mudhook

I wondered in this post why organised Cornish nationalism was not responding to Labour’s pauperisation of the poor. The government has since helped most of those affected but pro rata there are still nearly 10 000 people in Cornwall who have been only half-helped.

Consider also:

How many people in Cornwall are in fuel poverty, households where gas and electricity cost more than ten percent of income? How many people in Cornwall with low incomes are on prepayment meters which charge more for heating and cooking fuel than direct debit payments? How many, in rural places without mains gas, are paying heavily for heating oil? Of course these questions affect people all over Britain not just Cornwall and, apart from the prepayment issue, are not easily and immediately solvable by a national government without vast subsidies.

These are real life questions which affect the everyday life of too many in Cornwall. They are not remote questions, not issues in the far past, they are current, they are about real life now for people here.

Now another small entertainment. Using your knowledge, skill, and judgement, which of these do you think best represents the present overall position:

(a) Yes, organised Cornish nationalism and the Cornish nationalist websites collectively - the Cornish nationalist movement, if you will - are aroused and publicly campaigning hard on these issues, fiery with denunciation, and gung ho with ideas for remedies

or

(b) No, they’re saying nothing, zilch, nada, sod all, not a sausage.

(Of course, individual nationalists may be engaged with these issues.)

My own view is that the government should immediately urge the companies to eradicate completely the higher differential price charged to domestic customers, mainly among the poorest in our country, for prepayment meter fuel; and if urging does not speedily work, a way should be found to outlaw it.

Julia Goldsworthy, the Libdem MP for Falmouth and Camborne, recently presented a petition to parliament looking for Facebook to recognise Cornwall as a networking region (Hansard 14 May 2008, column 1510). I have no interest in the ins and outs of this and I cannot even fret about the silliness of a petition which urges a government minister to “put pressure on the owners” of a private company to reorganise its geography.

What does interest me is that in introducing the petition to the Commons Julia Goldsworthy used the c-word and called Cornwall a “county.”

Can you hear the Cornish nationalist howls? It is de rigueur among many nationalists not to refer to Cornwall as a county; they earnestly say duchy or region. It is a matter of cpc, cornat political correctness, to avoid the c-word. I am agreeably amused to hear republican nationalists deliberately call Cornwall a duchy.

Incidentally, the topic in the Commons straight after Goldsworthy’s Cornwall Facebook petition was to do with the sufferers from muscular dystrophy.

May I suggest a slight amusement? Look at the things Cornwall MPs say and see how they deal with the c-word. Do they say county or use some other word or circumlocution? Is there a pattern? Who never says county?

Some of the lowest paid people in the UK are presently worse off because the Labour budget has abolished the ten pence income tax rate, though belatedly the government is perhaps putting this right. I explain here (Soaking the poor) why I think about 48 000 are affected in Cornwall.

I’ve looked at some publicly accessible Cornish nationalist websites. Not one of those websites I’ve looked at, as far as I can see, has discussed this pauperisation of the poor in Cornwall, let alone protested it.

An odd silence.

Of course, individual nationalists may be protesting to their MP or the chancellor.

Cornish political nationalism is not a popular take on life here, it lacks credibility on the street and overall lacks success electorally. It is a nanority among the
410 000 adults in Cornwall.

Is the lack of success down to limited publicity? Does a universal darkness in the media of Cornwall bury all nationalism? If people heard, would they not accede? If they saw, would they not love?

All organised political viewpoints struggle to be heard in the local media which is, like its readers and viewers and the national media, more interested in cute babies, rabid corgis, and misdeeds.

The Mebyon Kernow party (MK) stands in general elections and that means its leaflets are sent, post free, to every elector in the constituencies where it stands. Over the past three decades that is a lot of electors and a lot of leaflets. When MK stands in local elections its leaflets are no doubt put through many letterboxes; it has a website too. I should think most people in Cornwall are aware of MK and the claims of Cornish political nationalism.

I have explained in another post, Unfair to Mebyon Kernow, that I think MK in fairness should get money for elections. A different voting system in elections might help MK (and Labour) too.

Is the nationalist failure because there is only one variety of nationalism, a lack of choice, MK, take it or leave it? No, look at the choices.

