Monday 26 July 2010

Cornish Constitutional Convention


It turned out that I did speak at Saturday’s Cornish Constitutional Convention Conference after all. I became the substitute for Conservative MP Sarah Newton who was poorly and could not attend.

Ten years after the formation of the Convention (see above), I felt it to be important that we celebrated the dedication of the many people, who have campaigned so hard for devolution to Cornwall over the last decade and for the many years before that.


In particular, in my short speech, I focussed on the Declaration for a Cornish Assembly campaign that was launched by MK in 2000 and carried forward in partnership with the Convention. It remains a massive achievement to have collected 50,000 declarations demanding greater Cornish home rule and is the bedrock on which we can build.

The BBC’s Graham Smith has already blogged about the Conference on http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/grahamsmith. The event was also filmed and will be accessible on Cornwall Council's website from Tuesday or Wednesday.

Commenting on the non-appearance of Sarah Newton however, Graham Smith did note that the panel “ended up being five middle-aged, middle class blokes.” Graham ... at 43, I may be getting on a bit but I will never be anything other than a working-class chap from Cornwall.

1 comment:

Graham Smith said...

My apologies - from my perspective 43 is certainly very young. No offence intended.