Councillor vote for pay rise

Yesterday Cornwall Councillors voted to give themselves a pay rise of 25%. This is a shocking situation where Councillors are force to vote on there own income, but that is what the law says must happen. What I found most interesting about this vote though is how the different groups voted (on what was a free vote). This is possibly the only poll you will ever see Labour top in Cornwall..

How each group voted on the question of increasing their own money:

Labour 100% in favour
Mebyon Kernow 75% in favour
"Independants" 73% in favour
Conservatives 50% in favour
Liberal Democrat 50% in favour

So as you can see the Lib Dems and the Tories where split down the middle. The Independants, MK and Labour were heavily in favour of raising their own wages.

For the record, I did not vote for this increase.

We must stop DevonWall

Conservative plans are still in place to have a new parliamentary seat combining Cornwall and Devon (Bude will be part are this plan). I am working hard with my Lib Dem colleges to stop this, not because I don't like Devon (Devon is lovely), but because Devon and Cornwall are separate places with separate issues. They must be respected and have there own representation.

This is a case of the Tories playing politics with boundaries that have existed from time immemorial and they must be stopped. I will be talking to Dan Rogerson our local MP about this issue and I suggest you do the same.

you can email Dan on contact@danrogerson.org to let him know how you feel about Cornwall and Devon being kept separate!

Why I voted for Jim Curry

After they kicked their own leader out the Conservatives and Independents went into a frenzy to see who would replace him!

It was quite worrying and disorganised with lots of back biting (even after the vote to get rid of Cllr Robertson) as there were many people being put forward and it took them hours to come up with the final choices from each group (Ind and Con - I am going to have to blog about the INDEPENDENT GROUP soon).

In the end it came down to Jim Curry (con) and Neil Burden (ind) from the administration parties.
They both came before the Liberal Democrats asking for our support, but for me the vote came down to one thing! Who would pledge to stop the undemocratic and unpopular privatization plans that were being pushed through. The answer came back that only Jim Curry out of the two candidate was against this plan and so on that basis only he got my vote.

Jim Curry won the election by 3 votes and I will be working hard to hold him to account not only on privatisation but across the board.

Lib Dem Bloggs

As a Liberal Democrat I feel its really important to keep the electorate involved in what I'm doing. I really enjoy keeping local people up to date with some of the things I am doing as their Cornwall Councillor. It is only possible to post about a small fraction of what I am doing, I would not want to spend to much time blogging and not enough time working for my community :-)

If you would like to see what the Leader and Deputy leader of the Cornish Lib Dems are up to look here:

Cllr Jeremy Rowe Blogg - Leader of the Lib Dems
Cllr Alex Folkes Blogg - Deputy leader of the Lib Dems

Lib Dems acted with decorum

While the chaos and backstabbing was happening within the Conservatives and Independent groups regarding getting rid of Alec Robertson and replacing him, I am proud to say that the Lib Dems acted with extreme decorum.

Our leader Cllr Jeremy Rowe gave an very honest and subdued account of why the (then) leader of the council found himself in the position he was in. In a situation like we faced on Tuesday, Conservatives and Independents ripping themselves apart, it would have been easy for the Lib Dems to be vitriolic and join in with the attacks. I am glad to say that this did not happen and that we acted the professional manner the public would have asked for.

Council leader had to go

Last Tuesday was a dramatic day in Cornish politics and I am glad to have played my part. If you were not one of the over 1000 people who watched it live, Conservative leader of Cornwall Council, Cllr Alec Robertson was thrown out of his position by a vote of 63 to 49.

It is never pleasant when a leader allows a situation to degenerate into a one where the only option left is to take a vote of no confidence but that is what happened. Speaking to Mr Robertson a few days before I told him that I would not wish this on anyone but that is lack of respect of democracy had left the council with no choice.

The new leader is Cllr Jim Curry (more to come on this)

SERCO's false data

I am disgusted and outraged that a company who are supposed to look after the health interests of local residents like us have admitted providing false data to the NHS to serve its own ends!

This is a scary example of a private company putting profits above people and it should not be allowed to happen. Click to read "SERCO false data" on the Guardian website

This leaves me even more concerned about the plan by Conservatives on Cornwall Council to privatise more of of our Council services. They are pushing this though despite it being deeply unpopular and at what cost to the local taxpayers!

SERCO are leaving our area short

I have been working alongside other local Lib Dem councillors,Nigel Pearce and David Parsons, to fight to get back proper out-of-hours medical cover for our area. 

SERCOs decision earlier in the year to move the emergency doctor away from Stratton to Launceston left a lot of people facing real problems. Constituents who were having problems with the service, including

slow response times, misdiagnoses and long distance travelling late at night to see a GP, contacted us. I was concerned that the areas I represent were receiving an even worse service than the rest of Cornwall and we have been fighting their cases alongside trying to undo this terrible decision.

More than 200 people attended a public meeting and SERCO’s bosses were pressed to reconsider their decision, so that patients needn’t go all the way to Launceston or Bodmin to get out-of-hours care.

After a few meetings with SERCO, we agreed a 3hrs clinic Saturday and Sunday, but this is only a step forward. We want to make sure that we get the best possible local services. Nigel, David and myself are working with MP Dan Rogerson to monitor the service to ensure that we are getting an adequate cover out-of-hours for the area.

Supporting local community projects

Every year as your Cornwall Councillor I am assigned a pot of money (£2,195) to be
spent on local Community Projects. Recently I have helped the following groups:

Kilkhampton: Grenville Rooms Management

Poughill: Bude Life Centre, Bude(Mencap) Gateway Club and
Friends of Bude Sea Pool

Launcells: Launcells Mens Skittles Club and Launcells Parish Hall

Morwenstow: Morwenstow Mens Institute, Morwenstow Pre
School, Morwenstow Methodist Church and Woodford Methodist
Church

Marhamchurch: Marhamchurch Playpark Ass., Marhamchurch
Village Hall, Marhamchurch Revel Committee and Marhamchurch
Youth Club

If a group you are involved with has a capital project that needs some financial support please get in touch so I can help you complete the forms.

Minimum wage rise

Yesterday saw the coalition goverment raise of the minimum wage for people age twenty one and over from £6.08 to £6.19 an hour. I have to wonder if this would have happened without the Liberal Democrats in power?

Lets look at some of the facts:
The first national system of wage regulation was brought in by the Liberal Goverment in  1909.
The national minimum wage system we have now was brought in by the Labour goverment in 1999; it was supported by the Liberal Democarats and opposed by the Conservatives.

Click to read "the history of the uk's minimum wage" on Total Politics

Many Conservatives still oppose the minumim wage, they just don't shout about it very often! In 2009 a Conservative MP backed by a number of his colleges tried to introduce legislation that would water it down
click to read "minimum wage tory bill"

So the answer to my opening question is that we (the mortals) will never know, but my feeling is no, the Lib Dems were vital in this happening.