Boris Johnson’s “resignation honours list” was published on Friday. I completely disagree with such archaic arrangements and I knew it was something that I would cover in this week’s newspaper. But then Johnson resigned as an MP, which he linked to the publication of a report from the Privileges Committee that has been investigating whether the former Prime Minister had misled parliament over breaches of lockdown rules during the pandemic. Johnson’s resignation statement accused the Committee of being a “kangaroo court,” which…

Read more

Nine years on from the recognition of the Cornish as a national minority through a Council of Europe (CoE) Framework Convention, a CoE Advisory Committee has just published its fifth opinion on the United Kingdom. The document is critical of the UK in a number of areas, and criticisms include the lack of support for Cornish identity and language. It is quite clear that the Advisory Committee is frustrated at the UK’s approach to obligations in the Framework Convention. Early in…

Read more

The Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing has launched a consultation into a proposal to make “planning permission a requirement” for new short-term holiday lets. There is another consultation on a registration scheme for such lets, which has been launched by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The leader of Cornwall Council has welcomed the announcements and she has urged people to respond to the consultations. Cornish MPs have done the same. When I first heard the news I…

Read more

Speaking at a meeting of Mebyon Kernow’s National Executive in July, Deputy Leader Cllr Loveday Jenkin described recent political “goings-on” as “beyond satire.” She was commenting on the turmoil around the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership, following the resignations of over 60 ministers, parliamentary private secretaries and trade envoys. She was also rightly critical of a Conservative Party at war with itself in a truly dysfunctional Westminster political system. It is difficult to comprehend how the chaos of the last few…

Read more

The International Inequalities Institute (at the London School of Economics and Political Science) published a report in December 2020 about the impact of tax cuts for the rich. Looking at data over the last five decades, they concluded that “major reforms reducing taxes on the rich lead to higher income inequality” – hardly surprising – and that “such reforms do not have any significant effect on economic growth and unemployment.” But last week’s “mini budget” for “growth” shows that the new…

Read more