The ongoing sale of Cornwall's heritage: the sad case of St Austell Bay

You have to feel sorry for the residents of the St Austell district. Having suffered one of the highest population growth rates in Cornwall since the 1960s they’ve had the biggest car park in Cornwall (at the Eden Project) dumped on them. Then, there’s Labour’s bizarrely misnamed eco-town brainwave, complete with a posh marina at Par Docks, plainly essential for any aspiring ecologist. And we mustn’t forget the proposed luxury tourist village at Carlyon Bay.

Back in October I blogged about Ampersand, the development company with a vision of building 511 luxury holiday units at Carlyon Bay. In possession of planning permission granted way back in 1990, Ampersand originally comprised a rather seedy bunch of spivs determined to privatise a stretch of Cornish beach and sell it to Londoners as a holiday bolthole. In the process inconvenient locals were to be excluded as an eyesore,

The image was this.

The reality turned out to be this.

For more details of how this horrific catastrophe was allowed to happen see here.

Ampersand left the people of St Austell Bay with a rusting eyesore and then doggedly refused to bow to the decisions of the planning system and clear up their mess. Until now that is, just six months before their deadline finally runs out. Carlyon Bay Watch report that some work is now going on. But re-siting not removing.

What Ampersand has succeeded in cleaning up since 2004-06 is its public image. The original cowboy directors have gone and the company now ‘works closely’ with the Commercial Estates Group (the bulk of whose portfolio is office space). This is ‘works closely’ as in ‘owned by’, as the two companies seem pretty interchangeable. Indeed, Andrew Woods, Director of Ampersand in 2007, is now a Director of CEG.

As the deadline for clearing up the appalling mess they created looms Ampersand/CEG has pulled another scheme scheme for 511 units out of their hat. This time with added greenwash. But this only masking what is a deeply ungreen proposal to make the tourist homes into permanent homes, thus creating at a stroke yet another new village on the coast. As if we need more people in an already dangerously over-crowded Cornwall.

To add insult to injury, the newcomers will be housed in a settlement ‘typical of a Cornish village with narrow pedestrianised streets, glimpsed views of the sea and cliffs and public, open space’. And I guess, like other 'traditional' Cornish fishing villages, the requisite second homes, absence of actual Cornish folk, presence of nearby marina to park the yacht, tacky tourist shops and restaurants, plus those sought after ingredients of high unemployment and low wages in servile jobs.

No matter, the Western Morning News tells us this is a ‘much-vaunted scheme’. Much-vaunted by the Western Morning News that is. Moreover, this time around CEG has been meeting monthly with members of the ‘local community, councillors, council officers and business leaders’. Now, we knew they’ve been cosy with planners for years as Restormel (now Cornwall Council) planners were always gung-ho enthusiasts for the original scheme. But it would be very interesting to learn who these community leaders, councillors and business leaders were. Do they include Carlyon Bay Watch for example?

Ampersand./CEG are now more media-savvy and careful to present a ‘listening image’. According to Jon Kerry, CEG Director,

we can make a considerable contribution to the continuing transformation of the St Austell area and we hope local people will recognise this is a fantastic opportunity for them and Cornwall

Which oddly omits mention of the ‘fantastic opportunity’ Carlyon Bay provides for CEG, whose chairman Gerard Versteegh has seen his personal wealth dwindle from £200m in 2008 to a mere £120m now. He clearly needs to make a bit more to make ends meet by selling off another chunk of Cornwall. And what if ‘local people’ don’t recognise this as a ‘fantastic opportunity’?

Then tough I suppose.

Concerns mount over South East Cornwall MP

Voters in South East Cornwall are beginning to harbour serious doubts about the ability of their newly elected Tory MP, Sheryll Murray, to cut the mustard at Westminster. Not exactly renowned for being the brightest star in the firmament, Sheryll, the ‘Fishermen’s Friend’ has so far turned in a performance at the Commons as dismal as the England football team’s failure down south.


Visible parliamentary activities have been limited to a mundane maiden speech on the 21st in the Strategic Defence and Security Review. In this she provided the usual geography lesson for fellow MPs, invited them all to come to Cornwall on holiday (aren’t we already over-dependent on tourism?) and spent a fair proportion of the short time boosting Plymouth and begging for Trident to be retained.

Last night, she popped up on the excruciatingly awful BBC Spotlight News. Asked about her views on the mini-Lib Dem rebellion brewing up on VAT and led by her Cornish ConLib colleague Andrew George, she provided the soundbite that VAT ‘is much better than having more spending cuts’. This must be a contender for the most trite remark of the parliamentary year contest.

So a regressive tax is better than … errr …. regressive spending cuts. Not much of a choice there I would have thought. But why does Sheryll assume that’s the choice? Why should taxes provide no more than 20% of the means to bridge the debt gulf?

Hardly an expert on economic strategy or tax policy (what exactly is she an expert on?) Sheryll was mindlessly regurgitating the establishment myth. Labour had already decided to cut the debt 25% by tax rises and 75% by spending cuts. The ConLibs have reduced the proportion of taxes even further so it’s now 20% tax rises and 80% spending cuts. Moreover, their tax changes are the opposite of ‘fair’.

But it doesn’t have to be this way at all. Is Sheryll not aware that corporation tax cuts will give back to the banks more than the bank levy is taking from them? And what about the £9bn that could be raised from high earners by making NI contributions fair? Has she heard of income tax?

Her banal comment echoes those I’ve recently heard from local politicians across the political spectrum. This usually starts something like ‘the Government have to make spending cuts …’ Not true. They don’t. It should be ‘the Government chooses to make spending cuts’.

They choose to concentrate on cutting disability benefit while leaving higher earners with their free bus passes and winter fuel allowances. They choose to force single mothers into fictitious jobs rather than tax capital gains at the same rate as income. They choose regressive taxes over progressive taxes. They choose massive attacks on the public sector workforce rather than making their mates pay up.

Sheryll is either blissfully unaware of all this. Or determined to make the poor pay for the sins of the rich. Which is it? The people of South East have a right to know.

Bread cut, circuses crap: why are the English so useless at football?

Major sigh of relief. Now that England are out of the World Cup maybe we can concentrate on the football. And get rid of those embarrassing English flags littering Cornwall in the process.

The problem for regimes that rely on bread and circuses is that if both bread and circuses fail to deliver then they’re stuffed. Although the ConLib regime currently basks in the absence of criticism from a population sadly duped and deceived into believing the myth that that ‘savage cuts’ are necessary this can’t last. When real cuts produce real job losses, real benefit cuts and real service closures next winter people may just start putting two and two together and begin asking why the richest few percent aren’t being asked to cough up their ‘fair share’.

Bread is therefore not guaranteed. And circuses can also produce disillusion and depression when they collapse. Relying on the England football team to deliver the circus half of the equation was always a disaster waiting to happen. And it’s happened. TV and radio this afternoon was full of pundits who, wise with hindsight, berated the ‘hopeless’ English footballers as they crashed out in what was their worst defeat in a hardly glittering world cup history.

This might not matter too much if the regime could rely on a rational and sensible press. But it can’t. Instead, the racist redtops, ignoring all evidence to the contrary, ridiculously hyped up a very ordinary team into world-beaters, in the process stoking up a not very pretty, ignorant and xenophobic English nationalism.

Of course, the media are unable to react in any other way. This is their normal mode of journalism. Everything English (or British) is the best in the world. Foreigners are rubbish. We can’t learn anything from them. Even when we ought to. They’ve said it so often an awful lot of people are willing to swallow it, particularly in England.

But why are the English so useless at football? One obvious reason currently is that they don’t speak Spanish or Portuguese. Others were chewed over on BBC Five Live this afternoon, such as poor youth training schemes, the English ‘style’ of play which has basically not advanced much since the 1880s, the rigidity of team tactics.

