co/PiTLAx1Jrb

[Dr Jill Belch @JillBelch]

Anyone else have this feeling of frustration that we get report after report like this, but little action.
Where do people think we will end up?
Dont they care?
Report blames #pollution & unsustainable land use & says climate change is intensifying pressures on the environment.

[Dr Jill Belch @JillBelch]

“It is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food.”
In a report compiled by the joint intelligence committee (on which the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ sit).
#Climate

[Joanna Bradley @stormwater_jo]

I took a sample of motorway runoff into the River Wye recently. The pollution level for Benzo(g,h,i)perylene exceeded the legal Standard by 675 times. How can our rivers ever recover when this toxic pollution occurs every time it rains? This chemical is extremely toxic.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Tony Benn’s 5 key questions:

“What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interests do you exercise it?
To whom are you accountable?
How do we get rid of you?

And if you can’t get rid of the people who govern you, you don’t live in a democratic system.”

[Susie Taylor 🍃💚🍃 @SusieTa32510601]

The truth is coming out @Keir_Starmer on suppressing the report on #ecosystem and #biodiversity collapse that we depend on for #food, #water, health, climate resilience, economic stability and national security…all to protect the misguided belief that building big over our countryside will aid economic growth.

[Hysteroscopy Action @HysteroscopyA]

No words!!! This is 2025, not 1825!!!
@DCHFT where was the patient care, compassion, pain relief, informed consent, adherence to @RCObsGyn guidance, aftercare?
What happened to #FirstDoNoHarm?
#wedeservebetter
#hysteroscopy #gynae #genderpaingap

[Lucy Easthope @LucyGoBag]

This hit

[Danica Priest🦇🦎🦇🦎🍃💚🍃 @DanicaPriest]

@EmmaforWycombe You are literally going to weaken environmental protections, weaken habitats regulations and refuse the advice for endangered species protection. You refuse your meet with ecologists but meet with property developers instead. This is the worst government in history for nature.

[Sea Eagle England @SeaEagleEngland]

We are devastated to share the news that three white-tailed eagles have disappeared in suspicious circumstances.

We are asking anyone who may have information to help the police investigation to please come forward.

https://t.co/loHIgpFsny

@RoyDennisWF @ForestryEngland