Newspaper Column – The Cornishman – 08/09/25

• What has happened to our country? While hundreds of people protesting against genocide are arrested a political activist who called for the torching of refugees is given a standing ovation at the conference of a party the media tell us will form the next government. 

 

Some will contend those arrested – including many from Cornwall – were supporting a proscribed terrorist organisation, Palestine Action; which has vandalised property and allege they’ve attacked people who attempt to prevent them. If true, they should of course face the full consequences of our criminal laws. However, nothing I’ve heard justifies proscription. That crosses a line most decent people are worried about. 

 

• Fellow Cornish MPs and I have commenced battle to secure devolved power to Cornwall; and not to become subsumed into a regional body where our unique strengths become submerged under the juggernaut of uniformity. The Government’s Devolution Bill will commence line-by-line scrutiny and return to the chamber for final debate early next year.   

Cornwall’s case isn’t about isolationism. Cornwall doesn’t want to cut itself off. We want to cut ourselves into the celebration of diversity.  

We must now galvanise backing from across Cornwall to make sure our voice is heard in the crucial months ahead.  

 

• I received an unexpected award this week. It was a genuine surprise and a pleasure to have had my efforts over many years (in fact more than 20 years!) appreciated by one of the many worthy groups it’s been my honour to have worked with. When I was last in parliament I helped create and then chair the national Grocery Market Action Group, which campaigned for fair treatment for small suppliers and small retailers, and to combat the less-than-good behaviour of the large and powerful supermarkets. 

It was kind of the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) to remember my work going back decades! To describe me as a “Fair trade Champion” was kind, but I was fortunate to have a wonderful and talented team around me. Convenience stores, both locally and nationally, include the full range of remarkable, hard-working, brave, and enterprising people who run our corner shops, pharmacies, post offices, bakeries, and other shops upon which many of us depend. While supermarkets dominate, and of course we all use them to a greater or lesser extent, it’s the unsung heroes, small independents which weld-together our neighbourhoods, under-pin our lives, and which reflect the beating heart of our communities. 

Since returning to Parliament, I’ve carried on where I left off. Fighting for the underdog, campaigning for the small, and to combat the abusive use of market muscle by the big-boys. That work continues. 

 

• On the other hand I was honoured to be a guest at the annual Gorsedh in Marazion at the weekend. The sun shone, the event went marvellously well, we celebrated all that’s exceptional about our place, with the aroma of pasties, jam first, all was right with the world.