And inevitably the foreigners who are paid to coach the team came under the cosh. But while it does appear to an outsider that it was a curious strategy to appoint a manager who clearly can’t communicate too well in English (I assume Rooney, Gerrard and Co aren’t fluent in Italian) there may be other reasons.

It must be more than a coincidence that England has such a rubbish national football team yet hosts the most commercialised and globalised club league in the world. The Premier League is designed to help Rupert Murdoch sell Sky TV and provides leisure time activities for billionaires from Russia, the Middle East and the States. When the main aim is to generate profits from the spectacle there is not much room left for strategic thinking about how best to produce a side that might actually compete in World or European cup competitions.

In this set-up players are merely hirelings. Although they’re extremely well-paid hirelings they’re effectively owned lock, stock and barrel by clubs that are essentially corporate businesses. If they’re any good they’re played to and beyond the point of exhaustion. Injuries are patched up as rapidly as possible before they’re thrown back into action.

Yes, I’m aware that Premier League players can be found in most teams playing in South Africa. But first, the only team that is 100% composed of such players is England. And second, in the other teams look at who’s not playing up to expectations – Torres, Drogba, Bendtner for example. Hmmm, Premier League players aren’t they?

Mind you, that Carlos Tevez isn’t half bad.

Second test of Cornish politics looms: Eustice dithers

In the 1990s the Lib Dem controlled Cornwall County Council failed to put a strong case – correct that, failed to put up any case worth noting – for a Cornish Regional Development Agency. Labour promptly lumbered us with the over-centralised South West RDA. This spineless lobbying was hardly novel behaviour. In the 1980s Cornwall County Council woefully threw away the opportunity to ensure that Cornwall got Objective One money earlier by tamely going along with a powerful business and quango-led led Devonwall (Devon and Cornwall) strategy.

It was only when the ink was drying on the reform that made Cornwall a European level 2 region and opened the door to major EU funding that the Cornish political elite reluctantly kicked their Devonwall habit. Even the Lib Dem leadership joined in scuttling the failed Devonwall project, which promptly sank without trace.

The ConLib government has now confirmed that the RDA is to be scrapped. It will be replaced by ‘local enterprise partnerships’ which will take over economic development functions in areas where there is a clear demand. A lot remains unclear, and particularly the territorial template for these new LEPs.

Thought to have been comprehensively killed off back in 1997, like zombies the Devonwallers are now crawling out from under their stones. They’re led by the Devon and Cornwall Business Council which brings together 70 of the largest of the 40,000 businesses in Devon and Cornwall but takes it upon itself to claim to ‘represent’ in some mysterious fashion the interests of all 40,000.

It’s dominated by corporations such as BT, EDF Energy, Wales and West Utilities and South West Water, transport businesses such as First Great Western, Cross Country and Exeter International Airport, banks such as the Clydesdale Bank and a hatful of Devon-based solicitors and accountants. The University of Plymouth clothes it with academic credibility while the only obvious Cornish business sponsor is St Austell Breweries. It’s headed by the lugubrious and depressing zombie in chief Tim Jones, often seen whining on local TV about how the weather forecast has affected tourism or moaning about the lack of road building or demanding more hand-outs from central government.

Yet for the walking undead the DCBC has proved impressively quick on its feet and the week before last proposed a Devon and Cornwall LEP before Vince Cable had even killed off the RDA. The mouthpiece of the discredited Devonwall project last time around was the Western Morning News and it’s pushing the same tired old agenda yet again. For instance, an anonymous businessman from Truro has been given space to call for a Devonwall LEP – on ‘pragmatic’ rather than ‘political’ grounds of course.

Déjà vu? I thought I’d fallen asleep and woken up in 1987. Here’s the WMN gravely informing us that ‘Cornwall is too small on its own to wield real influence’. But this is exactly what they said before 1997 and precisely what stopped us then getting major EU funding for several years. The truth would appear to be the complete opposite – Devonwall stopped Cornwall wielding ‘real influence’. But accorded perfectly with the marketing strategies of some regionally based corporations.

There are also apparently plans for a Cornwall and Plymouth LEP although as yet I’ve been unable to identify its backers.

In Cornwall the expectation was that Cornwall Council and the ConLib MPs would put forward a strong case for a Cornwall-based LEP. After all, we’re now at ‘the heart of government’ are we not? This would seem logical given the abject failure of the Devonwall project back in the 1980s and 1990s, At last, the humiliating anomaly whereby Cornwall is the only European region where Convergence finding is managed from outwith its boundaries could be ending.

ConLib (LD tendency) MP Steve Gilbert has duly gone on record as calling for Cornwall to stand alone, with the Cornwall Development Company taking a leading role. However, ConLib (Conservative tendency) MP George Eustice is hedging his bets. Rather than a forthright commitment to a Cornwall LEP, in this week’s West Briton Eustice, while admitting a ‘strong case’ exists for Cornwall, wants to ‘also consider other options’. He intends to speak to ‘all the parties involved with all three options’.

Eustice finally made his maiden speech in parliament last Thursday, using it to make a rather snide and unfunny ‘joke’ about John Prescott and then wheel in Richard Trevithick to call for ‘talented individuals’ to come up with solutions, not governments. Now, faced by a choice between a Cornwall-based LEP and the sirens of Devonwall big business he needs to get off the fence. But on which side? Watch this space.

The ConLib Lib Dems and the Budget (with upgrade)

Congratulations Lib Dem Cornwall Councillor Jeremy Rowe who has at least expressed his disquiet at the Budget - "I’m no longer prepared to stay silent when they indulge in the morally indefensible, as they did this week with Osborne’s Budget." Yet no sign of similar moral scruples on Tuesday from Cornwall’s three ConLib (Lib Dem tendency) MPs who rushed out a press release breathlessly backing the Emergency Budget.


According to Dan Rogerson this has laid the foundation for a ‘stronger, fairer economy’. Meanwhile Steve Gilbert unadventurously parroted the ConLib line that this was a ‘tough but fair budget’. Then he went on to make the amazing remark that it ‘put money in the back pockets of hardworking Cornish families’.

It is unclear whether these three musketeers inhabit the same continent as the rest of us. Are they just ineffably stupid? Or merely naïve? Or are they being deliberately disingenuous, lying through their teeth in their desperation to defend the indefensible?

On what possible grounds could they possibly reach their ludicrously inaccurate snap assessment? They claimed a ‘raft’ of Lib Dem manifesto commitments have been ‘implemented’, including

# A £1,000 increase in the income tax personal allowance, taking almost a million low-earners out of income tax altogether
# A rise in Capital Gains Tax for higher rate taxpayers to 28%, discouraging second home ownership and ensuring city bankers pay their fair share
# Bringing pensioner poverty to an end through by [sic] restoring the earnings-link for state pensions from April next year, with a ‘triple lock’ to ensure that pensions rise by the same level as incomes, prices or 2.5%, whichever is higher
# A new tax on planes to replace Air Passenger Duty, to cut carbon emissions.
# Scrapping the extra cider tax

A £1,000 increase in the income tax personal allowance, taking almost a million low-earners out of income tax altogether???

The change in personal tax allowance will take 880,000 out of paying income tax. But the up to £170 a year extra will be immediately wiped out by VAT increases – the ConLib’s ‘bombshell’ that these three were vehemently campaigning against only two months back – and eroded by £11bn of planned benefit cuts not to mention Labour’s rise in national insurance contributions.

A rise in Capital Gains Tax for higher rate taxpayers to 28%, discouraging second home ownership and ensuring city bankers pay their fair share???

Strange then that others conclude precisely the opposite.


