MEBYON KERNOW’S ELECTORAL RECORD

We’re coming up to local unitary and European elections in a few weeks on 4 June and it is timely to set out the recent electoral record of the nationalist party in Cornwall, Mebyon Kernow (MK). I’ve explored in previous posts my beliefs that MK represents only a small minority among Cornwall voters and that political nationalism misreads the affection for Cornwall felt by people here; therefore I’ll largely focus this post on the electoral facts.

MK has not contested every available seat in the past and this has reduced its total vote but this partialness probably reflects its political health and estimation of its chances. It has candidates selected for every Cornwall seat for the next general election, probably in 2010.

The local elections are for a new-start unitary council of 123 seats, replacing the county council which had 82 seats and six district councils which had a total of 249 seats. The European elections are for six seats in the vast southwest constituency stretching from Land’s End to Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.

European elections
MK fought in the 1979, 1989, and 1994 European elections but those results are too distant in time to be relevant to 2009; the voting system and constituency have also changed. MK has never had an MEP.

Cornwall county council
The last elections were in 2005. MK won no seats. It did not contest every county council seat and in the the seats it contested, approximately a quarter of the total, MK got 9 percent of the votes cast (not ballots issued as in some seats voters had more than one vote). Overall MK got 9421 votes, that is 3.2 percent, of the total votes cast (not ballots issued ) in all the county council seats in which there were elections.

There are online maps of the unitary electoral divisions here.

Cornwall district councils
There were 249 district/borough councillors in the six district councils at abolition in March 2009 and MK had 9 district councillors. In the 2007 district council elections in Cornwall there were 225 seats out of the 249 for election; MK put up twenty four candidates and they polled a total of 8919 votes. Seven were elected and since then two other councillors have joined MK, making a total of nine district councillors.

Cornwall parish and town councils
There are 208 parish/town councils in Cornwall. MK has 19 councillors out of several hundred (March 2009).

Parliamentary general elections
MK has fought eight of the ten general elections between 1970 and 2005. In the 2005 general election in Cornwall MK won about one in sixty of the votes cast in the four seats it contested. MK has no MPs.

4 June
In its forty years as a political party Mebyon Kernow has so far made no discernibly consistent progress in the numbers and proportion of voters it attracts, though by and large it does better at local rather than national elections. It is a decidedly minority party. In the unitary elections for the whole county MK starts from a base of about three percent of the total (county council) votes cast, about 9 percent in the county seats it contested, and 9 (district) councillors. The new council has far fewer seats than the old county and district councils combined so MK’s likely haul is difficult to forecast but to stand still it must expect to win some. There is little chance that MK, a one-county party, will win any of the six seats in the Euro constituency which stretches surreally way, way beyond Cornwall.

Sources
Election results are published by a variety of sources including national and local newspapers, councils, and various websites. For individual parliamentary constituency results see the websites here and here.

ICELANDIC INVESTMENTS STILL HAUNT CORNWALL

The Audit Commission has now reported on local authorities and their investments in Icelandic banks: Risk and return: English local authorities and the Icelandic banks, dated 26 March 2009.

It records in Table 6 (original document page 53) the deposit of £5 million made by Cornwall county council in Landsbanki which I discussed in the post Cornwall and the Icelandic bank.

It also puts the £3 million deposited by Restormel district council in Landsbanki on 1 October 2008 in Table 3 (original document page 28), along with similarly timed deposits by eight other local authorities, and describes them as “negligently deposited” and says (in paragraph 46) “these deposits breached local treasury management policies.” Restormel already had £1 million invested, making a Restormel total of £4 million in Icelandic banks (Table 6, original document page 55).

Cornwall county council’s deposit represents seven percent of its reserves and Restormel’s two hundred percent of its (Table 6).

Informative local newspaper reports on Restormel’s investment are here (28 January 2009) and here (29 January 2009).

The new unitary Cornwall council thus starts with £9 million of deposits in problematic Icelandic bank, a miserable inheritance. As the county council and Restormel district council are abolished on 31 March, I suppose holding their Icelandic investment policies to account will slide away.

It’s still unclear how much of the £9 million will be recovered or when. Oh, with what little wisdom our world is governed.
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With what little wisdom… Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1654)

LIBDEMS FAIL CORNWALL

The new chief executive of Cornwall county and unitary councils, Kevin Lavery, has given a bleak assessment of the council’s record, referring to several official judgements on the council’s work, though he was upbeat about eventual success. From swamp to sunlit uplands, I suppose. You can read some of the outside judgements in the blog posts I have put at the end of this one. The parrot is now very pale indeed.

