mudhook

Liberal Democrats in Cornwall, as represented by an item on Matthew Taylor’s website, have complained that the per pupil dedicated schools grant (DSG) for 2007/08 for Cornwall is about £300 less than the average for England. Yes it is, this is true.

What the Liberal Democrats do not say is that the per pupil funding is below the average for England in eighty seven England education authorities, including Cornwall.

And what they do not say is that fourteen of those eighty seven education authorities in England have per pupil funding below the Cornwall figure.

See for yourself at this official site.

Of course MPs and local parties should speak up robustly for their area but I think it is wrong not to put the Cornwall figure in context, that is, wrong not to mention the eighty seven authorities and those fourteen. Anyone reading the Liberal Democrat comments might well mistakenly think that Cornwall was being uniquely singled out for unfair treatment in DSG education funding. The uncontexted comments will feed the nationalist victim agenda.

What the Liberal Democrats do not say either is where the money should come from to give Cornwall more (and the other below-average authorities?). They should name the authorities or services it should be taken off; or give us the location of the Liberal Democrat money tree.

Islington
As part of the Liberal Democrat education complaint, there is a comment that Islington gets more per pupil than Cornwall. Yes it does, this is true.

Islington is mentioned because of its connection with Tony Blair.

Can the difference be justified? The figures for free school meals are a handy indication of poverty. In Cornwall 11.1 percent of primary pupils and 9.8 percent of secondary pupils are eligible for free school meals; in Islington the figures are 42.8 percent and 43.0 percent (January 2005). In the county/boroughs index of multiple deprivation for 2004, the latest available, Islington is the 4th most deprived in England, Cornwall and Scilly is the 61st most deprived (rank of average ranks). That’s why the blanket funding is different and that’s what the MPs should point out.

I thought the Liberal Democrat party supported proportionate help for the poor but apparently not.

Cornwall county council is to run a capital competition which taps into people’s thoughts and feelings about where they live.

It’s called a Sense of place and all the people in the Camborne/Redruth area and in the surrounding mineral tramway villages will be able to use art, photography, or writing to express what their locality means to them. The competition covers the past and present, and stories, buildings, landscape, and people.

Get details and download entry forms at the county council’s mineral tramway page.

The county council has done well.

Its competition encourages people to celebrate their locality and to show the rest of us what is personally special about particular aspects of it. It is a local patriotism that is positive, which is inclusive of all people however they see themselves, and which all of us can enjoy and appreciate.

Everyone should warmly welcome this initiative. I’d like to see more of the same in other places in Cornwall.

There is a difficulty in any discussion of nationalism, be it English, French, Cornish, whatever: discussion tends to treat the ideology as monolithic and its advocates as part of a collective and not as diverse individuals. Cornish nationalism, like others, healthily varies, encompassing different views and approaches. This makes it difficult to generalise succinctly and to pick out the features which I think are defining, but which individual nationalists or strands may well not subscribe to. With that caveat – nationalism is not homogeneous and all the following comments should be read as about “some” not “all” people and strands - perhaps I can raise issues that I have with Cornish nationalism generally:

(1) I don’t think the right balance of difference and commonality is there; the focus seems to be on difference.

Of course some people wish to say they are Cornish, just as some people wish to say they are English or Chinese or Western European. Of course some wish to celebrate Cornish cultural particularisms – though many of these turn out to be more widespread practices than cistamar nationalism appears to know and some of the rest are, well, unimpressive, and one finds cultural particularisms all over England. Of course people in Cornwall, like people everywhere in England, wish to have a very large say in what happens in their governing. Different people in Cornwall will interpret these desires differently, and working out the differences and choosing between them is politics.

However, there is a balance to be had. It is right that individuals and groups celebrate the particularisms that they see as important to their identity. However, it is also important that this does not lead to estrangement from the generality of life throughout Britain and the range of universalisable values that make us all part of the enlightenment west. Do we not have more in common than nationalism supposes?

(2) There is too much attention on identity questions and too little on practical questions. I suggested in the post about Cornish rights: the real pro-Cornish agenda, to focus on identity issues rather than social and economic questions disfavours people in Cornwall. I strongly believe that the right to a roof over your head or local hospital services are more important than having a box to tick on a census - look at the post on petitions and which one commands most support among people in Cornwall. A house, a hospital, a school, a living wage or pension are real gains for people, a tick box or a formula is a token. Yes, one can argue for both but one should devote very much more energy into fighting for what makes everyday life better. (I shall write about formal recognition of the Cornish as a minority under the Council of Europe convention in a later post.)

(3) People here who aren’t nationalists genuinely care about Cornwall and legitimately see problems, causes, and solutions and possibilities in ways that differ from the routine nationalist ones. It is not anti-Cornish to disagree with what nationalism says. Nationalism does not have a monopoly of concern for people and life in Cornwall. It is not the only view of Cornwall, it is not the only vision.

(4) There is a victim culture: Cornish people are discriminated against, the government deliberately short changes Cornwall which does not get its fair share of public spending, and Cornish rights and true history are suppressed. Achievements in the economy are underplayed. There are indeed difficulties in Cornwall but most people find this grievance discourse to be simplified and nonsense.

(5) There is a naivety in identifying problems, attributing causes, and suggested solutions. Let me caricature this: as a general rule everything imperfect in life in Cornwall is the fault of the English and if the Cornish were allowed to get on with it all would be well; an assembly/parliament would turn Cornwall into a land flowing with milk and honey, a garden of Alcinous, just like that.

