Rob's blog

Penwith District Council gone,
Revenue and Customs office gone,
Rescue tug gone,
Tourist Information Center gone,
About a dozen shops gone,
Public toilets about to go,Enough is enough surely. What have the people of Penzance done to prompt this governmental abandonment? What underpins this strategy of removing so many of our public services and jobs? Who has Penzance annoyed in the corridors of power in Truro and London?And now the powers that be, want to take wards away from West Cornwall Hospital to Treliske. Further downgrading the hospital and making its continued existence less likely. No offence Truro but we like our hospital, we need our hospital. This is a vital service to Penzance and the whole of Penwith, we need to keep it. So if you can, please do join the Save West Cornwall Hospital match in Penzance this Saturday. It starts at the bottom of Causewayhead at 11 am. For more info see the excellent Penwith anti-cuts blog, who are organising the march.

I read on the BBC Cornwall site today that the Anglian Princess has forsaken Cornish shores and has been returned to the owners in Scotland. I believed that the government would question this decision but alas no. We no longer have a rescue tug to aid vessels in distress off our coast.
It certainly is poor timing with an oil tanker running aground off New Zealand in the news, illustrating clearly the potential of maritime disasters. Also it shows the pressing need for assets to be in place to deal with incidents swiftly.
I do hope that Lance Kennedy et al on Cornwall Council will not cancel the maritime fire fighting capacity of Cornwall Fire and Rescue and will work with other agencies to maintain this commitment. I do hope that the council will do so and not follow the governments lead in shirking responsibility for maritime safety.
As much as the Cornish are known in romantic books for wrecking and wishing ill on seafarers in fact the opposite is true. Whether lighthouses built …

Last year on the 10/10/10 was the Keep Cornwall Whole rally in Saltash, 12 months have passed since then. I thought now was a good time to look back on the KCW campaign and it's dismal failure. The campaign successfully managed to unite the Cornish political classes against the Devonwall constituency. Certainly various facets of the campaign were very successful in gaining media attention both in Truro and occasionally London. The cross party group managed to secure a meeting with Nick Clegg, to discuss Cornish concerns. So why did the campaign ultimately fail?

Government obstinacy

I think firstly and foremostly the government were not willing to concede point that the Cornish border should be treated differently and should be given a special status. Whether in terms of ethnicity, culture, administrative borders or history the powers that be in London did not accept any of these arguments as valid enough to contradict the mathematical formula to decide new constituencies. This att…