There is a strand of the Liberal Democrat party here which is…nationalist-lite is the best description I think. It cries up the claims of Cornwall as different, unique, exceptional, duchy, whatever, and always hard done by. These claims are found on websites and in leaflets and in the other media. Much of the Libdem party which does not hold the nationalism seems to share the view that Cornwall is basically hard done by and that view in itself may unintentionally feed political nationalism. It is unclear how far people voting Libdem do so because of this fuzzy nationalism; but increasingly a distance and difference is being publicly established between the Libdems and the nationalists proper; MK and the Libdems will fight one another in every seat in Cornwall in the next general election.

Additionally, there are numerous nationalist groupuscules. Remember the Monty Python satire on the Judean struggle, half a dozen people in an alphabetical soup? It might seem a little like that but I think we should look at it positively. There’s a group specialising in every cornat interest, every nook is explored, every cranny examined, every variety of nationalism is catered for. Their memberships are undeclared and that probably indicates a very, very small proportion of the adults in Cornwall.

Of course this profusion of groups might be a counterproductive embarrass de choix but I don’t think so and the different groups do not obviously contradict one another in public though even semi-formal coordinating arrangements seem nonexistent.

Cornish political nationalism does get an airing and there is ample choice of strands in it. Nowadays the net offers possibilities of publicity and there are nationalist sites about everything including the various cornat takes on history, identity, and Cornwall’s status within the UK. Nationalist claims are made on other online sites too. Several online petitions have appeared advocating explicit nationalist political and governance policies: they receive small support; often miniscule is flattery. Letters and media releases from nationalists are published.

The local papers were full of happy photographs of the recent St Piran day parades with black-and-white Cornwall flags in abundance though the sentiment there is cultural rather than strictly political nationalism; schoolchildren do not take part in political rallies and do not march with political flags but take part in displays of local patriotism and festivals found all over Britain. Nevertheless, pop cultural events like those in Padstow, Helston, and Penzance no doubt help to acquaint some people with a nationalist as well as a local sentiment. For some the popular culture shades off into political nationalism and the sense of a national Cornwall is felt keenly.

Cornish nationalism does get publicity. I think Labour and the Conservatives in Cornwall might say more than they do. It isn’t lack of publicity or monolithic choice that is keeping nationalism a minority take on life.

So what is it?

People in Cornwall, like people all over England, well understand that you can support more local decision-making and self-government without being a nationalist. They understand, what nationalism seems to have difficulty with, the struggle of central government to balance fairly the claims of all the areas and groups in England. They know you can celebrate local culture and achievements without being a nationalist. In Liberating Cornwall and other posts I have explained that the story of a Cornwall always hard done by does not match the reality on the ground.

The people in Cornwall have heard Cornish political nationalism and the vast majority of them don’t rate what they hear. They have seen and do not love. The people have spoken, the bastards.

_______________________________________________________

MK still at base camp
Does MK speak for the people of Cornwall

To see her is to love her,
And love but her for ever
- Robert Burns Bonnie Lesley

Water bills in the southwest are high compared with the rest of England and the government has been under continual pressure to get them reduced.

There is no easy way of cutting the prices charged by a private company, regulated and without competition. The regulatory system hasn’t put a stop to high bills because the company can justify them to the regulator though many customers probably think regulation ineffective in protecting their financial interests. Strengthening regulation so that it deeply cuts bills would amount to the government capping the prices charged by the private company at a level that the company considers destructive to its effective and efficient operation. No government of any party is going to do that.

The Libdems have suggested a national subsidy: our bills here are reduced by getting people in other parts to pay more than the economic cost of their water supply. I agree with an equalisation scheme but have two concerns about this.

Firstly, Libdems argue that Cornwall can run its own affairs without outside intervention. They support an assembly (though a regional English one rather than a national one, I think). Yes, the people who tell us that they want devolution in Cornwall also want people elsewhere to chip in and help to pay our bills. It is incoherent for devolutionists to ask that people in, say Northamptonshire and Cumbria, be required to subsidise private water company bills in Cornwall; or at the very least this needs more arguments than Libdems have so far presented.

Secondly and more importantly, I should like to see them take this case for higher water bills elsewhere to those who will pay more. Perhaps the people of the southeast, where they face drought, will willingly pay more so that we may pay less? Why don’t the Libdems test the waters? Let them ask and let us all see what the response is.