(6) The reality is that people here differ in their views about Cornwall and themselves: some people see Cornwall as an integral county of England and some as not part of England but a distinct country; and people here see themselves as English, or as Cornish, or as both, or as something else, or some other combination. I think that the only reasonable and democratic approach is to acknowledge these differences and to let everyone express his view and display the symbols of his views, flags and whatever; but nationalism offers a confused response.

Additionally, I think a large part of generalised Cornish nationalist sentiment arises not from identity issues but from the real and perceived poverty of Cornwall and a mistaken sense that Cornwall uniquely does not get a fair economic and financial deal from the British government. As people in Cornwall experience more prosperity the misperceptions of the grievance and victim agenda resonates with fewer and fewer people.

These things leave me chary of Cornish nationalism; and, indeed, of all nationalisms.

Again, Liberal Democrats are calling for council tax to be abolished and replaced with a local income tax based, they say, on ability to pay.

This latest call comes as Liberal Democrats running Cornwall county council have increased council tax by 4.99 percent, a whisker short of the capping limit.

The calls are conflating two different points about the local tax:

(1) the present arrangements for paying based on the notional value of one’s house

(2) the amount that the council plans to spend.

I am not convinced that it is fairer to disregard the capital asset of a house and focus on present income than the present reverse arrangements. The fairest system, I think, would include both.

The present system has the advantage of being transparent. One cannot hide a house. We know some people do attempt to hide their income. At present, knowing the sort of house they have, one can check what one’s neighbours are paying in council tax. Privacy about income might well mean one could not check what one’s neighbours were paying in an income-based system.

The Liberal Democrats have to argue more effectively than at present. It is unacceptable simply to say rather than to argue that an income-based system is fairer.

Furthermore, what does “ability to pay” mean? What one can afford? Who will decide what that is, people themselves or the council? And what if what people can afford does not provide enough money for the council’s spending plans? Let’s be frank: the council will not decide its budget on what people say they can afford but rather on what it thinks it should spend to provide the services it thinks are needed at the level it thinks appropriate. “Ability to pay” won’t come into it and Liberal Democrats should face this. A mantra is not the same as a practical policy.

The first year under an income-based local tax would probably see steadiness though Liberal Democrat claims of most paying less have been heavily challenged. Let us assume that it begins on the basis of genuine ability to pay. But as the tax rises – and it will rise unless central government caps councils - what people have to pay will reflect what the council wants not what people can afford, as I have suggested above.

The first issue, the cause of the present difficulties, is not the system of paying though we should look at that. It is the amount that councils are spending. Cornwall county council’s budget for 2007-2008 is £309 million.

That takes us straight into the whole question of how we pay for what we want, what we pay for collectively and what we pay for as individuals, what we see as proper to society and what to individuals and families. As Britain has become more prosperous, the debate about these questions has sharpened.

These problems are difficult to resolve, it is hard to come to a reasonable judgement. Mantras are easier.

The categorised travel expenses claimed by MPs have now been published. The five MPs for Cornwall in 2005/2006 claimed just over £60 000, but how this is made up is interesting.

The six figures refer to the claim in £ for travel by car, third party vehicles, rail, air, cycle, and other, but ony categories claimed for are given:

Colin BREED: car 4822…rail 5878

Andrew GEORGE: car 6893…rail 5735…air 3266…cycle 9…other 120

Julia GOLDSWORTHY: car 2563…3rd party 420…rail 7845…air 382

Dan ROGERSON: car 4545…rail 5256

Matthew TAYLOR: car 6733…3rd party 112…rail 4229…air 1359.

These claims are for travel in the UK on parliamentary business. Third party vehicles mean cars not owned by the MP such a taxi travel or a hired car. Other means such things as tube and bus fares.

The official figures are here.

It sounds like good news.

The review into healthcare in Cornwall (and the Isles of Scilly) was published on 30 January and gives the new primary care trust, set up in October last year, the chance to improve the NHS here significantly. One can read the report here.

An important aim is to provide as much care, routine care and procedures, as is safely possible nearer to the patient’s home. That’s really good news and reflects what people have told the trust in its public consultations. The increasing centralisation of health at Treliske (and Derriford) is to cease apparently, with money redirected over time to local NHS provision and providers. Additionally, the two hospitals in west Cornwall threatened with closure, West Cornwall at Penzance and St Michaels at Hayle, will stay open and there will be a doctor-led accident and emergency facility at Penzance.

Major and highly specialist health care will sensibly continue at the district general hospitals at Treliske, Derriford, or beyond.

The trust has recognised that there are inequalities in health among the various parts of Cornwall and will tackle them, but I’m not clear what they will actually do. It is good to read of the trust’s concern but I think these health inequalities are related to economic inequalities and reducing those are beyond the trust’s powers. A comprehensive approach to inequality is needed.

The NHS in Cornwall has an accumulated deficit of around £45 million. There is to be an extra £75 million of funds which takes the spending to £720 million a year. The trust believes this extra will help erase the deficit over time without reducing patient services. This is a turnaround as on 11 December 2006 the Guardian included the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (Treliske and the hospitals in Cornwall) among the technically bankrupt NHS services.

More good news too: a new NHS dental service is opening in Penzance for 7500 people.

It looks good for the NHS in Cornwall right now. Good intentions are here already and hopefully healthcare is going to get better. Go on, smile (but keep your powder dry).