Deliberately keeping Capital Gains Tax lower than income tax means that higher rate taxpayers can continue to dress up income as capital gains (for example through share options) and avoid 12% of tax, or 22% if earning more than £150,000. So this is fair according to Lib Dems? And is a bank levy of 0.07% of liabilities a ‘fair share’ when even the Tory press was expecting a rate two or three times higher?

Bringing pensioner poverty to an end through by [sic] restoring the earnings-link for state pensions from April next year, with a ‘triple lock’ to ensure that pensions rise by the same level as incomes, prices or 2.5%, whichever is higher???

Do our three stooges realise that the state pension this year is £5,078 for a single person and £8,120 for a married couple? Do they not understand that this is lower than the income support threshold and the latter threshold must be vulnerable to cuts planned in welfare benefits? Do they not know that while earnings in Cornwall rose 65-70% in money terms from 1998-2009, pensions only rose by 47%? Do they really believe that a percentage point increase in the state pension will therefore ‘end pensioner poverty’? And why haven’t they been told that their colleagues in government are planning to raise the pension age in five years time?

A new tax on planes to replace Air Passenger Duty, to cut carbon emissions???

A pity that this turns out not be a new tax at all.


Scrapping the extra cider tax???

At least they got this one right. And in doing so reinforced the stereotype that all of us peasants here in Mummerzet like nothing better than to get out of our heads on scrumpy.

Of course, there’s a number of things about the Budget that these three overlooked. Like the rise in VAT. Like the planned spending cuts that will hit the poor and those regions more dependent on the public sector than others. Such as Cornwall for example.

And their overall conclusion about a fair and progressive budget? Well, what did the ultra-respectable and conservative Institute for Fiscal Studies think?


Or there’s


For decades we’ve had to suffer the painful experience in Cornwall of Lib Dems saying one thing and doing another. But this must take the biscuit. Will our three ConLib Lib Dems now publicly apologise for misleading the electorate. Both in their press release and in their election campaigns?

Upgrade: evidence of re-think
At least one ConLib MP appears to be coming to his senses and re-thinking his hasty support earlier this week for this manifestly unfair budget. Andrew George is now quoted by the Western Morning News as saying that ‘it would clobber the poorest who were not to blame for the sate of the nation’s finances’. Encouraging news but this should be only the first step on the road to redemption.

If Andrew George really wants to make a name for himself he must start considering leaving the Lib Dems soon and going home to MK. This would give him almost five years of freedom in which to attack the ConLib government from a thoroughly Cornish perspective, consolidate his position in St Ives and draw a line under his time as a Lib Dem MP.

It would also mean going down in history as the first Cornish nationalist MP. This would provide a huge boost to Cornish self-confidence and generate acres of media coverage. Given the current sad absence of a Cornish voice on the opposition benches this course of action surely becomes increasingly more attractive.

The Budget: ‘tough but fair’ or ‘guile and evasion’?

ConLib Cabinet Minister Vince Cable hails yesterday’s budget as ‘tough but fair’. He can only mean tough on the poor but fair(ly) relaxed about the filthy rich. Malcom Bruce, the only Lib Dem MP to speak at length in the Commons yesterday on the budget said this was a

fair approach … the richest 20% bear the greatest share of the burden

It was also a

progressive budget

In fact Bruce could not

think of anything more progressive … there is little in the budget to which I can fundamentally take exception

Indeed, he was very pleased the proposed tax on furnished holiday lets had been reversed. This was ‘a serious concern for people who have a single holiday cottage’. Though so concerned about holiday home owners this appalling Lib Dem MP apparently had no concern at all for the millions who’ll suffer from this budget.

Claims that the budget is ‘fair’ and ‘progressive’ are either a poor attempt at a joke or just Lib Dem lies. It is not ‘fair’. Or ‘progressive’. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of both. By continuing Labour’s policy of cutting £4 in spending for every £1 raised in taxes the ConLibs are making the poor pay,

It’s the poor who will pay the price in redundancies in the public sector, declining quality of services and cuts in welfare benefits. In contrast, the ConLibs’ corporate allies are poised to benefit from a growth in outsourcing and privatisation. Labour was already planning to raise just 28% of their planned debt reduction through taxes, which was disgusting enough. The ConLibs have reduced even this pathetic figure to just 20%.

Even if we concentrate just on the minority of tax rises what do we find? The most unfair tax – VAT – is the main way to raise the extra £8bn. The only ‘fair’ taxes – in the sense of those who can afford to pay paying more – are income tax (and national insurance contributions which are merely income tax in another guise) and capital gains tax.

Yet income tax remains unchanged, apart from a token rise in the tax allowance at the bottom. If there was a new 50% tax rate on incomes of over £100,000 (less than the top rate in many other countries) another £2.3bn could be raised.

And what about abolishing the upper limit for national insurance contributions? At present this means that as income rises the percentage paid in national insurance for top earners actually falls, which seems … unfair? Getting rid of this anomaly and having everyone pay the same proportion would raise £9bn.

But neither of these fairer tax hikes happened.

It doesn’t seem ‘fair’ that those who make money from the rising value of their property should pay less in tax than those who earn money from working. Yet capital gains tax is at a lower level than income tax. Bringing the two in line would seem logical therefore. But this hasn’t happened. Not tough on second home owners and property speculators, who continue to benefit by paying less than income taxpayers.

And whatever happened to the ‘tough on the banks’ rhetoric? A £2bn bank levy when £5-8bn was being widely predicted is a pathetic capitulation to the City. And some of this will be clawed back by a reduction in corporation tax.

Or what about that financial transaction tax that briefly surfaced, only to be drowned in the squeals of the fat cats? This has been variously estimated to have the potential to raise £20-30bn. We heard nothing about this.

And didn’t someone once mention that the Lib Dems were a ‘green’ party? If VAT and fuel duty were levied on aviation, curiously exempt from both, another £7bn could be raised and/or carbon emissions driven down. The opportunity was spurned.

Cable also said that this Budget was ‘necessary and right’. It’s ‘necessary’ to placate the markets. And it’s presumably ‘right’ in the upside-down moral universe of the ConLibs to cave in to the rich and cane the poor. The whole squalid exercise drips with deception, designed by a rotten parliamentary class blind to their obnoxious mendacity. And its most morally revolting aspect is the way the Lib Dems provide this fig-leaf about ‘fairness’.

But why worry? England have just scored. Nero? Fiddles? Rome?

West Briton churnalists alter sentence

Last week the West Brit printed a piece about Coastline Housing. The social housing business is currently building 150 affordable homes, including some in a former no-go area for affordable houses – Padstow. The report stated

One of its [Coastline’s] main aims is to build new affordable homes for people in need of local housing.

Yet the original press release, though it’s not made clear this ‘story’ like most of the rest of the paper is just a very slightly edited PR release, stated

One of its main aims is to build new affordable homes for people in housing need locally.

Why did the West Brit change this particular sentence when most of the press release was left unaltered? And which is right? The West Brit seems to suggest that affordable homes go to anyone in need. Coastline that they need to be local people in need.

Who exactly is being housed?

First test of Cornish politics failed

In July 2007 the Tories appointed a Shadow Minister for Cornwall. People might have been forgiven for thinking that this implied a full Minister for Cornwall were the Conservatives to win the election, thus recognising Cornwall’s unique status.

On March 17th this year as the parties were gearing up for the election the Western Morning News quoted a ‘senior Tory source’ as saying that ‘there’s a real case for somewhere like Cornwall’ to have a minister.


This was duly repeated by Business Cornwall and various other news media. In the process it was transformed into a definite promise. However, Nick Eyriey of Business Cornwall and formerly The Sun and Mail on Sunday (say no more) had clearly not managed to read to the very end of the Morning News piece which finished rather lamely with this sentence.

