I'm encouraged to read on his blog that Councillor Dick Cole, leader of the Cornish nationalist party Mebyon Kernow, is strongly supporting a Yes vote in the forthcoming referendum on electoral reform. MK is an ally of the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the European Free Alliance, and like its Scottish and Welsh counterparts is firmly in the social democratic, civic nationalist mould.
"I say this because it is my strong view that the present First Past the Post system does not work as part of a 21st century democracy. I fully support a more proportional voting system (PR) and recognise that AV is not PR, but I do see this reform as a step in the right direction. At the present time across the UK, the vast majority of parliamentary constituencies are safe seats and the main political parties pour disproportionate resources into a small number of marginal seats...
Politics is also becoming increasingly pluralistic with more and more political parties entering the fray, but the electoral system has not caught up. In modern parliamentary contests, as I know from experience, great pressure is brought to bear on people to vote tactically to stop certain political parties from winning. I feel that this distorts political debate and often derails serious consideration of the issues that really matter to communities throughout the UK. AV will eliminate tactical voting, allowing voters to always support their first-choice candidate."
In a Scottish context, this of course means an end to Labour's false - but all too often persuasive - argument that only a vote for them in Westminster general elections can keep the Tories out. In future, voters will be able to simply say "no problem, I'll give you my second/fourth/seventh preference, ahead of the Tories".
By my reckoning, all three leaders of the nationalist parties in Scotland, Wales and Cornwall are now supporting a Yes vote, albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Showing posts with label Cornwall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cornwall. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Alan Johnson revels in being 'right-wing' Home Secretary
The most jaw-dropping moment of Question Time this evening was when Alan Johnson claimed that the Tories had "got it wrong" by not "staying right" on the DNA database - in other words, he was unashamedly boasting that Labour are more right-wing than the Tories on the issue. In many ways this is, of course, similar to the familiar Blairite conceit that in modern politics the distinction is no longer between right and left, but instead between right and wrong. Naturally, the 'right' policy on any given issue was the Blairite one, with all the myriad alternatives being the 'wrong' policies, regardless of where on the political spectrum they came from. No wonder Mr Blair found the basic nature of Catholicism so much to his taste.
In reality, most of us recognised that the distinction between the two meanings of 'right' was in reality remarkably thin, with this nominally 'democratic socialist' government being identified as one of the most - perhaps the most - right-wing administration in western Europe. But where Alan Johnson has broken new ground tonight is in brazenly acknowledging that truth, rather than adhering to the now-traditional doublespeak.
So should those of us on the left take any comfort from the fact that even Labour acknowledges that an incoming Tory government would not be quite as far to the right on certain issues as the current administration? Hardly. Looking at the broad sweep of policy - law and order, immigration, the economy, taxation, education, human rights - there is no doubt that, on balance, the Tories would represent a significant shift still further to the right. They would also block long-overdue progress on constitutional reform, notably extra powers for the Scottish Parliament, democratisation of the voting system for the House of Commons, and an elected upper house. So it seems to me the only rational thing for voters to do is to look beyond the false choice between a rubbish incumbent government, and an even more rubbish alternative. We're fortunate in Scotland to have the SNP to turn to, and in Wales there's Plaid Cymru, but even in England there are other options - most notably the Greens (who have a great chance of winning their first seat) and Mebyon Kernow, who memorably humiliated Labour in Cornwall in the Euro elections last June.
In reality, most of us recognised that the distinction between the two meanings of 'right' was in reality remarkably thin, with this nominally 'democratic socialist' government being identified as one of the most - perhaps the most - right-wing administration in western Europe. But where Alan Johnson has broken new ground tonight is in brazenly acknowledging that truth, rather than adhering to the now-traditional doublespeak.
So should those of us on the left take any comfort from the fact that even Labour acknowledges that an incoming Tory government would not be quite as far to the right on certain issues as the current administration? Hardly. Looking at the broad sweep of policy - law and order, immigration, the economy, taxation, education, human rights - there is no doubt that, on balance, the Tories would represent a significant shift still further to the right. They would also block long-overdue progress on constitutional reform, notably extra powers for the Scottish Parliament, democratisation of the voting system for the House of Commons, and an elected upper house. So it seems to me the only rational thing for voters to do is to look beyond the false choice between a rubbish incumbent government, and an even more rubbish alternative. We're fortunate in Scotland to have the SNP to turn to, and in Wales there's Plaid Cymru, but even in England there are other options - most notably the Greens (who have a great chance of winning their first seat) and Mebyon Kernow, who memorably humiliated Labour in Cornwall in the Euro elections last June.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Native speakers of a 'dead' language - a neat trick
Over at his Linlithgow Journal, Stephen is evoking the spirit of the Dead Parrot Sketch in the light of Unesco's startling declaration that, in spite of having several hundred speakers each, Cornish and Manx are both 'dead' languages. I can't quite work out how Stephen feels about this subject, and it seems neither can he! (And someone really ought to gently point out to him that Cornish is not a 'Gaelic' language.) But one of his commenters Matthew Huntbach gets to the crux of the issue, pointing out that the important thing is not how many people speak a language, but whether any of them are native speakers. He concedes the point that there are now native Cornish speakers who were brought up in the language by their parents, but says this doesn't count as it is not a 'natural' transmission - ie. whatever language these people are native speakers of, it isn't authentic Cornish.
Hmmm. In this world of mass immigration there must be plenty of native English speakers around who were taught the language in the home by non-native speakers - they perhaps have a different accent, but are they really speaking a language other than English? My assumption would be that the differences between natively-spoken modern Cornish and long-dead 'Cornish Classic' are not great enough to justify defining them as two separate languages. But even if they were, Unesco should still have noted that - whatever they choose to call it - Cornwall most certainly now has its own living language.
Hmmm. In this world of mass immigration there must be plenty of native English speakers around who were taught the language in the home by non-native speakers - they perhaps have a different accent, but are they really speaking a language other than English? My assumption would be that the differences between natively-spoken modern Cornish and long-dead 'Cornish Classic' are not great enough to justify defining them as two separate languages. But even if they were, Unesco should still have noted that - whatever they choose to call it - Cornwall most certainly now has its own living language.
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