how to reduce the excessive number of speculative and unaffordable houses being built in Cornwall. The way these are marketed helps to create the current high rate of population growth.
how to do our bit to encourage the transition to a decarbonised economy.
how to reduce our dangerous over-dependence on an unsustainable and damaging tourist sector.
What do the party manifestoes have to say about these issues?
Unaffordable housing
Overall, there is much bluster about affordable housing with everyone promising more of it. Strangely, this promise was also at the forefront of manifestoes in 2017 but the miracle still hasn’t happened. You might have expected this would have given the parties some food for thought and made them search for some radically new solutions. Yet, little is said about unaffordable housing or reining in the activities of developers and estate agents.
Take the Liberal Democrats. ‘No to the developers’ charter’, ‘No to concreting over Cornwall’, they breezily chirrup. This is all very well but isn’t this the same bunch who’ve been supposedly running Cornwall Council for the past four years? Years in which permission has been given to developers to build 60,000 houses in just 20 years. At least 45,000 of these will be unaffordable, even by the Government’s generous definition. This is a house building rate 50% higher than the previous 20 years and 8,000 or so higher even than the target insisted on by the Tory Government.
Full marks for a breath-taking flood of crocodile tears and sheer disingenuity. No marks for owning and apologising for the failure to do anything to stop the suburbanisation/gentrification/colonisation process steamrollering over Cornish communities. Indeed, it’s been ratcheted up during the period the Lib Dems and their Independent chums have pretended to be grasping the levers of power, levers that don’t appear to be attached to anything.
Be very afraid. They have a plan for us!
What about the Tories? Ignoring the issue of unaffordable housing, they discover a mysterious policy of dumping large affordable/social housing projects onto rural areas. Having persuaded themselves that such a policy really exists, they then promise to reverse it, with ‘small pockets’ of affordable housing sprouting all over the place, as they ‘prioritise housing for local people’. Like the Lib Dems, this is an amazing display of chutzpah. Like them, it’s also utterly lacking in any shred of credibility, as the Tories have actually been doing their best for the last decade to prioritise housing for the better-off, the Home Counties middle classes and second home buyers.
Turning from the questionably certifiable insane, we have the Labour Party who want ‘enough of the right housing in the right places’, although what exactly is ‘right’ is left undefined. In a lengthy and detailed manifesto that hardly anyone will read they do promise to change the definition of affordable, which, thanks to the Tory-Lib Dem Government if 2010-15 now means unaffordable, and ‘turbocharge social/council house provision’. Nice, but how is less clear.
The Greens focus more on the planning system and call for ‘democratic accountability’ and a more transparent process that will end ‘destructive development’ and the stitched-up deals between planners and developers. The Council, they say, should resist all building projects that do not meet environmental and carbon criteria.
MK is the only party to explicitly note the need for a ‘lower and more sustainable housing target, geared to local needs’. This will require control over planning by a ‘Cornish Assembly or parliament’. the Greens also commit themselves to a referendum on an assembly. Labour merely claims it will ‘accelerate Cornish devolution’. The Lib Dems have dropped the demand for a Cornish assembly, having miserably failed to deliver it. By ignoring it, they presumably hope the idea will quietly slink away and bury itself forever.
Decarbonisation
The Tories prefer not to utter the distasteful words ‘greenhouse gasses’ or ’carbon emissions’. Instead, they focus on the ‘madcap’ spending schemes of the Lib Dems. Still fighting their brexit campaign for all they’re worth, they highlight the biggest issue to be the continued existence of a Council office in Brussels. However, they take time out from their brexiteering to promise they will put the environment ‘at the heart of all our decision-making’. However, this seems to amount to little more than putting recycling bins in car parks (if people demand them), while working to ‘green space’, whatever that means.
The Lib Dems point proudly to the fact they are retrofitting 0.35% of our housing stock every year, while planting 100,000 trees annually. At this rate all houses will be carbon-zero by 2305! How many of the trees survive is also another matter. For instance, it looks as if almost half the young trees planted on the Tolgus ‘Boulevard’ at Redruth have given up the ghost and expired.
Tree planting and a bit of retrofitting is hardly likely to get us anywhere near being carbon zero by 2030, as they also promise. This is even less feasible as they intend to press on with their grandiose schemes for major housing settlements and new roads, without a clue as to their carbon costs.
When asked for the full carbon cost of their Langarth project the Lib Dem/Indie run Council was unable to answer
Labour even has some Cornish on its front page
Labour has a few more practical and credible suggestions to offer, such as community energy companies or encouraging the local sourcing of goods and services for example. But this is still well below what’s actually needed.
MK rather vaguely promises it will ‘promote initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions’ but doesn’t actually spell out what those initiatives might be.
The Greens also want a community energy strategy and also more generally an end to decisions that increase carbon emissions, plus the rewilding of green spaces and a prohibition on the use of dangerous herbicides by local councils.
But no party, even the Greens, dares to propose we take immediate action to fit the ‘emergency’ part of the phrase ‘climate emergency’, such as closing down the airport that the Council owns for example, or having car-free zones.
Tourism and second homes
Neither the Tories, Lib Dems, Labour nor MK explicitly mention tourism. In contrast, the Greens propose a tourist tax, a ‘small levy on accommodation booked by the 4.5 million visitors’, the money to go to create more sustainable businesses.’
One blight that tourism spawns is second homes, which hollow out our communities and have dire effects on the housing market and local services. All the parties, apart from the Tories, who make no mention of their second homes, promise to do something about this issue.
The Lib Dems are loud in their condemnation of the Tories for ‘forcing’ them to build even more houses to ’accommodate second homes’, and for allowing the owners of second homes to benefit from covid business grants. But they don’t actually tell us what they’re going to do. As they’ve used the last four years to do nothing effective to stop the spread of second homes, their castigations lack a little credibility.
The endearing old Lib Dems – still happily living in their own cloud-cuckoo land
Labour councillors have been strong on this issue. Building on that, they want to close the business rate loophole for second homes and lobby the Government for the right to charge a housing offset levy to offset the damage caused by second homes.
MK wants more planning restrictions on future second homes and local control over planning in order to stop the growth of second homes and then reverse their numbers.
The Greens want to double the council tax on second homes and go further in extending this to holiday lets.
As for Independent candidates you’ll have to ask how they intend to tackle these issues. If the two standing in my ward are any guide they won’t have much to offer other than bland promises that they can’t possibly deliver. These betray an alarming ignorance about how local government works in the over-centralised state that we’re forced to live in,
Enough said.
