Loveday Jenkin wins Wendron by-election 25 November, 2011
Posted by Jeremy Rowe in News, Politics.Tags: Conservatives, Cornwall Council, Independents, Lib Dems, Mebyon Kernow
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Congratulations to Loveday Jenkin who has won the Wendron by-election for Cornwall Council. The seat was previously held by the late Mike Clayton and it represents a gain for Mebyon Kernow from the Independents. The full results were:
Loveday Jenkin (MK) – 427 (36.4% – up 16.5%)
John Martin (Lib Dem) – 262 (22.3% – up 12.3%)
Linda Taylor (Con) – 227 (19.4% – up 3.9%)
Phil Martin (Ind) – 177 (15.1% – down 16.6%)
Robert Webber (Lab) – 80 (6.8% – up 3.8%)
It was clearly an excellent result for Loveday but I must make special mention of John Martin, who also had an outstanding campaign. In 2009 the Lib Dems finished fifth in this ward but a strong campaign from John saw him leap to second in a seat where many felt he had no chance. The Tories, who were confident they would win this by-election, finished a disappointing third while Labour barely troubled the scorers.
This result means that the ruling Tory/Indie coalition at County Hall have failed to win a single by-election since the formation of Cornwall Council in 2009.
Cornwall Council, Supporting People and another budget 15 February, 2011
Posted by Jeremy Rowe in News.Tags: Conservatives, Cornwall Council, Eric Pickles, Finances, Independents, Labour, Lib Dems, Local Services, Mebyon Kernow
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I’ve long been an evangelist for webcasting meetings, but sometimes I look at proceedings in the Cornwall Council Chamber and wonder if it would be better if the outside world never had to look in on the unedifying spectacle of a budget meeting. Today was one of those occasions.
Local authorities up and down the country set their Council Tax rates at February meetings and Cornwall is no exception, although in many respects this was an exceptional meeting. Firstly, the major part of the budget had already been passed by the Tory-led administration at the long ‘emergency’ meeting back in December and secondly, the question of setting a Council Tax figure had been rendered academic by central government’s indication that any rise would result in a corresponding cut to the amount given to councils in grants.
The only question therefore is how councils manage the cuts they have no choice in making. Back in December we put forward four fully-costed amendments to the administration’s ‘emergency budget’, all of which were defeated. Today we concentrated on the proposed cuts to the Supporting People budget, with an appeal to independent-minded Councillors to vote the measures down and force the Cabinet to rethink and come back with alternative proposals. We made clear that money from the Council’s £127m reserves could be used to protect these valuable preventative services which would save greater costs further down the line. Indeed, Eric Pickles (no friend of local government) has gone on the record to make clear that local authorities save £5-6 in other costs for every £1 spent on Supporting People services.
Such logic was lost on the administration, and at one point one of their Councillors resorted to some unpleasant insinuations about the motives of some of those who work hard to provide these vital services for the authority. Regrettably a number of the Tory Members seemed to derive some perverse enjoyment from this, and the cuts in general, grinning throughout this deeply unedifying spectacle.
In the end the administration’s weight of numbers was enough to see this short-sighted budget through with just one Tory and one Independent joining the Lib Dem, Labour and Mebyon Kernow Members who voted against.
None of us are in any doubt that times are hard for public finances – regardless of whether you blame the banks, the Coalition, the last Labour government or all three – but there is no need to make things harder by the myopic vandalism of important, cost-saving services. This was not a day for Cornwall Council to feel proud of itself, but I fear it will be some time yet before the administration start to realise the cost of what they have done.
Tories drop another ‘safe’ Cornwall Council seat 14 January, 2011
Posted by Jeremy Rowe in News.Tags: Conservatives, Cornwall Council, Labour, Lib Dems, Mebyon Kernow
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Congratulations to Jude Robinson, who becomes Labour’s first Cornwall Councillor after winning the previously safe Tory seat of Camborne North. The result of yesterday’s poll was:
Mebyon Kernow 32
Liberal Party 61
Green Party 31
Lib Dems 152
Conservatives 203
Labour 230
This was the second by-election held since the formation of Cornwall Council and the second time the Conservatives have lost a so-called safe seat (last time it was St Austell Bay, won by Lib Dem John Oxenham). Most Tories who were willing to give an opinion at last Tuesday’s Full Council day seemed to feel the result was in the bag, but let’s hope they will soon start to realise that if they do threaten services in Cornwall with their needlessly harsh cuts agenda then there will be more days like this in store for them.
Naturally I had hoped that our candidate, Anna Pascoe, might have won as she would make an excellent Cornwall Councillor. Nevertheless she increased the Lib Dem share of the vote from 2009 and I’m sure she will come back even stronger another day.
