Cornwall

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The debate about Cornwall's constitutional status seems to have taken off over at Comment if Free, where Truro and St Austell MP Matthew Taylor responds to Peter Tatchell's call for self-rule:

Mebyon Kernow support in Cornwall isn't low because we have an unfair electoral system. The simple truth is that Cornwall is not full of people who want a separate parliament – nor, incidentally, did they want one in 1497. In both cases what is wanted is a genuine recognition that poor rural communities such as ours have not had their problems taken seriously, let alone addressed, in decades. We don't need a separate parliament, we simply need genuine local autonomy over the things that matter locally rather than nationally, and fair funding to go with it.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): Back in August 2007 Our Kingdom published the article -You can't write us out of history- which described the strength of feeling for the Cornish identity coupled with the stubborn refusal of government to give this minority group any form of recognition. This stretches from refusing devolution even when presented with proof of a popular demand to providing a long list of contradictory reasons why the Cornish should not be included in the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCPNM).

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): In light of the heated debate around multiculturalism and following recent racist incidents in our Cornish duchy the letter extract below from the Cornish branch of the Celtic League - An Kesunyans Keltek Kernow - concurs with a number of contributors to OK who like myself have called for intercultural dialogue between regional/national cultures and new minority groups. The Cornish, Scottish, Englishness, Welsh and perhaps English regional identities do not have to be exclusive, let there be a thousand Cornwall's and a thousand ways of being Cornish. In the same manner as Britishness they could be valued and used as the back bones to civic and inclusive societal projects, with the added bonus of course of having no imperial connotations and a lot more historical precedent than the UK, a Kingdom rather than nation.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): With the up and coming 'make or break' elections to the new Unitary Authority followed by town, parish and general elections Mebyon Kernow more than ever needs a policy direction for obtaining autonomy and bringing power closer to the people of Cornwall. 

Previous to the undemocratically imposed Unitary Authority MKs proposition for devolution and answer to Cornwall's democratic deficit was three fold:

1) Powers devolved from central government and quangos to an elected Cornish Assembly with powers akin to the Scottish Parliament and certainly no less than those of the Welsh Assembly.

2) The vast bulk of local government powers and functions of the erstwhile county council devolved down to the district councils or amalgamation of districts.

3) Where possible and agreeable powers and functions devolved to parish and town councils.

So what to campaign for now that the district and county council have been sunk and the schema above made redundant?

MK has created a working group called 'Home Rule' whose purpose is to address this question and they are looking for all ideas and comments on a future direction in the campaigning for Cornish autonomy.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): With the closure of Goonhilly Earth Station, are the Cornish ever going to look to the stars again?

As a recognized level 1 European region with devolved government that could be something we decide for ourselves. Introducing one possible option - NEREUS - a network of European Regions working hand in hand on the development and use of space technologies in Europe. The European Regions are heavily involved at both ends of the space chain, from infrastructures to applications.

CoSERG (Cornwall): In January a CoSERG member was approached by a television company making a programme for ITV on the change to unitary local government in Cornwall. The programme researcher explained that the programme would be about the costs of the transition; was it costing more than the County Council had predicted, as forecast by the opponents of unitary local government? A fair question; but we asked whether they also intended to include the issues of the loss of democratic accountability, devolution to Cornwall or local community empowerment. They weren't - these issues had "already been covered." Moreover, it became clear that our TV person had not even heard of the soon to be unlamented South West Regional Assembly.

This is written in response to the OurKingdom article on the new Institute of Public Policy Research booklet entitled 'The Power of Belonging' by Ben Rogers and Rick Muir.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): A happy and empowered individual who is respected in his own home makes a much better host.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): Jack Straw gave a speech at the George Washington University about the UK's and USA's constitutional heritage and what a British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities might look like. The talk was entitled "Modernising the Magna Carta" - full article here.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): It's 2008, and devolution and decentralisation still seem to be on people's minds - or at least that's the impression one gets from the OurKingdom blog. Recently, perhaps following Conservative noises about 'localism' (the word ‘devolution', associated as it is with New Labour, would burn in their mouths), OK has had two articles on the subject: Jonathan Bryant on Where localism should exist and Colin Baker's A vision of the localist revolution.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): Over the last 3 centuries Cornwall has gone from being on the leading edge of the industrial revolution to being one of the poorest regions of Europe, receiving objective one funding from the EU as a result. In the October 2001 Business Age Magazine Kevin Cahill, an author and investigative journalist for the Sunday Times, wrote the "The Killing of Cornwall". He notes that the London Treasury extracts £1.95 billion in taxes out of Cornwall's GDP of £3.6 billion. The Treasury returns less than £1.65 billion - a net loss to Cornwall of 300 million pounds - to an area where total earnings are 24% below the national average. Is this some form of negative Barnett Formula? Low wages, unskilled McJobs, poverty, social problems and rocketing housing prices are the often hidden face of the optimistically named "English Riviera". Coupled with this we have seen the centralisation of services, institutions and government (followed by the skilled jobs they entail) out of the Duchy, much to the benefit of various undemocratic and faceless ‘South West of England' quangos.

Philip Hosking (Cornwall, The Cornish Democrat): You may have noticed the recent Scotsman article on the new citizenship test that people wishing to gain UK citizenship must take. Designed to improve integration and assimilation of new immigrants it purports to be a sort of cultural primer – a test based on knowledge of the officially sanctioned book "Life in the UK: A Journey to Citizenship". This book is a fascinating insight into how New Labour imagines life in our country today. And what it leaves out is as significant as what it puts in.