You’d better get a move on though. By this time tomorrow, it’ll be too late. Happy voting!
In 2008 Cornish communities were represented in local government by 331 councillors (excluding town and parish councils). In 2009, when a unitary authority was imposed, this was cut at a stroke to 123. Now, the Local Government Boundary Commission for England [sic] is proposing a further cull of Cornwall’s democratically elected representatives, to just 87. In 2008 Cornish communities were as well represented numerically as most English rural counties. If the Commission’s proposal goes through they will become among the least represented in the UK. Only nine local authorities, all big city, densely populated urban authorities, will have more residents per councillor than Cornwall. How has this amazing turnaround come about?
The Boundary Commission intends reducing democratic representation in Cornwall to the lowest levels in the UK
The Boundary Commission’s proposal to cut the number to councillors by 36 stands out as exceptional. Currently, 16 unitary authorities (including Cornwall) are under review by the Commission. In seven of these no change is being recommended to their council size. The mean reduction of councillor numbers proposed overall is 6%. The proposed reduction for Cornwall is almost five times that – an eye watering 29%. Why is Cornwall being treated so differently than everywhere else?
The Boundary Commission offers no convincing justification for this unparalleled cut in councillor numbers, one not previously experienced by any other top level local authority. Indeed, their report on Cornwall Council’s size (September 2017) is seriously flawed. Before reviewing the factors that might explain the push to de-democratise Cornwall’s communities we should briefly note the flaws in the Boundary Commission’s report. These are threefold. First, it is imprecise and based on assertions with no clear supporting evidence. Second, it is disingenuous in the way it presents the results of the consultation it carried out on council size. Third, it fails to put Cornwall in any wider context. It thus refuses to engage directly with the issue of parity or even admit that the reduction of democratic representation in Cornwall is unprecedented in the history of boundary reviews. It is difficult to escape the impression that the Commission had predetermined the council size and their report is merely a flimsy legitimation of a decision already made.
Assertions rather than evidence
The Commission’s justification for its decision to opt for a 29% reduction in the size of Cornwall Council merely states that ‘the team considers that a council size will maintain an effective representational role for members, with particular consideration given to the geography, infrastructure and electorate distribution of Cornwall, The evidence suggests that a reduction in council size would be sustainable given the level of devolution to parish and town councils, and the implementation of new governance arrangements’.
No explanation is provided for how or why Cornwall’s specific ‘geography, infrastructure and electorate distribution’ leads to its differential treatment. Indeed, its geography, infrastructure and electorate distribution is nowhere identified or compared with comparable authorities elsewhere. No evidence is presented to back up the assertion that this will be ‘sustainable’ and few details are offered concerning the devolution to parish and town councils or the revised ‘governance arrangements’. These will be dealt with further below, but this conclusion offers only a flimsy rationale for such an extraordinary reduction in councillor numbers.
Cornwall Council’s alternative case for a council of 99 elected members is peremptorily dismissed with the airy generalisation that ‘the team do not consider that an effective case has been made to support a council size of 99’. Their reasons are left unexplained, other than 99 was outside the range of 85 to 95 proposed by the Cornwall Association of Local Councils.
Dis-ingenuity
The Commission presents the results of its consultation in a vague and fundamentally disingenuous manner. It concentrates on those who ‘support a reduction’ rather than the number that favoured a reduction to 87 or fewer. Furthermore, by lumping together all 274 submissions the data are skewed towards submissions from private individuals, the only category that supports a reduction to 87 councillors.
In fact, among local authority, political groups, MPs and elected councillors only the Conservative Party and its representatives were in support of a council size of 87. Every other submission from political groups supported at least 99 councillors. The disingenuity of the Commission’s presentation is best illustrated by its table in para 8 that classes former councillor Gary King’s well-argued proposal for a small reduction to 113 councillors as ‘support for a smaller council size alternative to 87 or 99’, while its position in the table below those supporting 87 is clearly meant to imply that this group also supported the Commission’s proposed 87.
An alternative, simpler and less confusing summary of the consultation results would be along the following lines:
Council size
Political groups and institutions
Parish and Town Councils
Individuals
99 or higher
All Cornwall Councillors, the Liberal Democrats, MK and the CNP, two Community Network Panels
90
48
87 or lower
Conservative political groups and one Conservative MP
23
73
no view
Three quangos
5
4
The Commission reports that ‘parish and town councils were split’. In fact 76% of parish and town councils disagreed with the proposal for 87 councillors and called for a higher number. Bizarrely, responding to Cornwall Council’s point that ‘the majority of local councils recommended a council size higher than 87’, the Commission states that ‘the team has seen no evidence to suggest this is the case’. They obviously didn’t look too far, as Cornwall Council provided detailed responses from parish and town councils in its submission. In addition, the results of the Commission’s own consultation clearly show that only 19% of town and parish councils favoured 87 councillors.
The Commission reports that ‘local residents … largely supported a reduction to 87’. ‘Largely supported’ and similar implicit quantifications throughout its report ought to be avoided. In fact submissions from individuals broke down 60-40 in favour of the Commission. Moreover, at least eight of the 73 submissions supporting the Commission’s own position can be easily identified as active supporters, members or candidates of the Conservative Party.
Clearly, apart from the submissions from Conservatives, most of those with a working knowledge of how local government actually works were opposed, many vehemently so, to the proposal for 87 councillors. Yet all these were effectively ignored by the Commission, intent on steamrollering its preference through, despite the evidence of its own consultation.
Lack of a meaningful context
Finally, the Commission fails to set its proposal in any kind of wider context. For example, it highlights some submissions but carefully chose not to include my almost 4,000 word comparison of Cornwall’s council size with other local authorities, even though it was the only submission to explore this issue in detail, based on up-to-date data.
As a result, nowhere does it compare its treatment of Cornwall with other reviews, or compare the level of representation in Cornwall with other places. Therefore, the casual reader will have been left entirely unaware of the exceptional level of reduction it is proposing. It is significant that, in its summary of the Cornwall Council submission, the Commission fails to correct the assertion made by the Council that its proposed reduction of 19.5% was ‘comparable to other (recent) reviews’. This is not the case. The mean reduction proposed in current reviews of unitary authorities is 6%, not 19.5%. Even if we exclude the seven authorities with no change it’s still 15%. Cornwall Council’s own proposed cut was higher than the norm.