A spokesman for the Conservative leader insisted no final decisions had been made.

So this wasn’t a definite promise at all but a mere enticing titbit floated in front of electors to show how much the Tories cared about Cornwall. The former Lib Dems certainly saw it that way and were united in their opposition to a Tory Minister for Cornwall, perhaps resenting this challenge to their claim to hog Cornish representation.

Nonetheless, the Tories did not take the opportunity to deny this promise openly and honestly. Instead, they conveniently let it lurk in the background and senior Tories were still teasing us by holding out the possibility of a Minister for Cornwall as late as a fortnight ago.

Last Monday an email was sent by Sarah Newton, Tory MP for Truro and Falmouth, admitting the whole idea had been a joke all along.

In regard to the Minister for Cornwall position it has been decided that it is not necessary for such a new Government post to be created. It is important to note that the Conservative party never promised to create this post.

Mark Prisk took on the role of Shadow Minister for Cornwall when the Conservative Party had no M.Ps in Cornwall. In their absence it was crucial to have a member of the Conservative front bench team dedicated to listening to people in Cornwall in order to understand their concerns. Despite media speculation it was never confirmed that this shadow position would lead to a new ministry for Cornwall under a Conservative Government.

The recent General Election saw Conservative M.Ps elected to represent three seats in Cornwall and therefore the need to have a single dedicated Conservative spokesman for Cornwall has decreased. With the other three seats in Cornwall represented by Liberal Democrats, our coalition partners, the Government is confident that Cornwall's voice in the new parliament is a strong one.

Both myself and the two other Conservative M.Ps, George Eustice and Sheryll Murray, elected in Cornwall in May are looking forward to working hard in its best interests. We will strive to raise Cornish issues in Westminster and campaign to bring powers down from London and over the Tamer [sic].

So our six MPs are united in ‘working hard’ for Cornwall. Interesting then that in the first four weeks of Parliament George Eustice, Sarah Newton (apart from one failed attempt to intervene) and Sheryll Murray have not yet uttered a single word in the chamber of the House of Commons or asked one written question. While 86% of their colleagues have not been able to remain silent we’re still waiting for them to break their silence.

Meanwhile, their ConLib colleague Andrew George has asked 24 written questions and intervened in nine debates. Dan Rogerson has been a bit slower off the mark this time, with eight written questions and one oral intervention. Steve Gilbert is getting up to speed despite being a new boy, with three written questions and two spoken interventions.

Let’s put our three Tory MPs’ performance in some historical context. The time that elapsed between the Queens Speech and their maiden speech for our recent MPs has been as follows.

* Dan Rogerson – one day
* Julia Goldsworthy – two days
* Andrew George – eight days
* Steve Gilbert – fourteen days

But for George Eustice, Sarah Newton and Sheryll Murray it’s already 26 days ... and counting. They have just two days left to improve on Candy Atherton, who took 28 days back in 1997 and another couple of weeks to match the slowest starter in that same year – Colin Breed at 41 days.

Pathetic football, pointless cuts. Compare and contrast

As the English football team stutter through their embarrassing and thoroughly underwhelming displays in South Africa I’m struck by the similarities between the footie and the ConLib obsession with public spending cuts.

First, there’s the incessant and completely unrealistic hyping of both football team and cuts by the right-wing press. This has the effect of softening the masses up for the events themselves. But it also magnifies the sense of disillusion, disappointment and dissatisfaction people experience when they eventually realise they’ve been fooled. Back in December the Sun confidently informed us that …


Now, it’s


In similar fashion, we’re told by Tory, Lib Dem (and Labour) politicians that there’s no alternative to drastic cuts. The media dutifully do their job and reinforce this relentlessly, giving uncritical prominence to the slash and burners.


Now at last, having point blank refused to tell us what they were going to cut during the election, we are getting a preliminary taste of ConLib cuts. Surprise, surprise. It’s not just about cutting the civil service and making ‘efficiency cuts’ after all. In fact it seems to mean schools and hospitals won’t be built; it means that local authorities will have to squeeze their budgets; it means that those public sector workers left with a job will see their pay frozen for one, two or three years depending on which lunatic Thatcherite ‘think’ tank one listens to; it means help for the unemployed disappearing at just the time when the number of unemployed is about to rise.

As millionaire ConLib Cabinet members shed crocodile tears about all this they insist there is no alternative. But there are. Several. None of which are getting much of an airing.

First, why cut £4 for every £1 rise in tax? Relying on cuts hits the poorest twenty times harder in relative terms than the richest. Relying on tax rises spreads the burden. ‘Fairness’ demands the latter. The well-off demand the former. Cue rapid abandonment of manifesto pledges, especially by the appallingly unctuous and hypocritical Lib Dem leadership.

A mere three pence extra on income tax would bring in £12bn a year. This would nicely plug the £50bn ‘gap’ identified by the millionaires’ Cabinet within the five years of extended life that they’ve undemocratically rushed to grant themselves. Or how about taxing the very, very rich? There seems to be a lot of spare capacity there.


And then there’s the financial sector. Whatever happened to the old-fashioned idea that those responsible for a crime should pay for their misdeeds?

And if cuts are still needed then why aren’t we cutting Trident (estimated costs up to £97bn)? Or pulling out of Afghanistan (£3-4bn a year)? Or what about the £9bn being spent on the London Olympics? If things are as desperate as we’re assured they are then surely this luxury spending on hubris and regional regeneration in the south east of England immediately needs to go. But I forget. Bread and circuses are an essential part of decaying imperial regimes.

Which brings us back to the World Cup. Despite all the evidence to the contrary the hired Italian mercenary Capello stubbornly persists with a 4-4-2 system that may have worked back in the 1980s but plainly doesn’t now. Isn’t this very reminiscent of our political class who equally stubbornly persist with outdated neo-liberal economic policies?

Of course Capello is only under pressure from thousands of English football followers whereas our politicians are in hock to corporate privilege and the necessity of guaranteeing the pampered lifestyles of the one per cent who run things. Capello might still feasibly change his system before the Slovenians kick the English out of the Cup. However, the ConLibs have little choice but to make ordinary folk pay and have no intention at all of changing a failed economic system.

Radio Cornwall? Or Radio Engerland?

Is Radio Cornwall challenged geographically? Do they not know where Truro is? I was alerted today to this morning’s James Churchfield programme. Now, normally, I’d prefer to listen to the massed ranks of 20,000 vuvuzelas than listen to Radio Yokel. But, with a deep breath I fired up the i-player and tuned in to the cringe-inducing Churchfield wittering on at 7.55 this morning about the English football team, currently playing in some tournament in South Africa.

Hearing of someone in Devon who had decked out their garden in red and white the inane Churchfield muttered ‘well done’. OK, maybe fine in Devon but that clearly wasn’t enough. He then moved on to encourage his handful of listeners to send in details of ‘particularly patriotic’ displays in support of England. In Cornwall?! Apparently, Radio Colonising Cornwall is compiling a gallery of red and white flag displays to stick on their website. As an example the hapless Churchfield cited somebody in Newquay who’s painted a St George’s cross on the pavement outside his restaurant (is this legal?)

This daily drip feed of indoctrination from Radio Cornwall is insensitive to say the least, or more properly downright insulting. Does Churchfield not realise that a third of people in Cornwall, when asked, opt for a Cornish identity over an English one? This is a third of all people, Cornish and English, no small minority. Does this group not deserve some respect?

In the absence of a Cornish team, if people want to support England by all means do so. But why isn’t their flag flown along with the Algerian, Slovenian and American flags? Shouldn’t we be celebrating the diversity implied in the world cup?