Note that the dismal judgements are, as I have explained in those earlier blog posts, not about Cornwall suffering from external and distant agency but about assessments of internal works.

Thus, there’s nothing surprising in Lavery’s assessment.

What is disturbing about this story is the response of David Whalley, the Liberal Democrat leader of the council. Whalley says that Lavery has highlighted what “we have known for a long time.” He went on to say that Cornwall county council “is a traditional council…resistant to change.”

He presumably means that though he and the Libdems saw the need for reform and sought it, some councillors and council workers resisted changes. Of course they did; every organisation and political party has, and needs, conservatives and reformers. It was Whalley’s job as leader to win over the traditionalists or disable their resistance and to rally the people of Cornwall to the cause of change.

The Libdem record in running the county council is at best like the curate’s egg and we now know, don’t we, that, despite some good work, they cannot deliver a twenty-first-century council and county.

The Liberal Democrat project has been weighed and found wanting. They have failed Cornwall.

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Earlier posts

One star Cornwall

Cornwall county council: the parrot is pale

Assessing Cornwall

Kevin Lavery’s speech is reported in ‘Cornwall’s troubles laid bare’ in the Western Morning News 28 January 2009

CORNWALL DOES WELL BUT LIBDEMS DO ANNUAL WHINGE

In the local government finance settlement Cornwall council has got a rise of 4.82 percent in its formula grant over last year’s grant: the 2008/09 grant figure has been adjusted to enable like-to-like comparison with next year’s. See here for an explanation of the grant and here for the 2009/10 figures.

This increase was expected as the Labour government introduced a three-year settlement last year to give councils more financial stability and to facilitate sensible planning in advance.

Cornwall’s rise is the sixth largest in percentage terms of the fifty six all-purpose authorities. It is one-and-a-half times that of the average rise for councils in England and larger than the average rise for unitary councils (with fire services). By any measure Cornwall council has done well compared to other councils. And not this year only: the council’s own 2007/08 budget book said that last year’s grant was “above the English average” (page 16).

The response of the Liberal Democrat leader of the council is an unconvincing, routine, annual complaint that the council has not received enough money. I suppose casual observers might wander off from that into the victim agenda: Cornwall short-changed, Cornwall ill-treated while the rest of England drowns in hoards of central government gold, Cornwall done down financially by London again and our services starved while others wallow in plenty.

I repeat, the reality is that Cornwall has done well compared to other councils. Just look at those figures. We should be pleased we have done so well in nationally difficult times.

CORNWALL AND THE ICELANDIC BANK

Cornwall county council has about £5 million in the troubled Icelandic bank Landsbanki and is putting a brave face on this: it is only a small part of the council’s £360 million invested money and the council has a sound policy of spreading its funds around different institutions to minimise the risk. The council’s 9 October 2008 statement is here .

The statement says that Cornwall’s investment in Landsbanki was made “in June 2008” after a “comprehensive check on the credit rating” of the bank; that is, Cornwall county council made a thorough assessment of the risk of investing in it. The council says that at that time the bank had a “high credit rating.”

This sounds most responsible.

Now read these reports which suggest that there had been warnings, including from the credit rating organisations, about the Icelandic banks for some time before June 2008 though none deals specifically with Cornwall:

Times 21 November 2007.

Financial Mail/thisismoney.co.uk 16 March 2008 (with a follow up the next week which gave the credit default swap score – the market’s view of riskiness – for Landsbanki, though credit default swap scores are volatile).

Daily Telegraph 9 October 2008.

Sky News 11 October 2008.

Note the date of the Times comment: November 2007, well before the county council’s investment. It says that Standard and Poor’s agency downgraded the outlook for Iceland from stable to negative.

Note too that the Financial Mail says of Landsbanki and Kaupthing “these banks are now seen as the most unsafe in the developed world.” Note too when it was said: 16 March 2008, several weeks before the county council invested in Landsbanki. This is especially concerning.

This month Sky News says that Fitch, a credit rating organisation, highlighted the risk of investing in Icelandic banks in April 2008; the Daily Telegraph says that some local authorities did heed warnings about investing with Icelandic banks and that Moody’s downgraded Landsbanki in February 2008 and that Standard and Poor’s had highlighted since February 2007 (sic) “a growing risk about the Icelandic banking system.” Two other financial advisory organisations warned their clients about the Icelandic banks.