The Boundary Commission fails to point out that its proposed 29% cut is far, far higher than the mean for other authorities. Nowhere does the Commission clarify that its proposal means that Cornish communities will be by far the least well represented communities in a rural authority anywhere in the UK in quantitative terms. Nowhere does it care to mention that only a handful of urban authorities will have more people per councillor. Furthermore, nowhere does the Commission make any reference to the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. (Articles 4, 15 and 16 would appear to be directly or indirectly relevant).
Cornwall Council’s role
How committed were Cornwall Council’s senior officers and leadership to maintaining councillor numbers at their current level? The Council adopted a very strange negotiating position. By proposing 99 councillors and a reduction of 19%, it effectively ceded the argument that a reduction in council size was necessary in the first place. Instead of sticking to a more robust position of no change and forcing the Boundary Commission to make a case for a cut in more detail, it moved well over halfway towards the Commission’s position. This allowed the Commission to confuse the issue by making it a choice between two cuts. It also undercut those who argued for maintaining parity of democratic representation with other similar local authorities. Why did the Council not make more of the Durham comparison? In 2012 the Boundary Commission review of County Durham’s Unitary Authority concluded that its 126 councillors were still required in order to provide ‘efficient and convenient local government’ and rejected local calls to reduce the Council’s size to 85 members. The Boundary Commission refuses to explain why in Cornwall it’s adopted the opposite stance, with a massive reduction in democratic input apparently being necessary for ‘effective’ governance.
Cornwall Council also undermined its own argument by accepting the importance of a ‘fit’ between new ward boundaries and the Community Network Areas (CNAs). This allowed the Commission to argue that 87 provides the ‘best fit’. However, there is nothing at all sacrosanct about the boundaries of the 19 CNAs. These have no democratic role and were only created as convenient legitimation for the unitary authority in 2009. They have no historical basis. They have no cultural identities. There could as easily be 25 CNAs. Or just 10 CNAs. By fetishizing the CNAs Cornwall Council shot itself in the foot.
The Cornwall Association of Local Councils
Second, if the excessive importance given to CNAs is one strange aspect of this business, so is the stress placed by the Boundary Commission on the Cornwall Association of Local Councils (CALC). This body called for a council size of between 85 and 95 early in the consultation process. It would be interesting to know the precise political make-up of the CALC meeting that adopted this position. For the CALC appears to be entirely at variance with the councils it purports to represent, 73% of which did not agree with the proposed cut in their submissions on council size. Clearly, the Boundary Commission is grasping eagerly at the strawperson provided by the CALC. Just why so much credence is given to this unrepresentative body is unclear and again unexplained.
The ‘governance review and double devolution (+ centralisation)
Third, the Commission puts great faith in Cornwall Council’s ‘governance review’ of 2016. This will supposedly result in ‘new governance arrangements’ in 2021. Cornwall Council in March 2017 stated that it was devolving the management of over 300 public assets to parish and town councils (two thirds of these being public toilets.) However, this ‘double devolution’ has turned out to be another unfortunate accidental (or perhaps not) shot in the foot as, like the role of the CALC, the Commission seized on this to argue that fewer councillors are therefore needed at the Cornwall level.
Yet, details of these new ‘governance arrangements’ are sketchy. In addition, there appears to be devolution to parish councils on the one hand, but an increasingly centralised strategic leadership on the other, both squeezing elected members out of any meaningful role. The Commission focuses on the former but passes silently over the latter. The plan is to retain a strong ‘Leader and Cabinet’ model. In addition, there is now a ‘Leadership Board for Cornwall’, but this body will have no direct democratic input. There is also a vague promise to develop more ‘open and honest relationships’.
Is it really the case that these ‘governance arrangements’ are so spectacularly innovative as to warrant such an extraordinary cut in the democratic component of the Council? Is no other council in the UK doing anything similar? It would appear they are. Cornwall Council, in its latest update, states that ‘similar frameworks are being adopted by other councils across the UK’. If so, then why are those councils not facing similar cuts in their sizes? Moreover, if double devolution really means the devolution of power and decision-making, let alone finances, to parish and town councils then why does the vast majority of parish and town councils remain sceptical and unconvinced by the promised new arrangements? None of this looks sufficient to justify the exceptional nature of the cut in the number of elected voices at Cornwall Council. On the contrary the ‘double exclusion’ of elected members might be seen as an argument to strengthen the democratic component of the Council rather than weaken it.
The devolution deal
So we must turn to a final, less transparent, factor that needs to be factored in. Did Cornwall’s so-called ‘devolution deal’ of 2015 include an explicit or implicit agreement on the part of Cornwall Council to accept a reduction in councillor numbers? Did it also contain an overt or implied instruction to the Boundary Commission to proceed with its extreme plan for Cornwall? This might explain both the Commission’s determination to press ahead with reducing councillor numbers in the face of the evidence of its own consultation and the Council’s rapid caving in and offer to reduce councillor numbers by 19%.
The devolution deal and the mysterious ‘agreements’ that did or did not accompany it may be the smoking gun that explains this serious erosion of the democratic rights of Cornwall’s communities. If this is so, then Cornwall is being treated even more unfairly than it first appears. For, in all the other devolution deals, mainly urban areas plus Cambridgeshire, the ‘devolution deal’ requires the establishment of a new layer of government. Part of this is unelected in the shape of Combined Authorities, with representatives from existing local authorities, and part is a directly elected mayor. Cornwall is the only region not to receive an extra level of democratically elected government.
It might therefore be expected that, given the addition of a further layer of democracy in elected mayors, local government authorities in those other regions with devolution deals would be suffering an even greater reduction in their size to compensate. Not so. In fact, quite the opposite. While Cornwall’s elected representatives are being culled by 29% with no additional level of democracy put in place, first-tier local authorities in the other areas with devolution deals and elected mayors and undergoing current reviews are seeing only a mean 7% cut in councillor numbers. While the number of councillors in the two district councils in Cambridgeshire under review are being cut, the cuts are 21% and 28%. (Cambridgeshire County Council is also being cut by 12%). So even the cuts at district level are still below the proposed level for Cornwall. Cornwall is being treated even worse in this respect than lower-tier local authorities in areas which have comparable devolution deals.