Apparently not. Radio Yokel’s brief is clear. Relocate Cornwall firmly in England. Dismiss the large number of people who do not think Cornwall is part of England and who inwardly shudder every time the oppressor’s flag is shoved in their face, a constant reminder of our subjection.

Radio Yokel’s task is to carry on brainwashing and it plainly won’t be diverted from this important role. Fortunate therefore that hardly anyone is left listening to this bunch of gibbering idiots.

Local homes for local people: the great Cornwall Council debate

Surprisingly little news online today about yesterday’s much-touted debate at Cornwall Council on social housing and local needs. Graham Smith of Radio Yokel tells us the webcasting was ‘very, very good’ but doesn’t bother to say anything about the debate itself. Despite being among the 14 councillors who contributed to it two of our three Cornwall Councillor bloggers have somewhat unexpectedly not actually blogged about it, apart from a short update on the vote added to an earlier blog. (Correction - just noticed another short one placed two hours ago)

As full Cornwall Council meetings are now webcast (it's about two hours, two minutes in) perhaps they think it’s superfluous. Or perhaps it’s because the debate itself in terms of raw excitement was a bit of a damp squib. The motion urged the council to give first priority when allocating social housing to those living within a town or parish rather than those with no local connections but greater technical ‘need’. This would, they claimed, stop the practice whereby homeless people can be offered houses miles away from their work or their neighbours. During the debate its proposer Mario Fonk (LD) of Penzance cited someone in St Erth offered a house in Launceston.

The motion was only being discussed after the Chair of the Council Pat Harvey was persuaded to allow the debate after first being minded not to. It may seem odd that councillors are unable to debate whatever they like but under the often undemocratic rules of English local government imposed on us all real decisions are taken by that small group who make up the Cabinet.

The motion was supported by a cross-party group, including Bill Maddern (Con), Stuart Cullimore (MK), Ruth Lewarne and Chris Pascoe (both LD), Sue Pass (Ind) and Tamsin Williams (LD). The debate followed suit. What was striking was the general consensus that the Council should be doing as much as it can to ensure ‘local houses went to local people’ (Fiona Ferguson, Con).

Differences were not over the principle but the best way to achieve it. The argument was strongly made that the motion’s wording did not stand up in practice. Councillors such as Dick Cole (MK) claimed that the Homechoice system has already moved a very long way towards ‘maximising local take-up’. Apparently, every other home at least, even in towns, is now allocated to someone with a local connection.

Moreover, in parishes where there are fewer than 40 social houses, 100% are so allocated. The Council also intend to be firm on new developments and ensure they’re subject to a ‘section 106’ agreement. Under this new houses can only be offered to people with local connections.

The issue is whether the new Homechoice rules go far enough. For some like Scott Mann (Con) Homechoice is a big improvement on what went before and the debate was just ‘grandiose posturing’. The proposals are currently out for consultation so if people want social housing to meet local needs rather than anyone’s needs then it’s important they lobby their parish and town councillors and make their views known.

Those who were sceptical about the motion tended to be so on grounds of ‘realism’. They pointed out that Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) rather than the council now own all the social housing in west Cornwall. Apparently, if the council tries to be too strict the RSLs can ignore them, and thus the council could lose its right to make allocations entirely (Mark Kaczmarek - Ind).

If that’s the case (and if so it’s evidence of the way local government has been emasculated by the outsourcing of services since the 1980s) then it also reminds us of the constraints imposed by central government. Armand Toms (Con) claimed it was central guidance that prevented local authorities giving priority to those with local connections in every case.

At the end of the day the motion was supported fairly convincingly by 50 to 32 with 19 abstentions (including all the Cabinet members who will in any case make the final decision). It may make no difference at all at the end of the day. But it was an opportunity for councillors to make the Cabinet aware they supported the principle of local homes for local people.

While the arguments were in general well put during the debate some points that might have been made weren’t. The proposers for example pointed out how in the current system increased demand for affordable homes could be deliberately funnelled by developers towards ‘attractive places’. However, isn’t it just as likely that social housing will be concentrated in the ‘less attractive places’ and those in need directed there? This would reserve the ‘attractive places’ for unaffordable housing and the better-off.

And where was the green dimension? There was some mention of community sustainability but not environmental sustainability. One or two councillors (Bert Biscoe and Nathan Bale) rightly mentioned the costs involved, both financial and social in housing people miles away from their own communities and families. Yet what about the environmental costs, as they’re forced to travel further to work or to visit relatives back home? Strange how the ‘green Cornwall’ agenda mysteriously evaporates when planning, housing and economic issues are up for discussion.

Is Cornwall at the heart of Government?

During the election the Tories argued that Cornwall needed MPs ‘at the heart of government’. In their wisdom the electors bought this and voted in three Conservative MPs. But halleluiah; we don’t just have these three at ‘the heart of government’ but all six ConLibs. Indeed, our representatives have gone from standing outside in the cold banging on the window to being very snug and warm inside.

Given this new situation we might expect our MPs to have hit the ground running in the first two weeks of Parliament. Especially as the three Lib Dems came up with their Programme for Cornwall on May 17th and later called for cross-parliamentary support for it from their Tory colleagues. The six days of debate on the Queens Speech, during which 264 of the 650 MPs spoke, should have been the perfect opportunity to get in there and make an early pitch for this programme.

On 27th May the Commons debated rural affairs and green issues, which happens to be the number one priority of the Programme for Cornwall. Unfortunately, no Cornish MP spoke. On 2nd June the subject was education and health. A funding formula review is number 4 on the Programme for Cornwall. But no Cornish MP was involved. Ah, 7th June saw constitutional and home affairs being debated. Here at last, given that the second demand of the Programme for Cornwall is a Cornish Assembly, was the chance to put down a marker. But no. Sadly, no Cornish MP was called to speak.

Finally, on the last day of debate – 8th June – Steve Gilbert was called and made his maiden speech. Maiden speeches are part of the quaint antiquated ritual that passes for politics in Britain, short formulaic speeches that pay tribute to previous incumbents, say something nice about the MP’s constituency and maybe set out their beliefs in general terms.

All this Steve Gilbert did. He mentioned high water bills, low paid seasonal jobs and unaffordable housing. He hoped these would be tackled by the ‘principles that underpin the Government’s agenda’, i.e. ‘freedom, fairness and responsibility’. He claimed rather enthusiastically that the Government’s values were summed up in the Cornish motto ‘One and All’.

He welcomed plans to cut income tax for the poorest (but didn’t mention plans to wipe this out by making them even poorer through spending cuts). He welcomed the end of the regional spatial strategy that ‘would have led to so much of Cornwall’s countryside being concreted over’. (Though he didn’t mention that building rates may be higher than people think.) He told us he wants limits to second homes and a ‘fair funding deal for Cornwall’. He told us he was proud to be a gay, working class, state school educated man from the clay country.

But oddly, he didn’t actually mention the ‘Programme for Cornwall’ by name, despite this appearing to be the perfect opportunity to do so. Neither did he make reference to its central demands of a green Cornwall and a Cornish Assembly. Strangely, there’s no mention of this programme on the front page of his website either. Or Dan Rogerson’s. Yet both find the space to link to Nick Clegg wishing England good luck in the World Cup.

One Cornish MP involved in six days debate on the Queens Speech isn’t much of a return for all those votes. In the same debates, half of Scottish MPs spoke. In Wales, voters were pleased to see that 56 per cent of their MPs were involved. In Northern Ireland (once we ignore the five Sinn Fein MPs who abstain – not assumed to the policy of our Cornish Tories) 62 per cent of MPs had their say. Even 38 per cent of English MPs managed to get a word in but only 17 per cent of Cornish MPs. Not a brilliant start.