Tellingly, this summer in the House of Lords Matthew Oakeshott asked about the “solvency and stability” of the Icelandic banks that were taking deposits in Britain (Lords Hansard 15 July 2008 column WA131).

In contrast, however, to these signs this report of 14 October 2008 by the Local Government Association (LGA), defending local authorities, carries a summary of the reports of the credit rating agencies about the Icelandic banks which suggests that the banks were receiving acceptable ratings, though, as I have shown, there were general warnings too. On 30 September Fitch downrated Landsbanki, which I see as an absolutely clear warning to get out unless tied in by a fixed-term arrangement.

The LGA has called for an inquiry into how the agencies gave the high ratings they did to the Icelandic banks up to a few days before the collapse. This is right; there should be an inquiry and it is in the interests of public authorities and the agencies themselves that this issue is fully explored and explained.

This is a tangled tale with apparently contrary views about the banks. To my lay eyes there were warnings and acceptable credit ratings and I would expect an expert to fathom the apparent dissonance.

The county council should now give detailed and transparent information about the exact basis for its investment in Landsbanki and here are some questions that will help sort out what happened:

1 From whom did Cornwall county council seek and receive views about Landsbanki and other banks before investing in Landsbanki in June 2008?
2 What specifically and fully were those views it received about Landsbanki?
3 Was the council aware of the warnings about Icelandic banks, including Landsbanki, before it invested in Landsbanki?
4 If so, why did it ignore them?
5 If it was not aware, why wasn’t it?
6 Did Cornwall try to withdraw its investment from Landsbanki after the bank was downrated on 30 September? If not, why not? If so, what happened?

ASSESSING CORNWALL

Another report on Cornwall county council, this from the Audit Commission. This is the comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) for 2007 and the council scores three stars and is “improving adequately.” Read it here.

Thirty seven percent of councils have more stars and seventeen percent fewer; seventy nine percent are improving better than Cornwall and none worse.
Here are two recent assessments of Cornwall county council.

Cornwall county council: the parrot is pale

One star Cornwall

None of these is excellent overall. None gets into the Vorsprung Cornwall thread. Note that these are not about Cornwall suffering from external and distant agency; these are assessments of internal works. I’m whistling to keep my spirits up.

CORNWALL COUNTY COUNCIL: THE PARROT IS PALE

How soft my posts on the shortcomings of Cornwall county council seem now that the Improvement and Development Agency (IDEA) has reported on it.

The report is here and is disturbing. Its ominous opening sentence is: “Cornwall county council is faced with a significant number of serious problems.” The report also says that the council has a “low level of self-awareness” and is unaware or in denial about the challenges it faces. That’s polite talk for they’re losing and don’t know it.

The county council, which becomes a unitary council in 2009, faces an Audit Commission comprehensive performance assessment in May/June this year and asked the IDEA to do in effect a dry run.

The main observations of the report are that collectively the county council falls short in corporate performance, that is the various parts of it do not work together as a corporate whole as well as they should; that its performance in several spheres has declined; and the obvious point that the council’s reputation depends upon its delivering its promises in its unitary proposals.

Not everything is poor, some people’s work and understanding of what needs to happen is noted very favourably.

Some of the harsh comments are:

+ The council faces service failure if it does not improve its corporate performance.

+ The council should better communicate to the people of Cornwall what the council stands for, what its overarching purpose and vision are: “there is a general perception that the council is invisible outside of county hall.”

+ The council’s ratings for services from external assessments have “slipped downwards” and the external overall assessments of the capacity to improve are too low. These are singled out: the Direction of Travel judgement of December 2006 said the council was “not improving adequately”; the judgement for children’s social care was “not improving adequately”; the council’s score for Use of Resources fell from 3 to 2 stars; and both the recent inspection reports for Supporting People in 2006 and Older People in 2007 gave only one star.

+ On the move towards a unitary council the county’s partners “are unclear about the plans and who is involved in managing the change.”

+ “Collectively there is an absence of a strong performance culture at corporate level, with the status quo being the preferred option.”

+ The council’s self-assessment suggests that it is unaware or in denial of the problems it faces

And on and on and on…

It is dismaying reading, a detailed catalogue of failure or poor performance or weaknesses over many areas with change and those keen for it stymied. I read it as a forecast that unless there is a sea change the county council will move from failure to disaster. The parrot is not dead yet but is looking very pale.

Although the report does not say so, I think it shows the ruling Liberal Democrats as a party that is letting down the people of Cornwall in county government. Let us hope that things can only get better, as they sing. The report was made in summer 2007 so perhaps since then the council is out of the slough and marching to the sunlit uplands and the delectable mountains as we speak and come the spring the Audit Commission assessment will be glowing. Yes, I hope so.