Conclusion
This discriminatory treatment of Cornwall’s democratic rights has no parallel, either with comparable unitary authorities such as Durham, or with regions with devolution deals. Behind the scenes pressure from the Conservative Government after Cornwall’s devolution deal appears to explain the Boundary Commission’s determination to impose this anomalous cut in Cornwall’s elected representatives. When we consider this together with other recent developments, such as the Planning Peer Report of January 2016 and attempts to instil a ‘positive Council culture’ among councillors (meaning replacing loyalty to their electors with loyalty to the Council), or Cornwall Council’s plans to become a housing developer in order to meet its ‘target’ for unsustainable housing and population growth, the cut in councillor numbers begins to make more sense.
This unprecedented cull has to be viewed as part of a bigger project to make the local state in Cornwall more efficient by further eroding the existing limited role of elected members in its governance. It’s hardly a coincidence that such an agenda will have the effect of neutering potential future opposition to the state’s plans for Cornwall. These involve the continuation of a hyper-growth agenda that depends on relatively high in-migration, while reserving selected parts of the territory as playgrounds and gentrified environments suitable for the holiday ‘industry’ and the second ‘home’ market. The fundamental drive lying behind the ongoing attacks on what remains of Cornwall’s democracy is to ensure any community resistance to the state’s colonial project is finally quashed once and for all.
What exactly is the Local Government Boundary Commission up to? Is Cornwall being used as a pilot project to see how far they can get away with cutting back democratic representation in local government? Or is it being singled out in order to smooth the path for its ongoing transformation, as our coastal areas become a safely domesticated bolthole for the rich and our inland towns over-populated, congested rat runs?
In line with neoliberal dogma, there’s a general trend these days to prune back democratic representation in local government with fewer councillors representing more people each so maybe Cornwall is just experiencing the same change as anywhere else. The Boundary Commission’s website lists all the current boundary reviews. Cornwall is one of 16 comparable unitary authorities being reviewed. Let’s put it in context in the following table.
Current reviews
Current size
Proposed size
Change
Proposed residents per cllr
Bath & NE Somerset
65
59
– 9%
3,182
Blackburn
64
51
– 20%
2,883
Cheshire W & Chester
75
70
– 7%
4,795
Cornwall
123
87
– 29%
6,364
Croydon
70
70
n/c
5,461
Hull
59
57
– 3%
4,566
Leeds
99
99
n/c
7,896
Manchester
96
96
n/c
5,638
Newcastle
78
78
n/c
3,801
Redcar & Cleveland
59
59
n/c
2,295
Rotherham
63
59
– 6%
4,439
Rutland
26
26
n/c
1,485
South Gloucs
70
61
– 13%
4,551
Torbay
36
36
n/c
3,719
West Berks
52
43
– 17%
3,647
Windsor & Maidenhead
57
43
– 25%
3,461
As can be seen from this table, its treatment is exceptional. Seven of the unitary councils are seeing no change to their council size. The mean reduction in the other eight (excluding Cornwall) is 15%. The proposed reduction for Cornwall is almost twice that again – at an eye watering 29%. The only authorities that come anywhere close to this in terms of change are Blackburn and Windsor. But in comparison with Cornwall these are very small and their councillors will be asked to represent far fewer residents than in Cornwall. In fact, in terms of the number of residents per councillor Cornwall looks to be treated more like a densely populated urban area. Even here, only in Leeds will councillors represent more people than in Cornwall.
Cornwall’s reduced number of elected representatives will each have to represent more people than their colleagues in Manchester, Hull, Newcastle, Rotherham and Croydon. They will have to represent twice the number of people as councillors will in Bath, Blackburn or Redcar and four times the number in Rutland. Are Cornwall’s councillors particularly energetic? Are they super-human? The Boundary Commission apparently thinks so.
Is this proper? Is it fair? Is it just? We need to ask the Boundary Commission why they’re treating Cornwall so differently from everywhere else. But they’re refusing to tell us.
Following my letter to the Local Government Boundary Commission last week seeking clarification as to why Cornwall Council had been singled out for an unprecedented level of cuts in its democratic representation, today I received the following brief reply from the Commission.
Thank you for your submission. It has been received and will be considered by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. We will let you know if and when a new phase of consultation for this review opens.
I have replied as follows.
Dear …..,
I think you did not read my communication of the 27th September fully. Here it is again with the most relevant part in bold.
In relation to the above review, on your website I can find no justification for the proposed reduction of 29% in the level of democratic representation on Cornwall Council. In your letter of 13 June to the Council’s Chief Executive you merely assert that a council size of 87 is the ‘most appropriate’ but provide no rationale for this decision. Given its lack of precedent this is entirely unacceptable. Moreover, I can find no answer anywhere on your website to two key questions I posed in my original submission. I’ll restate them here.
a) Why is Cornwall being treated in such a manifestly different manner from Durham UA, the most comparable authority? in its review of Durham UA in 2012 the LGBCE concluded that 126 councillors would still be required in order to provide ‘efficient and convenient local government’. It then rejected local calls to reduce the Council’s size to 85 members. (Incidentally, this decision leaves the people of Durham, the population of which is 29,000 lower than Cornwall, with a councillor for every 4,125 inhabitants, a better level even that Cornwall’s current 4,467 and much superior to the one councillor per 6,315 being proposed by the Commission.)
b) Why is Cornwall being singled out for this unprecedented reduction in its level of democratic representation, one not seen previously anywhere in England?
Until a satisfactory response to these questions is received it would clearly be premature to discuss the technicalities of ward boundaries. Therefore I attach my previous submission about Council size, while awaiting explicit answers to the above two questions.
As you can see I would like some sort of response to these two questions from the Local Government Boundary Commission before submitting my views on ward boundaries.
Here’s a letter sent to the Local Government Boundary Commission. Until an answer to these questions is received we shouldn’t be distracted by arguing about ward boundaries.
Dear Sirs,
Electoral review of Cornwall Council
In relation to the above review, on your website I can find no justification for the proposed reduction of 29% in the level of democratic representation on Cornwall Council. In your letter of 13 June to the Council’s Chief Executive you merely assert that a council size of 87 is the ‘most appropriate’ but provide no rationale for this decision. Given its lack of precedent this is entirely unacceptable. Moreover, I can find no answer anywhere on your website to two key questions I posed in my original submission. I’ll restate them here.
a) Why is Cornwall being treated in such a manifestly different manner from Durham UA, the most comparable authority? in its review of Durham UA in 2012 the LGBCE concluded that 126 councillors would still be required in order to provide ‘efficient and convenient local government’. It then rejected local calls to reduce the Council’s size to 85 members. (Incidentally, this decision leaves the people of Durham, the population of which is 29,000 lower than Cornwall, with a councillor for every 4,125 inhabitants, a better level even that Cornwall’s current 4,467 and much superior to the one councillor per 6,315 being proposed by the Commission.)
b) Why is Cornwall being singled out for this unprecedented reduction in its level of democratic representation, one not seen previously anywhere in England?