Labour has now come up with an answer. Phil Woolas, the minister for water bills, wonders whether compulsory water meters in the southwest would deal with the high bills. No it won’t. It would simply move around the amounts individual households pay, some paying more and some less than now. Universal metering might reduce the total amount of water used and thus the costs of the company but not by much as the infrastructure for example would be the same. The company would still have to raise virtually the same amount of total money from customers so I expect the effect on bills overall would not be significant. We need to see what the estimated effect would be.

Of course universal metering might be fairer overall than the present system though not to households with young children or sick members, but in any case it does not deal with disproportionately high water bills in the southwest.

Labour has come up with an answer that is not a solution.

The Conservatives got us into this expensive mess when they privatised water supply and sewerage. It would be good to hear some ideas from them about how we find a way through the Northwest Passage of high bills. Don’t hold your breath.

related posts

Can Cornwall’s water bills be cut? 6 June 2007

Tory water bills 6 June 2008

The steam has gone out of the online Cornish nationalist and nationalist-leaning petitions. They are receiving little support from the 420 000 adults of Cornwall.

On the petitions.pm website the one urging the prime minister to “recognise the Cornish genocide of 1549” has only fifty six signatures and ends next month. Is that a measure of how many think it was genocide and relevant in any way to life today?

One calls for an investigation into Cornwall’s “unique” constitutional status which, it claims, is an argument for the county to have more devolution. I am unsure what an “investigation” is supposed to do. Anyway, it has thirty four signatures. There is a woolliness about the petition’s desire for “a greater degree of devolution,” which means whatever you want it to.

The only one to attract more than a thousand names is that calling for a holiday on St Piran’s day. It closes this month. This marries genuine political conviction with a day off work with pay and a celebratory public holiday, formidably attractive. Even so well less than half of one percent of Cornwall’s adult population have signed up.

Over at the pledgebank site the tick box pledge looking for one thousand signatures – no Cornish tick box on the 2011 census, no completed census form – has 460 signatures and new signatures have been running at less than five a week since the autumn judging by the graph on the site. At this rate it will not meet its thousand by 2011 the site says.

The one on the petitionsonline website for a referendum on a Cornish regional assembly has 966 signatures. That’s an increase of about one a week since I last looked in July last year. Two thirds of the latest tranche of names seem from outside Cornwall.

Look at it this way. One percent, merely one percent, of Cornwall’s adult population is about 4000. None of the nationalist petitions have come anywhere near that. Online petitioning is an exhausted approach which is making Cornish nationalism look silly and is certainly revealing its lack of appeal.

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.

I shall update this post from time to time. The original post was dated 23 January 2007.

Cornish nationalists use petitions to promote their views on the political status of Cornwall and Cornish ethnicity. Here I shall try to keep an eye on what they are signing up to on the web, along with other petitions about Cornwall. Unless stated otherwise, these petitions are on the pm website. The website does not say which signatories live in Cornwall.

There are today about 410 000 adults in Cornwall.

It looks as though most online petitions about Cornish political issues do not attract many signatures and none, so far, have got more than a thousand (about 0.25 percent of the adult population of Cornwall). As a means of rallying and demonstrating support these online petitions are failures.

Ended petitions

Cornwall, the fourth nation
A petition, which ended on 20 January 2007, called for the recognition of Cornwall as the “fourth nation of Great Britain.” It got seventy three signatures, about eleven percent of them women (based on forenames).

Cornwall separate
When it ended on 15 February 2007 a petition which said the duchy of Cornwall should be “a separate state within the UK” had attracted 276 signatures, of which about a fifth are from women judging by the forenames.

Stop building unaffordable housing in Cornwall and elsewhere
This petition ended on 30 April 2007 with thirty five signatures.

Determine own government
The petition called for Cornwall to determine its own future government and ended 5 June 2007. There were eight signatures on closure.

Extant petitions
The number of signatures in mid-April, three months ago, are in parentheses.

Independent Cornwall
A petition ending on 8 January 2008 calls for “the Celtic nation of Cornwall” to be granted “independence.” On 19 July 2007 it had fifty nine signatures (50).

