mudhook

Last week the Labour government and several religions in Britain put out a document, Faith in the system. This supports more tax-funded faith schools. See the document here and the launch here.

Some children are sent to different schools at age five because of their parents’ genuine or claimed religious beliefs. We are told that this segregation fosters community cohesion. This view is drivelling nonsense.

Religiously segregating people doesn’t promote social cohesion. It is divisive. You do not increase mutual understanding through segregation; you do not unite people by separating them; you do not get cohesion and integration in society by religious apartheid. Indeed, is not segregation more likely to lead to failures of understanding and to social disunity?

Cohesion and a sense of common belonging are better fostered in education by having children learn and play alongside one another every day and experience their differences and, more importantly, the many things that they share in common. That mutatis mutandis applies to the adult world too.

This week the Commission for Racial Equality, about to be subsumed in a new all-embracing commission, published a final report, A lot done, a lot to do. In that they say that “our society is fracturing” and “segregation - residentially, socially, and in the workplace - is growing.” They do not examine whether religiously segregated education places a part in that fracturing. The new commission should.

Incidentally, a recent report by Rebecca Allen and Anne West shows that faith schools in London select a disproportion of pupils from better-off homes.

The Liberal Democrats are doing the grievance thing again.

They are complaining that Cornwall does not get a fair share of central government money (the “formula grant”) for local government services in Cornwall, that Cornwall’s formula grant is less than the national average, that Islington gets more funding, and that Cornwall loses money by means of “damping.” I think Islington is mentioned because it can at a push be presented as Tony Blair territory.

First, the formula grant, simply.

This is basically what the money given by central government to local government authorities is called. It is made up of non-domestic rates (business rates) collected locally, pooled centrally, and then redistributed; the revenue support grant for such things as pay and services; and, now, a dedicated schools grant. The various amounts paid to each authority are worked out by formulas which aim to reflect the particular circumstances of the authorities taking account of levels of deprivation, number of pupils, the composition of the population, and so on. See here for details about the working out of the Cornwall grant. Housing and in effect police services are paid for by other funds. And on top of this central government money the local authority raises more money by levying a council tax.

Second, how much are we talking about?

For 2007/08 Cornwall county council gets a formula grant of £127.970 million. The district councils in Cornwall also get formula grants.

What is damping?

That formula grant of £127.970 million is after an amount is taken away from Cornwall county council’s central government funding for “damping.” This is a mechanism for redistributing money among authorities to ensure each one gets a minimum grant increase, in effect and intention a mechanism for minimising changes in grants received. This damping device strikes me as a civilised response, protecting people from a sudden and large loss of central government money. Cornwall gave up £6.7 million for damping in 2007/08. I should have thought Liberal Democrats in Cornwall would approve of the mechanism but apparently not.

Does Cornwall get less than the national average? I am unsure what this national average means since the grant to local authorities reflects their different sizes of populations, the different make-ups of their populations, and the different needs of their populations. Average is a problematic concept with so much reasonable variation. For the one aspect where average is meaningful the 2007/08 Budget Book published by Cornwall county council says on page 16 that the percentage increase in the formula grant for Cornwall for 2007/08 is “above the English average” increase: see here.

Does Islington get more than Cornwall for the formula grant? Oh yes, for 2007/08 it receives £146.776 million. Is this unfair? Well, I discussed the unfairness issue when the Cornwall Libdems complained about Islington getting a larger dedicated schools grant than Cornwall. Islington has a larger proportion of pupils on free school dinners and more measured deprivation. Again, I should have thought Liberal Democrats supported equalising help for the worst off, but again apparently not.

The Liberal Democrats in Cornwall are sounding like a party that is not in favour of redistributing wealth. Before David Cameron came along we usually called such a party Conservative.

Does Cornwall get a fair share of the money? Look at the way the grants are worked out and decide: see here. I believe it largely does; Cornwall is not bled dry by the rest of England.

For example, in the redistribution of the business rates (part of the formula grant), Cornwall receives back £102 million more than is collected from the county. This gain dwarfs the damping loss. Islington, by the way, gets back £15 million less than it collects.

Have you read about the £102 million gain for Cornwall on Liberal Democrat or nationalist websites? There’s really quite a lot of positive news for Cornwall that doesn’t get a mention on them, isn’t there?

Life’s getting better

I’ve said before that people here differ in how they see Cornwall. Some see themselves as Cornish not English and Cornwall as in sundry ways a separate country. Others see themselves as English or Cornish-and-English and Cornwall in 2007 as a county of England; there are other identities and combinations too. I’m sure most of us get on with our lives and one another and don’t fret about our identities. We are concerned with seizing life and opportunities ourselves and encouraging others to do so.

And life and opportunities are improving in Cornwall and are there for the seizing. The economy is growing, there are more jobs, British and EU funds are making a difference, Cornwall is not the worst-off place in England. In large ways and in a thousand small ways Cornwall is going forward: see the Vorsprung Cornwall posts for the latter.

Oh, of course Jerusalem is not yet. For example, housing for those starting out is a serious problem, as it is elsewhere in England; and the obvious solution of building enough housing specifically for them is costly and hampered by a variety of unconvincing objections. Many wages are debilitatingly low but objective one and convergence EU funds together building the economy are our best hope of raising them significantly.

However, overall there is very much about twenty-first century Cornwall to be upbeat about. Be of good cheer. This is the liberation of Cornwall.

Nationalist difficulties in the face of more prosperity

Faced with the demonstrable improvements in life nationalism has a problem. A common argument is that Cornwall is at the bottom of every league and suffers from deliberate neglect and unfairness by the British government and only nationalist solutions can work. This nationalist argument is falling apart. More and more people here can see with their own eyes it is not true. Cornwall is doing well as a county of England. The economic grievance agenda is looking ludicrous and surreal.

Of course, the argument that “we’re ethnically different and that’s important” still persuades some people here and I am happy for people to identify themselves as Cornish and celebrate their Cornishness. However, the vast majority of people here, whatever ethnic label they give themselves voluntarily or if asked or pressed and whatever they celebrate, are not agitated about ethnicity and genetics and happily get on with their lives and one another. It is a small minority that sweats about labels or minisculely different DNA. Most people walking down the street or drinking in the pub cannot tell who is Cornish, who is English, who is whatever; and for most people it is not an everyday concern at all.

Devastatingly for nationalism, most people are able to celebrate Cornishness without signing up to nationalist politics. The constitutional argument does not touch them; they celebrate Cornishness but do not believe Cornwall is a separate country from England and instead believe that Cornwall is and has been for centuries a county of England. Only nationalism links contemporary Cornishness with some form of Cornish political separateness.

I believe the nationalist constitutional argument, the belief that Cornwall is truly not a county but a country and the county arrangements are illegal as would be clear if only a court could be found to say so, is of interest to only a handful who look backward to a contested history.

Nationalism in fact largely stresses localism and a claimed administrative efficiency as the argument for devolution, though this apparently can incorporate the belief that using the word Cornish in front of an institution necessarily makes it work better, and the claim that Cornwall is a “Celtic nation” is still advanced as a reason for devolution.

Electoral nationalism fails

Real life gets in the way of nationalist theory. Hardly anybody votes for explicit nationalists or, as far as I can see, joins their organisations. Mebyon Kernow (MK), the largest and most public nationalist group, has made no serious electoral progress for years. The other political nationalist organisations here are distinguished for their insignificance in the lives of most people in Cornwall.

Electoral nationalism has failed.

The changing improved circumstances of real life and the failure to make headway among voters and people generally have, however, energised some on the nationalist spectrum. I shall look at these in another post.