Oh, there’s one amusing comment. The council should “listen and be seen to be listening to local stakeholders.” I’m not sure what a stakeholder is; does it include members of the public in Cornwall, those people whose views the council chose not to notice in the unitary debate? Probably not.

CORNWALL: £ SIX MILLION MORE THAN EXPECTED

This follows on from this post of 7 December 2007 on next year’s formula grant for local government.

An official council paper presented recently to the county executive says candidly that the increase from central government in the formula grant over 2007-08 is “much higher than expected and sees Cornwall close to the higher end of shire county increases.” The paper goes on to point out that this means about £6.2 million more than county council budget planners predicted Cornwall would receive. The paper adds that the following two financial years to 2010-11 exceed, to a lesser degree, the county council’s predictions of funding.

This is a welcome frankness about how well Cornwall with a 8.5 percent increase has done out of the settlement and puts the earlier political wailing in context. The average increase for the shire counties is around 5.7 percent.

The paper goes on to point out that the Cornwall largess still leaves the county council with a deficit of nearly £5 million on current spending plans.This is a serious problem.

The Liberal Democrat council has made some curious spending choices in the near past and has at times appeared incoherent about its route. Can it improve? Not enough, I think, and that’s a pity because, Labour being out of the possibility of power in Cornwall at present, the alternative is the godforbid Conservatives.

I shall look at the effect of the damping mechanism on Cornwall’s funding later.

ONE-STAR CORNWALL

The annual assessment by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) of the performance of Cornwall county council’s adult social services has just given the council one star (out of a possible maximum of three) for 2007 and described its delivery of outcomes as “adequate.” Of the 150 England authorities assessed by CSCI for 2007 I count forty eight getting three stars, seventy four getting two stars, and twenty eight, including Cornwall, getting one star. Cornwall is in the bottom, ie worst, fifth group. For adult services in 2004 it got three stars, in 2005 two stars, and in 2006 one, a downhill katabasis.

The full CSCI report is here but it does not fully explain the reasons for the council’s decline in the performance ratings. The county council’s response, which strikes me as overly upbeat, is here. The prospects for improvement by the council are assessed by CSCI as “promising”. I really hope that’s a judgement that proves to be right.

Additamentum 29 January 2009

The original web address for the county council’s response has changed since I wrote the post. I have now amended it to the new web address in the post above. It is textually: ‘Cornwall County Council welcomes findings of report into its adult social care services’ 29 November 2007.

CHOREOGRAPHY

The minister responsible for local government finance in England, John Healey, said in the Commons debate on the local government finance settlement for the three years 2008/09-2010/11 that “there is a certain regular choreography about the annual settlements” (Hansard 6 December 2007, column 986). And so there is. The dissatisfied, who always far outnumber the satisfied, complain and the debate in the Commons and outside has overflowed with complaints.

Complainants grumble about the general inadequacy of the funding or the unfairness of it for their area.

Next financial year central government is giving local government in England £70.4 billion.

I cannot say whether those billions are enough to provide satisfactory services overall but those who believe it should be more do not say where any extra funds should come from. More taxes? Efficiency – which often turns out to mean fewer paperclips or sacking people or ending or curtailing services?

As for parochial complaints, Healey tellingly said, “every council regards itself as uniquely disadvantaged by central government funding decisions, and every council has a special case unique to its circumstances” (Hansard 6 December 2007, column 990). Indeed, and Cornwall fits his satire well.

On cue, Cornwall county council, has expressed disappointment at the funding saying that although central government is giving Cornwall additional money, it is not enough for the county’s pressing needs. I put below a link to a similar response from London councils. Again, I can’t say whether Cornwall and the others have a case.

Overall, the increase in funding in the formula grant (which covers revenue support grant, redistributed business rates, and the police grant) next financial year against this year averages in the inner London boroughs 2 percent; shires in the the south east, that pampered ogre of Cornish nationalist mythology, between 3.7 and 2 percent; shire counties in England 5.7 percent; and Cornwall 8.5 percent. General (not local government) inflation is about 2 to 4 percent. Whatever one might say about 2008/09 local government funding, it would not be convincing to argue that Cornwall is uniquely disadvantaged by it.

The Commons debate is here.

Details of the financial settlement from the Department for communities are here.

And here is the response of the councils in London: “London is hardest hit by ‘devastating’ three-year funding announcement.”