Until a satisfactory response to these questions is received it would clearly be premature to discuss the technicalities of ward boundaries. Therefore I attach my previous submission about Council size, while awaiting explicit answers to the above two questions.
I look forward to your reply,
The level of representation proposed by the Boundary Commssion in context
It may be of limited concern to 95% of people, but the Local Government Boundary Commission is consulting on the size of Cornwall Council. Their proposal involves an unprecedented cut in the number of elected representatives and the consequent ability of communities in Cornwall to influence policy. While no-one is shedding any tears over Cornwall Council, Cornwall is again being singled out for special and unfair treatment. Here’s the start of my submission to the Boundary Commission ….
The Local Government Boundary Commission for England (LGBCE) claims on its website that it provides ‘electoral arrangements for English local authorities that are fair for voters’. They may be fair in respect of England but the proposal to cut Cornwall Council’s size from 123 to 87 councillors is patently unfair to the Cornish voter. It drastically undermines Cornwall Council’s ability to represent the interests of residents or respond to the concerns of local communities.
The LGBCE is now ‘consulting’ on the future size of Cornwall Council as part of its current boundary review. It asks for local views on its proposal to cut the number of councillors in Cornwall by 36. However, it is the LGBCE that needs to answer some important questions, not the people of Cornwall. These questions are
Why is democratic representation in Cornwall being reduced to such a level that it becomes one of the least well represented areas in the UK?
Why does the proposal for council size in this review vary so dramatically from recent reviews for similar unitary authorities and county councils?
Why did the LGBCE ignore the clear advice of the majority of representations received from Cornwall Council, the two mainstream political parties and others in the first phase of its review?
The above questions are dealt with in turn below before I conclude with some speculation on the context of this review and suggestions for change.
Hidden away in the small print of the Conservative manifesto on page 43 is a promise to get rid of the detested alternative vote used for mayoral elections and replace it with the good old, best in the world, system of first past the post. This is in addition to an explicit Tory promise to stick with FPTP for general elections and continue with the boundary review to slash the number of parliamentary seats to 600, while obliterating the odd 1,000 year old administrative boundary in the process. The Tories can now sniff the real possibility, on the back of Brexit, of reinforcing their hold on the political levers and consolidating it for the foreseeable future.
One of the less predictable results (or perhaps not) of calling a general election in the middle of local elections was a general boost in the turnout, as party loyalists woke up and hurried out to vote. Turnout rose across the UK, to the benefit of the old parties and particularly the Tories, as folk seemed under the misapprehension they were voting for that strong and stable Mother May and not some halfwit standing for the council. Cornwall was no exception. Turnout this year jumped from 32.7% in 2013 to 39.7%.
Even then, under our laughably antiquated voting system, not one councillor was elected with more than half the votes of the registered electorate. In fact only four out of 122 managed to get the support of more than one in three of their electorate. Another 18 won more than one in four. Many more – 31 – took their ward with the votes of fewer than one in seven electors. Three of these won with less than one in ten. And at Camborne Trelowarren, where only six votes separated Tory, Labour and MK, the Tory sneaked in with a massive 5.8% of the registered voters of the ward bothering to vote for him. Meanwhile, the average councillor won his or her seat with the support of just 19.9% of the electorate.
As turnout was artificially boosted this time, even this feeble level of legitimacy for our councillors was better than in 2013. Then the mean level of support was 15.3%. In that election no councillor was elected with the votes of more than a third of their electors and only six managed to secure more than a quarter. Sixty, or almost half, were elected by fewer than one in seven in their wards and 22 of those with less than 10% of registered electors.
Instead of looking to make elections more meaningful, increase involvement and reinvigorate democracy, the Tories are determined to set this voting system in concrete. In doing so they can guarantee taking us back to the future and further down the post-democratic road. In a neo-liberal economy where their chums benefit massively for asset speculation, genuine democracy has become an irrelevance. They don’t want an informed electorate – just get on with the sodding shopping and leave the decision-making to us, to the quangos, to the corporations, to the traditional ruling class, while we add a bit of condescending paternalism to keep all you plebs content.
Take back your country? You must be having a laugh.
There’s been no little panic outside the Conservative Party over the results of the local elections on May 4th. Suddenly, a Tory clean sweep in Cornwall seems very much on the cards again. But is it?
Superficially, this was a very good election for the Tories. They gained 15 seats and their mean vote rose by 7.5% over 2013. It was even a couple of points higher than in 2009, although they won four fewer seats this time than then. Moreover, as usual, their seat haul benefited from the vagaries of an unpredictable, Victorian voting system. In a proportional system they would still have gained, but got more like 38 seats rather than the 46 they ended up with.
Cornwall Council election 2017 seats under FPTP and PR (d’Hondt system)
Actual result
PR result
Con
46
38
Lib Dem
37
32
Ind
30
34
Labour
5
11
MK
4
6
Greens
0
2
That said, they scored some notable successes in areas that should be difficult territory for them. In Camborne’s five wards they won 45.6% of the vote (and four of the five seats). In the St Austell district they stole wards such as St Blazey, Par, St Stephen, Bugle and Mount Charles. This was partly due to the scattering of the opposition vote but not entirely. It seems that the more working class (and Cornish) wards in Cornwall were not immune from the brexit British nationalist dogwhistle.
Overall, Cornish voters split three ways. The Tories got 35.3% of those who voted, Liberal Democrats picked up 29.7%, while Independents and other parties got 35%. So, despite breaking through in some urban areas, the Tories were still far from securing a majority of the votes, even in this ‘landslide’ year.
The other party gaining from the first past the post electoral system was the Lib Dems. However, their vote slipped back slightly from the levels of 2013 and 2009, even though they gained one seat and now have 37 (which will probably become 38 after the Bodmin by-election in June). Their tactics of parachuting paper candidates backfired badly with many receiving a derisory vote. In contrast, the vote for sitting Lib Dem councillors with name recognition held up well. (Interestingly, this bore no discernible relationship to their actual record as councillors, which varied widely). The attraction of the party label proved to be minimal.
