mudhook

The proposal by Cornwall county council to replace the present county and six district councils with one unitary council has passed the first hurdle, as have fifteen other unitary proposals from elsewhere. The government has shortlisted it and now opened it to consultation with local councils and organisations and services. In July, after considering the responses, the government will decide whether to go ahead with the Cornwall unitary reorganisation. If it does go ahead, subject to parliamentary approval, there will be a changeover period with new elections in May 2008 for the new council to take over finally in April 2009.

As far as I can see there is nothing to stop the new unitary council referring to itself, informally at any rate, as an assembly. Read my earlier post about the possibility of extra powers.

Much is promised in the Cornwall unitary aims; there will be improved efficiency, services, accessibility to local council services, and responsiveness; and £15 million pa extra to spend on services (or reducing council tax).

It sounds paradisal. Oh, and the county council also says on its website, “fewer people will be working within local government” as a result of the creation of the unitary council. That means job losses, I think, which sounds hadean. As far as I can see the website doesn’t say how many.

The consultation details are here.

Mebyon Kernow (MK) is a political party I shall never vote for. I think that generally its policies are naive and unhelpful. However, it should not suffer an injustice in public funding.

The review of party funding now published as Strengthening democracy suggests that taxpayers should fund parties at the rate of fifty pence a year for every vote they got at the last general election for the British parliament - provided they won at least two seats in that election. (There are also other suggestions in the review which do not concern me here. Nor am I arguing here about the public financing of political parties, a view I agree with.)

If we are to use tax money to fund political parties I am sure the review has it right in using votes received as a criterion. This rewards endeavour and success, encourages the new and others trying to break into parliament, and helps those whose popularity has put them there already. It incentivises parties to engage more energetically with people so that they will vote for them. It diminishes to an extent the notion of wasted votes. It strikes me as the fairest way of distributing taxpayers’ money to parties.

However, I think the second criterion of the review – winning two seats – is unfair. It is under this criterion that MK would fail to receive public funding which I think is unfair.

The two-seat criterion merely rewards the presently successful, and does not help those attempting to break into parliament. I think the effect is likely to be to restrict competition to among the present parties in parliament and give them public money to maintain their positions and help keep out other competitors. Yet the case for public finance is that it in our interests in a democracy to have parties compete for votes in terms of their values and policies more than their purses, to have an open market of competing ideas; and that means in 2007 helping parties to be financially able to campaign for their policies. The two-seat criterion further disadvantages parties like MK by giving its opponents already in parliament more and it nothing. It is ludicrously unfair that Labour and the Conservatives, who spent about £18 million each in the last general election, should under the fifty pence suggestion get public money and MK none at all. The review’s two-seat proposals mean that those who vote for MK would find their tax money was used to finance other parties they did not vote for but not MK which they did vote for.

We should encourage the new in politics as we do in industry and commerce: let the clash of ideas in the marketplace of politics help voters decide. But we have to give every party as fair a chance of competing as possible.

The basis of funding should be committed taking part not winning, participation not present success. This votes-only criterion would not encourage people and groups to stand for election merely in order to get money through the taxpayers’ fifty pence. Winning a hundred votes would give you £50 a year for about four years, not enough to cover a lost deposit.

Of course these more open criteria would mean public money for the BNP (about £96 000 a year based on 2005, I think) for example. I do like this but so be it. If people vote for them there simply is not a case against their getting money; parties would not be getting public money on the basis of their values and policies but of their votes.

The two-seat criterion creates an injustice for MK. On the basis of the 2005 general election MK would get about £1800 a year. And indeed it should. I still shan’t vote for it.

Cars used to be the chief villain of the environmental religion; now it’s planes. The Independent for 17 March 2007 had an article, ‘The battle of Newquay’ by Jonathan Brown and Ian Herbert, which reported an argument by some greens that BA should not go ahead with its daily return air service between London Gatwick and Newquay, due to begin on 20 March, because there is already a London Stansted/Newquay service and that trains and cars are less polluting and the price is similar enough for all three.

I don’t see this persuading many people. The air journey is faster, even adding on the time getting from the airport into London, and physically and emotionally pleasanter, much less of a strain. I’d like to see Newquay airport develop with more flights not fewer as this airport helps the Cornwall economy and thus people in Cornwall.