2011 census
On the pledgebank website there is a petition which began on 15 January 2007 and ends in 2011 saying that unless there is a tick box for Cornish ethnicity on the 2011 census the signatories will no complete the census form. The signatories’ pledge is conditional on another one thousand people signing up. At 19 July 2007 there were 393 signatories (255).

Deliberately not completing a census form is an offence here under the Census Act 1920, section 8 (1).

1549
There is a petition asking for the 1549 uprising, which the petition calls the “Cornish genocide,” to be recognised. It ends on 1 February 2008 and on 19 July 2007 it had forty six signatures (37).

5 March Bank holiday
A petition to make St Piran’s Day, 5 March, a bank holiday had 849 signatures on 19 July 2007 (762). It ends 30 January 2008.

Assembly
On the petitiononline website there is an undated petition calling for a vote in Cornwall about establishing a Cornish Assembly. At 19 July 2007 it had 931 signatures (890) and a random look in March suggested that about two-fifths of the signatories were not electors in Cornwall.

Keep and restore full facilities at Penzance and Hayle hospitals
This petition, which ends on 19 January 2008, had 213 signatures at 15 June 2007 (206).

Allow Cornwall to be known as a duchy not a county of England
This had fifteen signatures on 19 July 2007 (11), and ends on 9 August 2007.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
By way of contrast the following crossparty petition signed by more than 38 600 people was presented to the House of Commons on 29 November 2006 by Andrew George, the MP for St Ives:
“The People of West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly declare our support for the cross-party (and non-party political) campaign to oppose any plans to reduce or close hospital services at St Michael’s or Penzance; express our dismay that NHS money is being used to build up and support private hospitals while the Trust is contemplating the closure of the excellent St Michael’s Hospital; object to the waste of money on administrative gimmicks rather than frontline public services; demand an Independent Review of hospital services and for fair funding; support an increase in emergency as well as acute and diagnostic services in the West of Cornwall” (Hansard 29 November 2006 column 1184).

Perhaps we can see in the difference in the number of signatures, making every allowance for the different circumstances of collection, a comment on what the people of Cornwall are really interested in. Perhaps petitions with signatures collected on the street and so forth get a larger number of backers - though a few petitions on the website have thousands of supporters.

Incidentally, a petition to keep Cornwall “as part of England” had at closure on 24 March 2007 forty signatures.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I looked at five of the nationalist petitions which together had 360 signatories at the time. Some people are legitimately signing more than one petition; judging by identicality of names forty seven people have done this, making up between them 113 signings.

I shall update this post from time to time. The original post was dated 23 January 2007.

Cornish nationalists use petitions to promote their views on the political status of Cornwall and Cornish ethnicity. Here I shall try to keep an eye on what they are signing up to on the web, along with other petitions about Cornwall. Unless stated otherwise, these petitions are on the pm website. The website does not say which signatories live in Cornwall.

There are today about 410 000 adults in Cornwall.

It looks as though most online petitions about Cornish political issues do not attract many signatures and none, so far, have got more than a thousand (about 0.25 percent of the adult population of Cornwall). As a means of rallying and demonstrating support these online petitions are failures.

Ended petitions

Cornwall, the fourth nation
A petition, which ended on 20 January 2007, called for the recognition of Cornwall as the “fourth nation of Great Britain.” It got seventy three signatures, about eleven percent of them women (based on forenames).

Cornwall separate
When it ended on 15 February 2007 a petition which said the duchy of Cornwall should be “a separate state within the UK” had attracted 276 signatures, of which about a fifth are from women judging by the forenames.

Stop building unaffordable housing in Cornwall and elsewhere
This petition ended on 30 April 2007 with thirty five signatures.

Determine own government
The petition called for Cornwall to determine its own future government and ended 5 June 2007. There were eight signatures on closure.

Extant petitions
The increase in signature numbers since mid-April, three months ago, are in parentheses.

Independent Cornwall
A petition ending on 8 January 2008 calls for “the Celtic nation of Cornwall” to be granted “independence.” On 19 July 2007 it had fifty nine signatures (50).

2011 census
On the pledgebank website there is a petition which began on 15 January 2007 and ends in 2011 saying that unless there is a tick box for Cornish ethnicity on the 2011 census the signatories will no complete the census form. The signatories’ pledge is conditional on another one thousand people signing up. At 19 July 2007 there were 393 signatories (255).