The Lib Dems did best in North Cornwall in terms of seats, which must buoy them up there for their general election challenge, even though the personal vote at that level is less important than locally. It remains to be seen whether they can counter the daily drip-feed Tory party political broadcast that the BBC seems to have been turned into.
You’re unlikely to have read this anywhere in the mainstream press but Labour actually performed relatively well in Cornwall when compared with its abysmal showing in 2009 and even its recovery year in 2013. Its mean vote was up a couple of points, although this wasn’t reflected in terms of seats, where it lost three and now has five. But it’s not easy to make a direct comparison with past elections as Labour contests fewer than half the seats and the geography of their contestation varies. They also had fewer paper candidates this time.
MK narrowly failed (by six votes in Camborne Trelowarren) to match Labour in terms of seats. Meanwhile, its overall mean vote fell back slightly, despite fewer candidates this time. Nevertheless, it retained its four seats (although two of them were a bit close for comfort) despite the general election effect. This latter was also visible outside Cornwall, where there was a noticeable shift in the local elections back to the old centr(al)ist parties as tribal loyalties kicked in. It was no doubt a factor in the Independents in Cornwall losing seven seats and falling back to 30.
MK’s organisational weakness became more apparent after the local elections in its inability to field a candidate in the general election. But at least it has some councillors, which can’t be said for the Greens or Ukip, which both lost their sole representatives on Cornwall Council.
The Green mean vote held up but flatlined, with no sign of any major breakthrough. The ‘surge’ in St Ives is now old history and the Greens were unable to pick up votes despite the supposed unpopularity of Labour, now in the hands of ‘marxist saboteurs’ (like Tim Dwelly and Candy Atherton?!) The real change occurred on the far right as the Ukip mean vote went into meltdown. This was clearly associated to some extent with the rise in the Tory vote. It appears that Ukip’s function turns out to have been to act as a bridge from other parties to the Tories.
Are there any lessons here for the general election? Not many. In Cornwall the share of the vote for Independents is much higher, only the Tories and Lib Dems contest all (or virtually all) seats and turnout is less than half what we can expect next month, all of which make the local elections a poor predictor of voting behaviour in the general election. However, sufficient numbers of that 35% or so who take enough interest in politics to vote in the locals were swayed by the ‘strong and stable’ mantra to give the Tories a clear lead. Therefore it looks likely that the third who only bother to turn out for a general election will be even less able to look beyond the Tory soundbites and the personality politics they thrive on. On the basis of the local results we shouldn’t write off a second Tory clean sweep in Cornwall.
Tomorrow, we’ll vote in the local elections. Or some of us. Those with postal votes will already have. Most people won’t bother. Others will vote along tribal party lines, not knowing or caring what their preferred party is actually saying about the future of Cornwall. And for the most part, they’re not saying that much. Meanwhile the majority of voters are mired in collective resignation.
Few candidates seem aware of Cornwall’s recent past
Whoever comes out of tomorrow’s elections with the largest number of councillors – Tories, Lib Dems or Independents – it matters little. We can be 100% certain that the devoloper-led coalition of chaos that drives Cornwall Council’s unsustainable growth strategy will still be in charge. The Charter for Cornwall campaign was a last-ditch effort to make the future of Cornwall an election issue. It’s fair to say it was a flop.
The Charter got the explicit support of around 250 individuals and organisations, including a handful of parish and town councils. But most parish and town councils ignored its call for a more balanced, sustainable, less developer-led strategy for Cornwall. Moreover, the hoped-for snowballing of support never really took off. Some early publicity was gained but then the announcement of a general election diverted attention from the ongoing transformation of Cornwall.
Around 75 of Cornwall’s 448 candidates at tomorrow’s election did sign up to the Charter pledges, and if you’re interested you can find out their stances here. But we might be forgiven if we ask how many seriously care about the issues of environmental degradation, unsustainable population growth or colonialism in Cornwall. By the evidence of their election leaflets not many. And of that 75, only a dozen or so took the next step and posted something on the Charter website.
Few candidates are demanding some really fair treatment for the Cornish
Moreover, 348 of the 448 candidates couldn’t even be bothered to reply to the politely worded request asking them if they supported the pledges or not. This was a level of boorish rudeness that hardly augers well for the responsiveness of the next Council. Almost 90% of Tory and Lib Dem candidates and almost 80% of Independents and Labour candidates didn’t stir themselves to respond. Around a third of Ukip candidates did, half of the Greens and almost all MK candidates.
What also struck the campaigners was the political illiteracy of many candidates, who seemed to have little clue about how the political system works, let alone grasp the current details of housing and planning policy. Early on one candidate asked if supporting the Charter would mean he was ‘being party political’. Later, it turned out he was a candidate for that apolitical organisation, the Conservative Party.
The most hostile reaction came from some Liberal Democrat candidates. Although one or two Lib Dems have an excellent record of opposing speculative housing and signed up with no qualms, others with equally sound records got extremely defensive when asked to commit themselves in future to oppose the excessive housing target they and the Government have lumbered us with. It’s clear that most Lib Dems are now lining up behind the 52,500 target. Worse, they’re refusing to commit themselves to lowering it in future, thus locking Cornwall into a spiral of unsustainable housing and population growth.
One Lib Dem candidate, in a bizarre example of petty tribalism, told campaigners that one reason she couldn’t sign up to the pledges was because they were ‘not something I or my party have come up with.’ Another sitting councillor aggressively threatened to make a fairly innocuous email exchange ‘public which I feel will harm your campaign more than my election prospects’, unless the Charter group agreed to remove a statement of fact that she couldn’t sign up to the four pledges. They called her bluff. She backed off.
The Tories are no better. All they say is ‘we understand the need for more homes for local people’, while saying nothing about all the housing that is patently not for local people. This is the local equivalent of the robotic parroting of ‘strong and stable’ that we’re seeing at the UK level. It’s basically meaningless drivel. Meanwhile most Independents seem to think they’re fighting a parish council election. They’re about as likely ever to come up with strategic policies for Cornwall’s voters are of giving up electing Tories.
Not much evidence of innovative policies to reduce the number of 2nd (and 3rd, and 4th) ‘homes’
In short, the vast majority of Cornwall’s candidates are ignoring the big issues facing Cornwall. The fact that on current trends our population will be nudging a million by the end of the century doesn’t seem to concern them. Any vision of the kind of Cornwall we should be building, any alternative to developer-led planning, any practical policies that might reverse the growth fetish of Cornwall Council and protect our heritage are, for most centrist and centralist politicians, just absent.
