Over the last couple of days I have had a couple of discussions with some Westminster political party wannabe MPs.
My concern is to discover whether leading Westminster political party politicians in Cornwall use their positions in their parties to further Cornish issues or use Cornish issues to further their Westminster political party careers.
Facebook has a group "STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF CORNWALL NOW".
Andrew George posted in that group about the scandalous fact that "Over £100 million of covid aid has been handed out to folk who're lucky enough to have a second home in Cornwall."
Fair enough.
The problem is that George then goes on to pin the blame squarely on the Tories - when in actual fact the legislation enabling this was down to the Lib Dem/Tory coalition.
When I pointed this out he called me a liar - claiming that he opposed the legislation in many ways.
Is this using his position to further Cornish issues or using a Cornish issue to further his career - you decide.
Then hot on the heels of the Andrew George exchange I read a the article that Jayne Kirkham wrote for (I think) the West Briton and then published in the Facebook group "Cornish Politics Discussed".
In the article Jayne asks what Cornwall will get from the G7 conference scheduled for Carbis Bay later in the year. A legitimate question we might all say but she failed to make any proposal for how any of the things that she thought were deficient might have been implemented by a Labour government.
Is this using her position to further Cornish issues or using a Cornish issue to further her career - you decide.
Now Jayne is a very hard working Cornwall Councillor and I'm sure she is dedicated to improving the life of people in her division but another point emerged during our discussion on Facebook regarding her post.
Jayne recently abstained on a vote implementing an increase in the allowance paid to Cornwall Councillors.
She said that she believed:
"if we want councillors who can represent and speak for all the people of Cornwall then we need to pay something they can live on, otherwise we will end up with what we’ve got at the moment. Which is a council mainly full of retired older men who don’t have the experience of the life that many of us who live in Cornwall have. We have more men over the age of 70 on cornwall council than we do women of any age."
Despite this belief she abstained saying that now was not the right time.
The thing is when will there ever be a good time to increase Councillor allowances?
I agree wholeheartedly with Jayne's reasoning for an increase. I think (with some reservations that I explained within the Facebook discussion) it is vital that Cornwall Councillors are paid enough to allow them to spend the time to do a stellar job for the people of Cornwall rather than encouraging a lot of (certainly not all) (small c) conservatives who have enough private income to fund their hobby and delusion of grandeur to run Cornwall's local politics.
My problem is that I believe her failure to vote for the increase was more down to protecting her chances of election for her Westminster Labour party next time around. A courage of conviction for what is right for Cornwall (in my mind) means changing the demographic of the people who run Cornwall Council and increasing allowances is a good way to start this process. However, councillors who vote for allowance increases are lambasted by a lot of voters who are goaded on by the righteous hobby councillors who enough private income to do away with allowances all together.
Is this using her position to further Cornish issues or using a Cornish issue to further her career - you decide.
Andrew George may be a Liberal Democrat but he is an ex MP as such his voice counts for no more than anyone else but he still acts as if he were still an MP.
ReplyDeleteAs an MP in the coalition government he could have done more to curtail second homes but he did and still has a reputation as a fence sitter and a great exponent of hindsight in the same league as the current Labour leader.