In the meantime I wish Jude all the very best in her new role and I look forward to working with her (and no doubt crossing swords from time to time) over the coming months.
Cornwall Council Meeting 5 January, 2011
Posted by Jeremy Rowe in News.Tags: Cornwall Council, Independents, Lib Dems, Mebyon Kernow
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Agenda papers have been published for the meeting of Cornwall Council to be held on Tuesday 11th January. The meeting will not be of the usual format as a number of items have been carried forward from the adjourned (Emergency Budget) Full Council of 3rd December and, technically, that meeting needs to finish before the business scheduled for next week can get underway.
There are a few items from both agendas which immediately stand out. Firstly, from the adjourned meeting, is the item on the ‘Cornwall Strategy’. This is a well-meaning, if jargon-filled document which is the successor to the Sustainable Community Strategy passed by the old County Council in 2008. The other noteworthy item carried forward from last time is Agenda 12 on political proportionality within the Council. This item has been kicked around for several months now and is a result of Neil Plummer’s defection from the Independent Group to join Mebyon Kernow. These two groups have apparently been unable to agree on committee placings and we can expect further argument next week.
The item of most interest from the ‘new’ agenda will no doubt be the motion on Coastguard Cuts put forward by my Lib Dem colleague Joanna Kenny and seconded by the Independent Councillor Steve Eva. This motion has been supported by a mixture of Lib Dems and Indies, including Andrew Wallis, who writes about it here.
As ever the meeting will be webcast and you can find the agenda papers here and here. Interestingly, although there are a meeting-and-a-half’s worth of items which need to be discussed fully, there is still a ten minute slot set aside for prayers. After five and a half years I am still waiting for an explanation of how this item is of relevance to the business of the Council, but no one seems willing to have a discussion about that.
The Emergency Budget 6 December, 2010
Posted by Jeremy Rowe in News.Tags: Conservatives, Cornwall Council, Finances, Independents, Lib Dems, Local Services, Mebyon Kernow, Openness and Transparency
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On Friday, rescheduled at short notice, Cornwall Council held a long meeting to discuss the Conservative-led administration’s “emergency” budget. (I posted our group’s four amendments here a few days ago, and it won’t surprise you to learn that the Council’s ruling coalition were able to summon enough votes to ensure that none of them were passed. There was also a further amendment on staffing put forward by the Mebyon Kernow group which we supported but which the administration managed to defeat by a single vote.)
It was a disappointing day in a number of respects, and the tone was set by the Leader’s opening speech in which he made a series of lazy party political statements and decided to single out Doris Ansari and me for personal criticism before we’d even taken part in the debate. The end result of yesterday’s deliberations is an unnecessarily savage set of cuts which will do nothing but damage to our rural communities, the morale of the Council’s hard-working staff and – most importantly – those who depend on Cornwall Council in areas like Adult Social Care.
Our amendments tried to protect funding for Adult Social Care, Libraries and Leisure Services from within the budget constraints imposed by the Coalition Government but the administration showed no willingness to listen. In fact, the whole democratic process seemed to be something of an irritation to them. The Deputy Leader (who assured us he is “good with numbers”) questioned the impertinence of the opposition groups for coming forward with other ideas. His message seemed to be “Do as we tell you – we know best”. In addition we asked for recorded votes on these amendments so that Councillors would have nowhere to hide when asked to justify their decisions, but these requests were met with groans from the administration’s benches – democratic accountability is apparently a real pain for them.
I didn’t form the impression that there was much understanding of this budget from those who were voting for it. The Leader’s rhetoric was largely a rehash of every statement the Council’s Chief Executive has made in recent months (especially the stuff about not acting like a glorified District Council) and it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the administration has been led unthinking into the unknown.
And there lies the other great disappointment: the fundamental lack of detail in the budget. This didn’t stop the administration’s backbenchers taking the plunge, however. What many of them failed to understand was that, as elected representatives, they should all have an understanding of what exactly it was that they’d agreed to – it will be no use denying all knowledge when leisure facilities start to close and mobile library services have been withdrawn from remote communities.
The other question that no one was able to give an adequate answer to was, why the rush? I understand the Chief Executive’s logic behind tackling the issue early (even if I don’t share it) but we are just a matter of days away from the government setting out the local government grant position. It would surely have been more sensible to await this information before wielding the axe. Instead Cornwall Council has already played all of its cards and made the government’s job easy. A daft and inexplicable tactic.
In spite of all the damage inflicted by the administration yesterday, Cornwall Council’s staff will still manage to work miracles within the constraints imposed. But questions must now be asked of the Independent group. Many of them were bold enough to think for themselves yesterday and not simply take on trust what they were told by the people on the top floor at County Hall, but how much longer will the rest of them prop up an administration which already seems to have forgotten who it is supposed to be working for?