So, whoever you vote for, the planners and developers will still effectively control our future. Until a well-focused and better-organised grassroots opposition emerges, sadly this election is likely to make very little difference to Cornwall’s steady drift into post-democracy. A dumbed-down, resigned electorate will continue to get the representatives it deserves.
(This an extended version of a submission to be sent to the Local Government Boundary Commission, which is reviewing electoral arrangements for Cornwall Council, to be implemented in 2021)
The myth
A myth haunts the corridors of south-west media outlets. It’s one that many politicians and journalists have periodically fostered over the past seven years since the abolition of the district tier of local government in Cornwall. The myth is that Cornwall has too many councillors. When comparison is made with governing institutions in other places the implication is that we have too many elected representatives and that the Cornish voter is somehow over-represented compared to those other places, with a vast train of elected hangers-on leeching off the public purse.
On closer inspection the myth turns out to be nonsense. Those transmitting it are either deliberately seeking to reduce the level of democratic representation in Cornwall, are utterly ignorant about the way local government works in the UK or are confusing the quantity of representatives with the quality of representation.
The former BBC journalist Graham Smith had a particular bee in his bonnet about the number of councillors in Cornwall. In 2010 he told us that Cornwall Council had ‘ten times as many councillors per head of population as Scotland and Wales have AMs and MSPs’. In a similar vein, the Western Morning Newsin 2011 was pointing out that Cornwall Council was ‘twice the size of the Welsh Assembly [actually it’s three times], despite having far less power’. Not content with that, the newspaper, in a display of confusion that exceeded even its own high standards in that regard, went on to compare Cornwall Council with Devon County Council which at the time had 62 councillors, comparing this number with Cornwall’s 123.
This Tory leaning newspaper was backed up by Labour’s sole Cornwall Councillor, Jude Robinson, who thought that the number of councillors could be shrunk by 20%, or around 25. Tory MP George Eustice also went on record as saying in 2012 that Cornwall Council was too large and should ‘consider cutting the number of councillors’. Meanwhile, the Lib Dem group leader at the time, Jeremy Rowe, asked ‘Is the Council bloated?’ and replied ‘I think so’.
The facts
It is the case that Cornwall Council is one of the largest local authorities in the UK. Only the unitary authorities of County Durham, at 126 councillors, and Birmingham, with 120, are of similar size. Yet comparisons with the Welsh Assembly or Devon County Council are absurd and completely miss the point. In Wales there is a tier of unitary local government underneath the regional level of the Assembly. Most of Devon (outside Plymouth and Torbay) retains two tiers of local government. In fact in both Wales and Devon, there are 1,960 adults for every councillor. In Cornwall there are 3,580. Cornwall Council is a local government body and should be compared with local government, not with regional assemblies, of which we have none.
Let’s go beyond the myth for a moment and compare local and regional government representation in Cornwall with that of other places at four different levels, national, county, local authority and unitary authority.
1) National comparisons
The Cornish are recognised as a national minority in the UK, along with the Scots, Welsh, Irish and other groups, under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which the Government signed up to in 2014. Its levels of representation must logically therefore be compared with those other nations.
Table 1: National levels of local and regional government representation
Councillors
Adults per councillor (2014)
Devolved institution members
Adults per total sub-state elected representatives
Cornwall
123
3,581
0
3,581
England
17,632
2,398
25
2,395
Northern Ireland
462
3,046
108
2,469
Scotland
1,222
3,531
129
3,194
Wales
1,254
1,964
40
1,903
Even if we restrict our attention to the local government level, we can see that in Cornwall there are fewer elected representatives in relation to population than in any other country in the UK. It will be noted that this is the case even in Northern Ireland, where a process of local government reform was completed in 2015 that reduced the number of local authorities from 26 to 11. Only councillors in Scotland represent a similar number of voters as in Cornwall. But Scotland also has a Parliament. If we take into account the devolved institutions at regional/national level then the disparities between the other Celtic countries and Cornwall widen.
2) County comparisons
Uniquely among the UK’s national minorities the Cornish are administered only within a county structure and Cornwall Council is a local government body. The level of representation in Cornwall can be compared with the 1973 base counties of England and Wales in the map below.
Map 1: Number of adults per cllr (County areas)
Most county areas have more councillors in relation to their resident population than does Cornwall. Moreover, only in the three metropolitan counties of the West Midlands, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire, plus the rural county of Northumberland do we find fewer councillors in relation to population. Even in Greater London, the number of adults per councillor, at 3,510, is slightly below that of Cornwall, even though the population of London has been rising faster than elsewhere in recent years.
3) Local authority comparisons
If we compare all local authorities (at district and unitary level) with Cornwall, we find that in England 41 (13%) have more adults per councillor than Cornwall while 281 or 87% have fewer. In Wales, only Cardiff has fewer councillors per head of population. By the criterion of quantitative representation therefore Cornish citizens are in the top sextile of the least represented.
4) Unitary authorities
Areas of two-tier local government in England might be expected to have better levels of representation than Cornwall. But if we restrict the comparison to other unitary local government authorities we find that in Wales 21 of 22 have more councillors per electorate. In England more than 70% of unitary authorities have fewer voters per councillor than Cornwall, while even in London more boroughs have a better rate than Cornwall than a worse one.
Table 2: Number of adults per councillor, unitary authorities 2014
Number of unitary authorities
More adults pre councillor than Cornwall
Fewer adults per councillor than Cornwall
London
32
15
17
England
89
25
64
Wales
22
1
22
Here’s a list of those English unitaries with a higher number of adults per elected representative than Cornwall. I’ve also added their population density.
