Having just finished my piece for this coming week’s Cornish
Guardian – which focused on the attitude of the London
parties to more powers for Cornwall
– I have just watched today’s edition of the Politics Show (South West), on
iplayer.
There was a feature on the implications of the Scottish
referendum for Cornwall , which
included contributions from myself, my good friend Dr Joanie Willett and the
Leader of Cornwall Council, John Pollard. George Eustice MP (Conservative),
Cllr Candy Atherton (Labour) and Cllr Alex Folkes (Liberal Democrats) meanwhile
took part in the studio debate.
I found the whole thing very depressing. Listed below are
some quotes from the programme.
John Pollard argued for more powers to the unitary authority,
saying it could act as an Assembly, stating that Cornwall had “one geographical
region, one culture, one history, one heritage, one language, and one council …”
The Cornish Language Partnership, in particular, must be worried if the Council
Leader thinks there is only one language in Cornwall .
Candy Atherton talked a lot about devolution to what she
described an “appropriate area.” She stated that she opposed a Cornish
Assembly, saying “we don’t need a whole new load of politicians, another layer,
that is the last thing people want, but they do want to have control over what’s
going on in their community. And not Whitehall
bureaucrats or Whitehall
politicians making the decisions.”
Alex Folkes said “we want to see a transfer of powers to individual
regions based on what is right for those regions … Cornwall
would be considered a region. It is explicitly made clear in our pre-manifesto that
a Cornish Assembly is what we want to see … I think we should be seeing a
wholesale transfer of powers … I think we should see huge powers transfer along
the lines of the Welsh Assembly. Lets move those powers to Cornwall .
We don’t need to have another layer of bureaucracy. We can enhance the Cornwall
Council to become an Assembly …”
George Eustice confirmed that he did not support the case
for a Cornish Assembly. Echoing Candy Atherton, he said “We don’t need a new Assembly
paying lots of money for another tier of politicians. We just don’t need that
in Cornwall .”
I am distressed how so many of Cornwall ’s
so-called “leading” politicians refuse to acknowledge the massive democratic
deficit facing Cornwall and fail to
see the difference between regional/national government and local government.
If you want to watch the piece – not to be recommended – it
can be found at:
No comments:
Post a Comment