However, as Greenpeace offered to exchange air tickets for the Newquay flights for train tickets, we can see, can’t we, how green people are. The Western Morning News reported on 21 March that when the first flight took off from Newquay nobody took up the offer. It didn’t help that first one would have to catch a bus from Newquay to Par as the train line was out of action at present for engineering work.

On 17 March, too, there was a positive article in the Guardian, ‘£25 fridge gadget that could slash greenhouse emissions ‘ by David Adam. This is about a black wax device that reacts to the temperature of the food not the air in the fridge and thus the fridge uses less energy. If it was fitted to all fridges and freezers in Britain it could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by two million tonnes a year.

Now this I do see people and manufacturers taking up.

It seems to me that people are willing to be green, to cut back on damage to the Earth, but to an extent. It is going to be hard to persuade people, including me, to adopt less polluting forms of travel - and there’s a dispute about which pollutes more and less per head - and only hefty financial penalties and incentives are likely to persuade. But things like the black wax, and energy-saving light bulbs, are more accessible and less costly of time and money and comfort and thus more likely to be taken up.

The dust and heat are over. The loving cup has come and gone on its tour of England: see my post of March 1. The Western Morning News said about forty people demonstrated in Truro against it. That’s not many at all but it was a Monday morning.

The demonstration (and its preparation) will have helped the nationalist cause by being peaceful and visible - the Piran flag is readily recognised in Cornwall as the national or county flag, depending on one’s view, and I think, like the England one, it’s an attractive and noticeable flag. The demonstration will have reminded some people that they are nationalists. The Cornwall branch of the Celtic League and the Cornish Stannary Parliament, which appear to have taken the lead in this, will probably have had increases in their memberships.

Those of us who think Cornwall is an integral county of England and the flag and other symbols of England can be displayed in Cornwall have upheld that. It’s democracy.

This is a battle that should be fought politically and intellectually. Both sides want what they see as the best for the people of Cornwall. There should be explicit acceptance by everyone that the two views of Cornwall (put very roughly, a county or a country) are held sincerely and both are legitimate. They can be argued for and against with vigour but no one should be silenced, no one put down as anti-Cornish, no emblems barred - the decision to ‘unban’ the Piran flag is welcome.

Eventually, we shall have to decide what we want Cornwall to be; indeed, what we want England to be. For the moment we can all celebrate life in Cornwall while arguing as courteously and persuasively as we can. Let a thousand flowers bloom and schools of thought contend.

On 19 March the House of Commons voted for the regulations outlawing sexual orientation discrimination by 310-100; on 21 March the House of Lords rejected a fatal amendment by 168-122 and then agreed the regulations.

On 19 March Julia Goldsworthy (Liberal Democrat MP for Falmouth and Camborne) voted for the regulations, Colin Breed (Liberal Democrat MP for SE Cornwall) voted against them. The other three Cornwall MPs were absent or abstained (it isn’t possible to tell which from parliamentary publications).

See Hansard: Commons 19 March column 647, Lords 21 March column 1289.

THIS IS THE ORIGINAL POST DATED 9 MARCH 2007
On 7 March 2007 the department for communities published the Sexual Orientation Regulations which outlaw discrimination against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in the provision of goods and services. They come into effect on 30 April unless voted down.

The excellent aspect is that religions have not been exempted as they demanded. Remember the arguments about a Catholic adoption society.The National Secular Society website quotes Ruth Kelly, the secretary for communities, saying that religious organisations that provide a public service on behalf of a public authority, will not be allowed under the Regulations to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation.

Despite the exemptions given in parts to religionists to discriminate, the Equality Act will soon be wholly in place and that is welcome progress.

Last year there was a consultation by the department for communities and local government (DCLG) on the regulations controlling the display of advertisements, which include flags. As the responses to that (now published on the DCLG website) show many people in Cornwall urged change.

The DCLG has listened to those in the consultation urging a widening of the exemption from needing permission for flag flying and has just published its impact assessment of the regulations and the changes that are to come into effect next month. These changes sensibly include removing the undemocratic and largely unenforceable requirement to get approval from the local authority before one could fly a local flag, including the Piran one. The flags that can be flown without seeking permission now include “English county and saints’ flags (where these are associated with a particular county).”

This means the Piran flag can be legally flown at will in Cornwall. Sensible, democratic, unbureaucratic. The DCLG has acted well.

…but today let me look farther away.

First, Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years imprisonment in Egypt last month. Why? Officially, for insulting Islam and the president of Egypt. What exactly did he do? He has a blog and on it he criticised the president of Egypt and what he sees as the sectarianism and sexism of the state-financed Azhar University, and criticised the attack by some Muslims on a Christian church in Alexandria. He has criticised violence and dictatorship.

Four years for free speech. Everyone who blogs or reads them should think about this. Here is a young man who is exercising freedom of thought and expression and is putting forward views that are routine in the democratic west. In any case it does not matter whether one agrees with his views or not, the issue is free speech. It is gratifying that several Muslims have bravely supported him though they disagree with his views.

We should support him. Visit the website, www.freekareem.org.

And westward, on 12 March 2007 Pete Stark, a Democrat member for California in of the house of representatives in the USA, has said he does not believe in a supreme being. He is the first American congressman to say he is a nontheist. Since religious belief, or profession of it, is commonly held to be necessary to get elected to government in America, Stark’s declaration is courageous. It will be fascinating to see whether the other rationalists in Congress come out and what happens to them.

The government has given councils the chance to suggest changes to the present arrangements for local government. Cornwall county council, controlled by Liberal Democrats, has proposed a unitary council for Cornwall, replacing the county and district councils; most of the district councils have proposed an alternative scheme.

Much play was made by the county Liberal Democrats about a Cornwall unitary council being able to draw down additional powers from the regional authorities such as the development agency and NHS boards. Cornwall Liberal Democrat MPs supported the unitary proposals and the consequent taking back of powers from regional bodies; for example here. The unitary council of these county proposals would, it seemed to some, be pretty much a regional assembly in all but name.

Mebyon Kernow said that drawing down was not on offer.

Who was right?

Now there is an item on the Mebyon Kernow website about a meeting at county hall on 9 March 2007 with a government representative. Dick Cole, the MK leader, asked him directly about the proposed unitary council drawing down extra powers. The representative said, equally directly apparently, that there was no question of it; a unitary council was just that, no extra powers were available.

That is very clear. A key plank in the Liberal Democrat unitary scheme, the very reason for it perhaps, has been blown away. Will the Liberal Democrats explain how they got it wrong or withdraw their unitary proposal which MK has said is based on a “false premise”?

However, perhaps all is not what it seems. If a unitary council were established, it would be able to press continually for additional powers. Over time it might well succeed for decentralisation looks like a trend and no present arrangement is likely to last unchanged. No extra powers are on offer now but that does not mean they will not be in the future.

MK seems to be saying, devolution and no half measures. That has clarity. But perhaps it would be wiser to accept a half measure now so that one is better placed to get more later. The Liberal Democrats might have the last laugh.

Now see this updated post of April 14.

In my local post office I saw a poster which said that every year in Cornwall £9 million of benefits are unclaimed. Most are to do with disability and incapacity, caring, and additions to pensions.

Why are these unclaimed?

If it’s down to pride, I think there is little we can do about it. It is very difficult to change people’s attitudes like this and I wonder whether it is even desirable to try.

If it’s because of ignorance or bewilderment from the complexity of the system, I think there is much we can and should do with effect.

We can contact the people who are entitled but not claiming and show them what they are missing out on, we can help them through the system – the poster does give the name of a councillor who offers to help – and nationally we can take a hard look at the complexity of the system and the disincentive relationship with pay. We’ve got it wrong if £9 million is unclaimed and we should take getting it right seriously, especially in a county where so many are poor rather than rich.

An article in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the USA shows that the ability to digest milk found among northern Europeans became dominant in that population only in the last seven thousand years. The research was done by scientists from University College, London (UCL) and Mainz University who looked in neolithic human remains for the gene that enables milk tolerance in adults.

The ability to digest milk and other dairy products is called lactase persistence or lactose tolerance and is down to an enzyme called lactase in the small intestine. Lactase breaks down lactose, the main sugar in milk, and enables it to be digested. Infants can digest milk, but in many adults the amount of lactase falls off and they become unable to handle milk. To be able to continue digesting milk people must have a variant gene which goes on producing lactase in adulthood and this is so for most people in northern Europe, the middle east, east Africa, and north America. The research suggests that the predominance of successful milk-digestion in northern Europe adults arose after the rise of dairy farming and proved evolutionarily very advantageous.

Note, about 95 percent of the White British group have the milk gene, the gene which enables lactase persistence. This means most English and Cornish people share this gene.

See PNAS USA (2007) volume 104, pages 3736-3741