Table 3: Unitary authorities outside London with higher number of adults per councillor than Cornwall
Adults per councillor
Persons per hectare
Cornwall
3,580
1.51
East Cheshire
3,650
3.21
Plymouth
3,680
31.00
Cardiff
3,750
23.70
Derby
3,800
32.35
Northumberland
3,820
0.62
Wirral
3,830
12.52
Medway
3,840
10.18
Wiltshire
3,870
1.48
Portsmouth
3,950
34.76
East Riding
4,090
1.35
Southampton
4,100
43.50
Wakefield
4,160
9.79
Manchester
4,220
44.98
Brighton
4,260
32.62
Liverpool
4,260
35.43
Bradford
4,320
14.41
Doncaster
4,350
5.35
Stoke
4,430
26.86
Nottingham
4,530
42.12
Leicester
4,760
46.04
Kirklees
4,830
10.55
Coventry
4,870
34.21
Bristol
5,010
18.80
Sheffield
5,350
15.32
Leeds
6,120
13.89
Birmingham
6,830
41.13
It will be seen that virtually all those authorities with fewer elected representatives in relation to population than Cornwall are urban. Only three rural authorities have a higher number of voters per councillor than Cornwall – Wiltshire, East Riding and Northumberland. Furthermore, if we focus on the nine unitary authorities in England with a population density similar to that of Cornwall (less than 3 persons per hectare) the median number of adults per councillor is 3,368, compared with 3,581 in Cornwall. The lowest is found in Rutland with only 1,167 and the highest in the East Riding, at 4,089. If the size of the unitary authority in Cornwall was set at the East Riding level we would still have 108 councillors; at the Rutland level we’d have 377! At the median level we would be looking at 131 councillors.
The conclusion therefore is that Cornwall is not that far out of line with similar rural unitary authorities in England in terms of the size of the democratic element of its local government. All these of course have far fewer representatives in relation to population than do the remaining two-tier rural districts (and even the majority of urban unitary single-tier authorities). In addition, in comparison with Wales, we have very many fewer councillors.
The Context
Technical issues surrounding the size of Cornwall Council must be put into their context. Cornwall has been at the cutting edge of the quiet reformation of local government that is accompanying the neoliberal political consensus. Neoliberalism does not value democracy, which it assesses in simple terms of costs, while transferring functions (and assets) from the public to the private sector (see Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval, The New Way of the World: On neoliberal society, Verso, London, 2013. See also Cornish devolution and neo-liberalism). As part of the neoliberal project, the size of local authorities is being gradually whittled down by the Local Government Boundary Commission (LGBC).
While Cornwall is not the only territory bearing the brunt of this process (other rural areas in the north-east of England and Wiltshire have also experienced it), this is the context for central government taking the opportunity of the so-called ‘devolution deal’ with Cornwall Council in July 2015 to demand a council boundary review. This was bluntly ‘expected to reduce the number of local councillors’. Cornwall’s democratic deficit in terms of elected representatives in relation to voters is set to become even greater if the LGBC heeds this command and allows the Government to suborn their independence in this blatant way.
Any further reduction in the number of elected representatives in Cornwall will be especially stark when we note that recent boundary reviews for Devon County Council and Dorset County Council made little change to council size. In Devon numbers were cut by two, to 60, while in Dorset the number of councillors has unusually been increased, by one to 46. Other county council boundary reviews since the last round of elections in 2013 are
Kent – cut by 3 to 81
Hertfordshire – increased by 1 to 78
Cambridgeshire – cut by 8 to 61
Leicestershire – no change
Warwickshire – cut by 5 to 57
Nottinghamshire – cut by 1 to 66
Lancashire – no change
If these are any sort of precedent then we might expect the Boundary Commission to cut the number of councillors in Cornwall merely by two or three.
Cornwall’s double democratic deficit
At the same time it would be naive not to recognise that we have a deficit of representation in Cornwall or admit that Cornwall Council has come under severe criticism. However, while the authority itself may arguably not be fit for purpose, it has yet to be proven that this relates somehow to the number of elected representatives it contains. What we can say is that, contrary to media impressions, as we have seen above the territory is one of the least well represented in the UK in terms of pure numbers of elected representatives in relation to the electorate.
Moreover, we also have a deficit of electoral opportunity. Put simply, opportunities to vote for representatives – a key factor in the health of political parties and the vibrancy of the democratic system – are in Cornwall among the lowest in the UK (and after Brexit even lower). Table 4 below shows the number of elections to be expected in each 20 year cycle for the various types of local government territory in England, Wales and Cornwall.
Table 4: Elections in a 20 year cycle
Local
Regional
General
Total
All-out unitary
5
0
4
9
All-out two tier
10
0
4
14
London
5
5
4
14
Scotland & Wales
5
5
4
14
Metropolitan
15
0
4
19
Two tier by halves
15
0
4
19
Two tier by thirds
20
0
4
24
Bridging the democratic deficit
As we have seen, Cornish voters are among the least well represented in the UK either in terms of number of elected representatives per head or opportunities to vote. One key factor in Cornwall’s double deficit is institutional. It lies in the abolition of a tier of local government and its amalgamation into a unitary local authority in 2009 by the Labour Government with the support of a Liberal Democratic County Council. This experiment, because of the size of the territory, has resulted in a large and apparently unwieldy institution where lines of democratic accountability are blurred and levels of responsiveness to local communities are widely found wanting. In this sense, it can indeed be accused of being ‘bloated’.
With the advantage of hindsight, we can see that occupying the Cornish territorial level with a local government body dealt the prospects of a devolved strategic regional assembly based on the national region of Cornwall a formidable blow. Despite the abolition of the County Council it paradoxically reinforced Cornwall’s status as a county, a major factor in the inability of central government to understand or accommodate Cornwall’s unique heritage and claims to devolution. The decision to establish a unitary authority was seriously flawed. It turned out to be another policy folly, similar to the preference for Devon and Cornwall institutions in the 1980s and 1990s. That policy consensus was later accepted as counter-productive for Cornwall. The elite consensus in favour of unitary local government body is now coming to be viewed in the same way. In order to restore a more responsive local government and establish more strategic regional government therefore, the answer is plain.
First, restore a level of genuinely local government. This might be based on the former six districts, perhaps combining them into three unitary councils, one for the west (Penwith and Kerrier), one for mid (Carrick and Restormel) and one for east Cornwall. If these authorities were to reflect the levels of electoral representation of the average unitary local authority in rural areas they should each have around 45 councillors.
Second, establish a streamlined strategic regional authority in Cornwall to manage powers devolved from Westminster (and from Europe after Brexit). This would be directed by at least 30 elected members.
This more democratic and responsive structure would increase representation in Cornwall to a fairer level as well as offer more opportunities for voter input into the system. Ideally, it would be combined with modernisation of the voting system, as in the other devolved institutions and Scottish local government. This would involve the introduction of either an additional member system or preferably, as in Northern Ireland, the single transferable vote in order to ensure minority voices obtain a voice in our governing institutions.
Kernowpolitico: notes from the periphery 