mudhook

In the 2001 census more than sixteen percent of the population of Cornwall said that they had no religion. Some of those would be children whose parents decided for them, just as the religious believers included children whose parents decided for them. Anyway, that’s about 83 000 people in Cornwall who have no religion.

The religion question in the census was asked in a way that encouraged people to give themselves a religion and did not distinguish between a religion in which one was brought up and what one believed now: What is your religion? It would have been more neutral to ask, Have you got a religion now and if so what is it? That would have produced a more informative answer. The religion question was also juxtaposed in the census with questions about ethnicity and that juxtaposition was likely to increase the numbers ticking a Christian religion box.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) published in November this year the results of an IPSOS Mori poll. One can read it here.

This poll shows that thirty six percent subscribe to three distinct humanist beliefs as opposed to the religious counter-beliefs.

These humanist beliefs are: science rather than religion can best enable us to understand the universe; morality is grounded in human nature alone rather than religion; decisions about right and wrong should be made on what the effects and consequences are for people and society rather than on religious teachings.

Extrapolated to Cornwall, thirty six percent suggests that about 150 000 adults in Cornwall are humanists - or at any rate have a humanist outlook.

PS The Guardian daily newspaper published a poll on 23 December 2006 which showed that sixty three percent of Britons say they are not religious: that works out at about 260 000 adults in Cornwall. However, since more than half the people who called themselves Christian say they are not religious, I’m not sure what the words “religious” and “not religious” mean here.

The quick answer is No

For details read on…

Mebyon Kernow, which calls itself “the party for Cornwall,” has fought in eight of the ten general elections from 1970 to 2005. Just over two million people in Cornwall voted in those eight elections and MK won a total of 16 166 votes. Counting only the seats MK fought during those eight elections, MK’s overall share of the votes is less than two percent. In the last general election in 2005 slightly fewer than one in about sixty voters in the four seats it contested chose MK.

One in sixty.

I think that is a decisive judgement. MK does not speak for the people of Cornwall. It speaks for hardly anyone in Cornwall.

In the last county council elections in 2005 MK did not win any of the eighty two seats. Its candidates polled 9 421 votes against 289 000 for all the others. Though MK did not put up candidates in all the seats, it presumably fought where it believed its prospects were best.

Again the results show that MK speaks for only a small minority.

There are 249 council seats in the six Cornwall districts. MK holds six seats. I haven’t counted how many parish/town council seats there are - hundreds, I suppose - but MK has twenty seats on them.

By any measure, at any level, people in Cornwall do not vote for MK in any numbers. Its election results are pitiful. It is the party the voters of Cornwall have rejected.

In December 2006 an MK rally at Bodmin to celebrate the anniversary of the petition for a devolved assembly in Cornwall attracted about 100 or so people.

The final report of the Cornwall religious education survey 2004 has now been made public. It’s by Penny Jennings and one can read it here on the Cornwall Humanist website.

It analyses the views of 3826 pupils in years 9 and 10 in twenty four secondary schools in Cornwall and makes grim reading for religious believers.

For example, only 5 percent of pupils go to a church regularly; 49 percent do not believe in god and 22 percent do. Religious education is not seen as generally relevant in their lives by most pupils.

Religious education in Cornwall seems to have little or no impact upon most secondary pupils. To persist with a tried and failed subject is folly and a serious review is needed of ‘spiritual’ isssues and how we teach about religion and belief in school education. I doubt the present religiose government will do anything.

In the 2001 census 16.7 percent of people in Cornwall said that they had no religion, more than 80 000 people, including children signed up by their parents.

There is a large range in deprivation and prosperity in different parts of Cornwall. The official statistics show that some parts of Cornwall are among the poorest in England but others are prosperous. In these circumstances generalised comments are limited in usefulness.

I put below details for Cornwall of some of the measures of deprivation.

Free school meals, education spending, and housing - see separate posts.

The official indices of multiple deprivation show that Cornwall districts are not the most deprived of the districts of England. In 2004 the districts were ranked thus in deprivation order (rank of average scores):

Penwith 56th out of 354 districts in England
Kerrier 87th
Restormel 93rd
North Cornwall 106th
Carrick 149th
Caradon 157th

On the sub-ward measures of multiple deprivation the most deprived sub-ward in Cornwall is part of Penzance East ward which comes in at the 819th most deprived out of 32 482 sub-wards in England; the least deprived in Cornwall is part of Saltash Burraton ward in Caradon which ranks 30 899th. (Sub-ward is officially called super output area, SOA, in these statistics.)

In the ranking of shire counties Cornwall and the Scillies in 2004 is the second most deprived after Durham; in the ranking of counties and cities and London boroughs Cornwall is 75th out of 149 in England (rank of average scores).

In all these deprivation statistics 1st is the most deprived; the lower the rank the worst the incidence of deprivation.

PAY
Updated 11 July 2007

The annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE, ONS) for April 2006 gives the median average annual earnings of all adult fulltime workers; this is the most typical wage. In Cornwall this ranges from £17 400 in Penwith to £19 700 in Carrick (Table 7.1a, weekly averages annualised by me to the nearest £100). The Cornwall/Scilly median is £18 600.

These figures put Cornwall in the bottom part of pay leagues.

CHILDREN IN POVERTY

See the post on free school meals too.

In October 2006 the association of public health observatories (APHO) and the department of health published data about public health including the proportion of children in poverty, that is children living in low income households. These particular figure relate to 2001.

For Cornwall the figure was 19.9 percent. The district with the highest figure was Penwith at 24.8 percent. In comparison the figure for Liverpool was 45 percent and County Durham 25 percent.

Is Cornwall uniquely materially deprived in Britain? Is it at the bottom of every league? Look at these figures.

Hansard for 10 November 2005 gave figures for the proportion of pupils who are eligible for free school meals, a good measure of material deprivation.

England primary and nursery schools 16.9 percent of pupils eligible for free school meals
Cornwall primary and nursery schools 11.1 percent

England secondary schools 14.0 percent
Cornwall secondary schools 9.8 percent.

In Manchester, for example, the figures are 44 and 43 percent.

Provisional figures for 2006, which are very similar for Cornwall, are in Hansard for 4 and 12 July 2006.

There is a definition of eligibility in Hansard for 22 November 2005.