Deliberately not completing a census form is an offence here under the Census Act 1920, section 8 (1).

1549
There is a petition asking for the 1549 uprising, which the petition calls the “Cornish genocide,” to be recognised. It ends on 1 February 2008 and on 19 July 2007 it had forty six signatures (37).

5 March Bank holiday
A petition to make St Piran’s Day, 5 March, a bank holiday had 849 signatures on 19 July 2007 (762). It ends 30 January 2008.

Assembly
On the petitiononline website there is an undated petition calling for a vote in Cornwall about establishing a Cornish Assembly. At 19 July 2007 it has 931 signatures (890) and a random look in March suggested that about two-fifths of the signatories were not electors in Cornwall.

Keep and restore full facilities at Penzance and Hayle hospitals
This petition, which ends on 19 January 2008, had 213signatures at 15 June 2007 (206).

Allow Cornwall to be known as a duchy not a county of England
This had fifteen signatures on 19 July 2007 (11), and ends on 9 August 2007.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
By way of contrast the following crossparty petition signed by more than 38 600 people was presented to the House of Commons on 29 November 2006 by Andrew George, the MP for St Ives:
“The People of West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly declare our support for the cross-party (and non-party political) campaign to oppose any plans to reduce or close hospital services at St Michael’s or Penzance; express our dismay that NHS money is being used to build up and support private hospitals while the Trust is contemplating the closure of the excellent St Michael’s Hospital; object to the waste of money on administrative gimmicks rather than frontline public services; demand an Independent Review of hospital services and for fair funding; support an increase in emergency as well as acute and diagnostic services in the West of Cornwall” (Hansard 29 November 2006 column 1184).

Perhaps we can see in the difference in the number of signatures, making every allowance for the different circumstances of collection, a comment on what the people of Cornwall are really interested in. Perhaps petitions with signatures collected on the street and so forth get a larger number of backers - though a few petitions on the website have thousands of supporters.

Incidentally, a petition to keep Cornwall “as part of England” had at closure on 24 March 2007 forty signatures.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I looked at five of the nationalist petitions which together had 360 signatories at the time. Some people are legitimately signing more than one petition; judging by identicality of names forty seven people have done this, making up between them 113 signings.

Once more there are complaints about the prices charged for the provision of water and sewerage services in Cornwall.

Now much of the westcountry has the highest water/sewage bills in England. The privatisation of water supply and sewage disposal by the Tories left us served by a monopoly with no competition and no choice for customers; that, a weak regulation scheme, stringent EU rules for a clean up of the water and our many beaches, and an energetic improvement program by the water company have kept prices high.

It is unfair on people here but could it feasibly be made fairer? Renationalisation is out as too costly and it wouldn’t necessarily reduce the price to customers but an alternative is to equalise charges across the whole country, that is across England or across England and Wales. People in Cornwall and other high-charge areas pay less, people in low-charge areas pay more.

The latest profits annual profits of the water and sewerage company, South West Water, which serves much of the westcountry not just Cornwall, were £156.8 million and these have prompted the Liberal Democrats to call again for an equalisation scheme.

I agree with equalisation; but there are some difficulties.

The Libdems make their call for an equalisation scheme here in Cornwall where bills would go down. They do not, as far as I am aware, point out to people in other places that their bills will go up. I’d like to see this equalisation argument made in those other places, and especially where there is a Libdem MP or council. I have made a similar point in the post about increasing education spending in Cornwall.

It would be interesting to make the argument in Wales also and see what people there think of having higher bills so that Cornwall and Devon (and parts of Dorset and Somerset) could have lower ones.

It is hard to tell people in areas where there are water restrictions that, nevertheless, they must pay more in order to be fair to people in the westcountry. Has anyone tried it?

For those who support Cornish nationalism, who want the constricting reins of the Westminster parliament off Cornish backs, who want Cornwall standing on its own feet, an all-England water policy is frankly incoherent, an ad hoc device to meet a local problem not part of an organised philosophy. Of course one can argue for both local devolution and subsidies from people from elsewhere; but it isn’t convincing. It looks like, Give me your money and go away. However, since Cornish economic nationalism seems to see a devolved Cornwall as another Barnett-dependency perhaps this incoherence doesn’t disturb.