Of course, our new boys and girls are still waiting to be allocated offices – another quaint British parliamentary tradition that refuses to provide sufficient facilities for our democratically elected representatives. However, this hasn’t stopped other new MPs being active. But the Queens Speech was just a part of parliamentary proceedings. So perhaps our Cornish MPs were being busy elsewhere.

This is so in one case. Andrew George has managed to ask 22 written questions, make spoken contributions on five separate occasions and lead an adjournment debate on housing. In a blizzard of activity Andrew has quizzed ministers on a range of subjects including second homes, the RSS, housing, a supermarket ombudsman, the NHS, quangos and education spending among other things.

In his housing debate he made a strong speech, saying that ‘turning (Cornwall) into a developers’ paradise is not the answer’ and calling for limits on second homes. Although there was no give from the (Lib Dem) Minister on the second homes scandal. Indeed, the latter’s automatic response of ‘we need to increase supply’ (of housing) did not suggest he entirely understood Andrew’s arguments.

So full marks to Andrew George. Meanwhile, Dan Rogerson has made one short contribution - in the same housing debate, calling for more social housing. Of our Tory MPs Sarah Newton gamely tried to intervene in the same debate.


But otherwise nothing. Indeed, it might be interesting to learn what the Cornish Tories think of their ConLib colleagues’ Programme for Cornwall. On her website Sarah lists her priorities as ‘debt crisis, deep social problems and broken political system’ but is silent on the programme. Similarly, George Eustice’s last blog was 9th May. While Sheryll Murray, although promising to ‘keep up to date’, has no news since 28th April.

Perhaps our three Tories are busy lobbying ministers behind the scenes. I expect pressing Cameron to mend his first broken promise and provide a Minister for Cornwall.

Why the ConLibs are so keen on cuts

As a result of the ConLib Government’s first tranche of cuts Cornwall Council now has to find savings of £4 million. So far we don’t know what will be binned or how many jobs will be lost. And this is only the first ten per cent of the £60 billion savings the ConLibs are aiming at.

One of the debates that conveniently didn’t occur during the election was whether to reduce the public deficit through cutting government spending or through increasing taxes. All three corporate parties put their emphasis on the former even though all three refused to spell out what would be cut.

Recently Richard Lambert, Director General of the CBI, called for the public sector to bear the brunt of the cuts. Lambert, who had clearly not been listening to Osborne’s ‘we’re all in it together’ mantra (or was it a joke?) had the bare-faced cheek to couple this with demanding tax cuts for the rich. At the same time he attacked the plan to increase taxes on pensions of more than £150,000 from next April. This, according to Lambert, was a ‘deterrent to mobile talent as well as a significant disincentive to long-term saving’.

Is this the same Richard Lambert who attacks public sector pensions and berates police pensions as unsustainable? It would be interesting to know what his own pension will be. Whatever it is, it’s unlikely that the former Financial Times editor will be struggling along on a basic state pension.

While squealing like stuck pigs when faced with the very remote prospect this government might tax the rich, the CBI has the gall to demand that 80% of savings are made through spending cuts while only 20% comes from tax rises (but please not on the rich).

Lambert and his ilk need hardly worry. For Tory policy is also to reduce the deficit by a similar four to one ratio of cuts to tax rises. Their Lib Dem partners, having already feebly swallowed the first £6 billion of cuts, something they had insisted was totally unnecessary only a few days previously, seem unlikely to demur.

Yet the fact is that spending cuts hit the poor much harder than the rich as the poorest are more dependent on state provision. Professor Hills, who produced his Inequality Report earlier this year, has calculated that if the debt was reduced entirely by cuts this would leave the poorest fifth 20% worse off, but the top fifth only 1% poorer. If, on the other hand, the deficit was curbed entirely through taxation, both top and bottom fifths would be 3.4-3.7% worse off.

‘Fairness’ and being ‘all in it together’ would therefore seem to point to raising taxes rather than cutting spending. Indeed, to recover the whole £60 billion would only require raising income tax to 23% (back to what it was when the Tories were last in power in 1997) and VAT to 20.5%.

But even suggesting this modest level of tax increase is now akin to suggesting the immediate introduction of Sharia law, to be administered from Brussels, or a programme of injecting all new-born babies with anthrax, or God forbid, saving money by stopping wasteful expenditure on problem families such as the one that lives in several scattered palaces from near St James Park in London to Gloucester to Balmoral.

Why should this be so?

One reason is that all three parties long ago bought into neo-liberal voodoo economics where the public sector is automatically bad and the private sector good. Despite these policies pitching us into the current recession and inevitably lining us up for the next, politicians across the globe seem incapable of resisting its magnetic lure. Add to that a macho Dutch auction of promising cuts. Thus Clegg was flexing his muscles back in September 2009.


Although, in typical Lib Dem fashion, by June 2010 he was saying this.


Then, of course, if 18 out of 23 cabinet members are millionaires cuts become an abstract thing, of no personal consequence. Whereas tax rises ….

But there’s another reason why the corporate parties are so wedded to cuts not tax rises. And that’s because they’re being actively lobbied by some very powerful corporations that are poised to make a killing from shrinking the state. Election fever was hardly cold before a conference on ‘outsourcing’ brought together big business with a Tory minister who promised that the Tories would get private firms involved even faster than Labour did. Various companies were licking their lips at the ‘once in a generation opportunity’ presented by public spending cuts and ‘efficiency’ savings. As Richard Cousins, CE of the Compass Group put it – ‘there are opportunities out there that we intend to exploit’.

Compass, the catering giant, whose ‘foodservice solutions’ were roundly criticised by Jamie Oliver a few years back for the crap school meals they were serving up, saw pre-tax profits rise by 37% last year, to £773 million. Another participant, drooling at the prospects, was Capita, the UK’s leading outsourcing company. Capita proudly claims that outsourcing will deliver ‘measurable benefits to our clients’. Yet it’s more coy about the measurable benefits it will also bring to its profit and loss account and its shareholders, the real bottom line for any corporation in our economy.

A third of Capita’s business comes directly from central and local government with another 11% from education. Its pre tax profits last year rose by 15% but a bonanza looks to be in the offing, courtesy of government policy. The other players included Serco, profits up by 30%, Balfour Beatty (a slight fall in its £267 million profits) and its competitor Babcock, a company with interests in defence contracting, transport and nuclear energy. Babcock’s pre-tax profits rose 21% in 2009-10.

Oddly, despite the squeals from the CBI, the combined tax payments of these five corporate giants last year rose by 8%, compared with a combined rise in profits of 23%. Plenty of leeway for a modest rise in their contribution to solving ‘our’ financial crisis therefore.

King Canute alive and well at Cornwall Council

Back in May Cornwall Council proudly unveiled its new solar panels on the roof of County (sic) Hall. One hundred and thirty gleaming panels will reduce the Council’s carbon footprint. All well and good. This was reported by the Western Boring Views as 'Cornwall Goes Green', perhaps a slight case of over-excitement.

The Council points out that the installation could produce 20,000 KWh of energy a year.


Hold on though. Let’s roll that back again. How many houses? ‘Five large houses’. Doesn’t sound too many.

Let’s assume five ‘large’ houses equals ten ‘ordinary’ houses. In 2008-09 1,883 new houses were completed in Cornwall. So these solar panels will save the equivalent of just two days building as the great sale of Cornwall goes on.

Turning a blind eye to the great sale of Cornwall

Nice to see at least one Cornwall Councillor prepared to defend the council’s growth policy. I’m re-posting Councillor Folkes’ comment on my last blog here …

You are right to be concerned, but there are a number of reasons why your fears might not be realised.
First, the 1200 target is a target for the coming year (and likely the few years after that). But it is highly unlikely that this level will continue to be needed by local people for as long as 20 years.
Second, the 40% figure is the minimum for the eight largest towns. In other areas the minimum figure is 50%. Also, this is a minimum and many developments (including any outside development boundaries - which should be very few) will be as high as 100%.
In summary - yes, there will be more house building. We hope that the number of affordable homes will be at least 50% overall. Crucially, any scheme needs local community support and the affordable homes need, wherever possible, to be for local people and essential workers. And so the number of new houses being built in Cornwall overall should be far fewer than the RSS demanded.

Alex’s claims there will be ‘far fewer’ houses built than the 68,200 ‘bonkers’ target of the now vanished Regional Spatial Strategy. However, I only wish I could be as supremely relaxed as the Lib Dem councillor for Lanson Central is. If this is representative of the general view of the Cornish ConLib political elite then I suggest we need to be very worried indeed about this astounding complacency.

Let’s look at Alex’s points in a bit more detail.

First, is it really so unlikely that 1,200 affordable homes a year will be needed for the next 20 years? Admittedly, the Planning Policy Advisory Panel’s affordable homes paper is a little vague on the timescale for their target. But note two things. On page 157 it talks about a ‘10 year quota’ which suggests more than ‘a few years’. And it concludes that the affordable need is not actually 1,200, but 1,728 a year (pp.157-58). This is the ‘net annual affordable housing requirement’. This implies at least 17,280 are required over the next 10 years just to catch up. And that doesn’t include unaffordable housing.

Second, Alex continues to confuse affordable housing with local needs housing. Read the CoSERG paper. These are not the same. If we were really just building for ‘local’ needs than the required number of houses would be far fewer. In fact two thirds of affordable houses are needed to accommodate high levels of in-migration.

Third, what makes Cllr Folkes think this demand to come and live in Cornwall (either in ‘affordable’ or ‘unaffordable’ houses) is going to decline in the near future? Since 1961 Cornwall’s population has grown by around 10% a decade. There is no sign yet that this rate of increase is slowing. If it carries on we’ll more than double the current numbers living here by the end of the century. The population of Lanson, just 4,500 in 1961, will be somewhere in the region of 22,000 by 2099. Is this what we want?

Clearly, such a rate of growth is unsustainable. But, even if we believe Cornwall has yet to reach its optimum population capacity (and what is that?) then can we be so blithely confident that growth will slow down of its own accord? What’s going to happen to change it? Do we do nothing, leave it to the market and wait until Cornwall becomes so similar to the south east of England that no-one wants to move here any more?

Tinkering with the proportion of affordable houses or reducing the number of empty properties is about as much use as rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. As long as the current migration level is unabated and planners plan to accommodate it we will face high numbers of new houses well into the foreseeable future. Business as usual and leaving it to the market is simply not good enough. Much more radical action is required to reduce not just migration but the causes of migration. This needs thinking afresh about that whole constellation of policy assumptions that lock us into this growth spiral.

Meanwhile, at the next Cornwall Council planning meetings councillors will face applications for
- 5 holiday apartments at Mawgan Porth
- 8 affordable houses at Trelights
- 12 houses (10 affordable) at Credda, St Austell
- 25 more Wainhomes houses at Carclaze Rd, St Austell
- 25 houses (12 affordable) at Bugle
- and 119 holiday homes at Carbis Bay

At the last planning meetings for which minutes are available permission was given
- to Wainhomes to build 58 houses (half affordable) at Trispen
- to Midas and TaylorWimpey to build 48 open market houses at Duporth
- for 6 affordable homes at Fowey
- and 83 units (22 affordable) at Wadebridge.

Oh, almost forgot. And there’s also plans in the pipeline for another 450 houses (and maybe a supermarket) at Liskeard. The planning committees meet roughly once every three weeks. And so the show goes on. And on. And on.

Bonkers housing targets are dead! Long live bonkers housing targets!

One of the first actions of the new ConLib government was to abolish the detested Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS). This was the plan that was widely seen as ratcheting up an already unsustainable population growth rate. It forced Cornwall’s local government to allow the building of 68,200 houses over the 20 years from 2006-2026. This is to ‘accommodate’ a flight from the south east of England that will lead to over 1.2 million people fighting for space in Cornwall within a century. Or more than twice the current number.

Almost simultaneously, we’ve seen a new policy on affordable housing unveiled at Cornwall Council. This increased the proportion of affordable (that is rented and part rented/party owned) houses to be built in Cornwall. There was much joy and celebration over these two events. Many assumed they will both reduce the number of new houses to a more sensible level and increase the proportion that goes to local people.

However, the small print of the affordable housing paper concludes that 1,700 affordable homes are needed every year. As I’ve pointed out this equates to 34,000 over a 20 year period. The authors of the report admit this level of affordable housing provision is unattainable and opt for a target of 1,200 a year. Now bear with me as more numbers are coming. If we assume 40% of houses are ‘affordable’ then the other 60% of unaffordable houses have to be added in. The implication is that we will be building 60,000 houses (24,000 affordable and 36,000 unaffordable) in the next 20 years. But hold on; this is only 8,000 short of the reviled RSS ‘bonkers’ target.

How come? The reason is simple.

An ‘affordable home’ is not the same as a ‘local needs home’.

Far from it. A report from CoSERG provides the details so I won’t bore you further with them here. But their conclusion is that over 20 years in order to meet local demand we would need not 24,000 affordable homes but 9,000 maximum (and this doesn’t include transforming second and investment properties into permanent residences). The implication is that the ‘need’ as defined by Cornwall Council’s paper is 38% local and 62% non-local.

Which leads to the second conclusion.

The majority of both affordable and unaffordable housing is required to accommodate in-migration.

Increasing the number of affordable homes in the absence of a sustainable population strategy makes not one iota of difference to the unsustainability that is haunting Cornwall’s future. The result of building affordable housing is the same as building unaffordable housing – unsustainable population growth.

The problem is much more serious and demands more fundamental solutions than merely abolishing the RSS or increasing the numbers of affordable homes. The question is whether our political leaders and policy-makers can come up with the radical policies and the innovative policy-contexts that are clearly required to tackle this ongoing issue.

During the election George Eustice, now Tory MP for Camborne-Redruth, was fond of slating the RSS as a ‘bonkers’ target. The RSS targets have gone. But they were derived from a bonkers market system. If George leaves the market untouched then, as we see above, very similar targets will re-surface. As long as we accommodate in-migration and treat the issue of planning as ‘technical’ rather than political we are doomed to go on suffering hyper-growth.

Now the RSS has gone we need to turn from sloganising to proposing practical solutions. What suggestions do our ConLib MPs and the Con/Ind Cornwall Council have for moving us away from blind reliance on unsustainable and ultimately disastrous growth at all costs towards a sustainable population and a green peninsula?

Flagging up football nationalism

I’ve tried to ignore the gathering storm clouds. I’ve buried my head in the sand and thought about other things as the clamour mounts. However, I can desist no longer. It’s distasteful to many I know, but I’ll have to address the issue of the English flag.

Virtually unknown before the 1990s, any sporting occasion involving an English team, and particularly an English soccer team, is now guaranteed to produce a grand unfurling of the red and white cross. Even in Cornwall we see a gradual increase in the number of these flags fluttering away. I’m told there’s a veritable explosion of them up-country, towns and estates festooned in red and white as the English gear up for their ritual cyclical masochistic national humiliation.

Can’t say I’ve noticed that many in Cornwall. Not until this past week that is. Are the cars that carry them triumphantly past me all driven by temporary guests bearing gifts from the east? We’ll see what happens next week when half-term finishes. Though the flags spotted on a couple of cars parked in nearby streets and the odd one hanging from a window warn me not to get my hopes up.

So what’s wrong with this innocent pastime of flag-flying? Why does it grate on my consciousness like an old, rusty gate, squeaking on its hinges in the wind? At one level, no-one begrudges the English supporting their teams in international competitions. Even if masses of gullible supporters are led by the pied pipers of the tabloid press to ridiculously over-hype their expectations before the same tabloids lead the inevitable recriminations and self-loathing that follow losing on penalties to Germany or North Korea. Was it all because Franz Ferdinand hurt his toe (poor man) or Fabio persevered with a clearly doomed 3-4-2-1 formation? And what buffoon appointed an Italian to be in charge of an English side anyway?

If people want to spend money on tacky plastic flags or red and white condoms (made in China) than that’s their decision. But let’s get a sense of proportion about this. I have nagging doubts about all this English flag-waving. Even when it’s in England. First, there’s the wave of paranoid hysteria that automatically seems to cohere around the waving of the English flag. We’ve seen this in the reaction to idiotic stories about the police and other agencies banning people from wearing England shirts.

Somehow, a portion of the English public, presumably the same one that votes Ukip, BNP or English Democrat, seriously believes their civil liberties are in danger as the PC police bend to Islamic pressure and try to ban the dear old (well, post-1980s) flag. Or in another version, it all flows from some EU directive written by Rumpy-Pumpy and his evil friends intent on abolishing ‘England’.

This mad persecution complex fits quite neatly into a world-view that blames all our ills on immigrants/foreigners/the EU/scroungers/climate change communists/ Muslims/health and safety bureaucrats (delete inapplicable). It feeds a spiral of hysteria where banal everyday nationalism becomes vicious xenophobia. Sport is war by other means. Victory is assured. The triggers are cocked. Violence is in the air. The English were known even in the middle ages for getting drunk and resorting to brawls for little reason. Call in the psychiatrists.

In such a climate reasoned debate doesn’t get a look in. Which is why the simpering and gutless English liberals who want to ‘reclaim the flag’ from the racists are fundamentally mistaken. Sorry, but English nationalism is firmly the province of the right.


Then there’s the commercial hype. A lot of this hysteria is fanned by the frenetic sale of symbols as the supermarkets try to cash in on patriotism and made a quick buck by selling us even more useless and inane products. And given that the English make up the biggest market in the UK by far then expect a deluge of red and white products. Corporate greed feeds world cup fever and nationalist paranoia, which makes me surprised at the number of otherwise sensible commentators on the left who seem to go along with all the flag waving. Although voices of reason can still be found. Even in England.

Which brings me to the bigger issue we have in Cornwall. If the English want to support England and wave their flags in England, even if that fuels a virulent, bigoted and intolerant English nationalism, then clearly they have that right. But when convoys of cars roar down the A30 with flags fluttering then for anyone with a smidgin of knowledge of Cornish history they seem like the vanguard of a conquering horde of colonialists.

Surveys suggest that at least a third of people in Cornwall will opt for a Cornish identity rather than an English identity when forced into a choice. Others will claim to be Cornish as well as English. For those who reject an English identity all the flag waving here, in Cornwall, becomes insensitive, ignorant and thoughtless to say the least.


Or at worst it looks like downright arrogant intimidation. For those of us who don’t regard ourselves as English then this flaunts our historic and cultural oppression right in our faces. And it doesn’t feel nice.

So how best to react? One way, and a necessary one, is to attack the waving of the English flag in Cornwall head on. Like other alien invaders such as Japanese knotweed we must eradicate it by tearing it up by the roots. This is the line the Celtic League and others have taken. However, given the political and commercial interests behind the flag-waving and Cornwall’s recent demographic history, it’s unlikely to succeed easily.

Another way is to engage in direct competition, flying the Cornish flag instead of the English one. This ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ approach, while somewhat more defensive than the first, usefully reminds people that Cornishness clings on even in a sea of patriotic English hysteria. However, are there other more imaginative and subtle strategies available in addition to these?

Perhaps we should call for the flags of all the nations competing in the world cup to be flown. This way we respect all those competing and not just the English. Or, if there are Cornish people who, in the inexplicable absence of a Cornish team, want to support the English, we might suggest to them they fly both flags - Cornish and English – suggesting a more qualified support as well as being a more logical way of giving voice to their dual identities.

Personally, I shall be sticking to the Anyone But England strategy. The sooner they’re knocked out the sooner we’ll see an end to the flag-waving in Cornwall. And who knows? We might even get some decent TV coverage that concentrates on the quality of the football rather than fabulous but insubstantial dreams of nationalist glory.

Population growth: less appalling news and appalling news

The most recent estimates of population growth for the next 25 years have now been published by the Office for National Statistics. This downgrades the previous forecast that had caused some comment in the press for its projections of an overall population in the UK of 70 million. Nonetheless, the population of England alone is still forecast to rise by nine million or so, from 51.5 million in 2008 to reach 60.7 million in 2033. This is an increase of 18%.

Meanwhile, the population of Cornwall is set to grow even faster, from 531,500 in 2008 to 645,500 in 2033. This is a 21.4% increase. In England 57% of the extra numbers will come from natural increase, more births than deaths. The other 43% will be the result of net immigration. In Cornwall the natural increase is in fact a natural decrease. So 112% of our forecast growth is the result of net in-migration.

If we had a stable state economy the population would drift downwards to a more comfortable 517,300 people by 2033. But we don’t. Instead, we have an unsustainable economy locked into population growth. And the net migration is the tip of the iceberg. Over the next quarter century 421,000 people will leave Cornwall but 573,000 arrive. Many of these will of course be the same people. But the population turnover is thus potentially larger than the actual current total population.

The less appalling news is that if we project this rate forward to 2108 we can expect a population of around 1.2 million by 2108, more than double the current number. This is slightly less appalling than my previous projections of 1.3 or 1.4 million. But not by much.

The appalling news is that doubling the current population is going to impose completely unsustainable pressures on Cornwall’s environment, infrastructure, economy and culture. Population growth continues to make the ‘vision’ of a ‘green peninsula’ a hollow joke. The population capacity of Cornwall remains an issue the Cornish ConLib political elite refuse to discuss.

This unsustainable growth continues to be fuelled by various interests, ranging from the Duchy of Cornwall to local landowners; from UK-wide and international construction conglomerates to local building firms; from the banks and property developers to local estate agents, surveyors and solicitors; from regional quangos to the local networking project class; from the Department of Communities and Local Government to Cornwall Council’s planners. Like that ‘great car economy’ once lauded by Margaret Thatcher, it seems population growth is a juggernaut that we are not just incapable of dealing with but even confronting.

Parkandillack: the next incinerator location?

Can this be true? I’ve been told that sometime this week a train full of assorted big-wigs is making a trip from Fowey to Parkandillack on the freight branch from Burngullow Junction to the west of St Austell. Among the happy travellers is Lord Falmouth. And surely it couldn’t possibly be the case that joining him are representatives from Sita along with Cornwall Council planners?


Why are they perusing the line? It couldn’t be linked to the increasingly desperate search for another incinerator site for Cornwall’s waste, could it? Parkandillack, to the south west of St Dennis, has the advantage of a rail link and is less visible. The landowner also, I’m informed, happens to be Lord Falmouth’s secretive Tregothnan estate, which is always dead keen on finding profitable uses for various bits of old industrial land it owns across Cornwall.

Yet the rumours about this trip have an added twist. Fowey is on the itinerary as the deep water port was being checked out for its capacity to import waste. But from where? From other parts of Cornwall? Which doesn’t seem to make too much sense. Or from other places in the UK? Surely the St Austell district, already lumbered with eco-villages, marinas and the Eden Project, isn’t being singled out for this as well.

No doubt Sita and Cornwall Council will quickly put our minds at rest and deny this ever took place, a figment of an over-heated railway buff’s imagination.