Newspaper Column – The Cornishman – 20/01/26

• It’s disappointing when you discover that some folk look at Cornwall in the same way as Donald Trump regards Greenland. You may be surprised, given that Government Ministers assured us last month that Cornwall’s right not to be subsumed into a Combined Mayoral Authority across a wider southwest would be respected. But the Devolution Bill, currently going through parliament, doesn’t completely rule that out in future. So, politicians over the Tamar still publicly hanker after that outcome. So, we’ve more work to do…

 

• As our communities work to restore, clear and rebuild after Storm Goretti, I’m grateful Resilience Minister, Dan Jarvis MP, came to Cornwall last Friday to see for himself and to listen. I’d successfully persuaded the House Speaker to summons him to parliament earlier in the week to answer my questions on why the government hadn’t declared a national emergency.

It was clear he came with an open mind, and had his eyes opened. I had been shocked when invited to join an Emergency Ministerial Strategic Response meeting soon after the storm. Ministers are surrounded by people who seem to be culturally obliged to assure that ‘everything is under control’ and they’re all doing their jobs phenomenally well!

So I was pleased he heard from people who were and are handling the realities on the ground. To report that: 1. the Red Alert was declared too late: 2. the Emergency Alert wasn’t received by many (or was received after the storm passed); 3. though frontline workers and community volunteers’ actions were heroic, it was difficult to manage when communications collapsed; 4. the elderly and vulnerable were left without support for too long; 5. priority registers of different services didn’t correspond and left many people without assistance; 6. naive faith in modern digital technologies proved to be ill-advised; 7. government funding support (Bellwin) formula may not help Scilly and Cornwall; 8. many of our communications – especially broadband – have not been restored and may take many weeks; and 9. the strong sense that if this devastation had been visited on London and the home counties a stronger national response from the government and national media would have been forthcoming.

I’m grateful the Minister visited and I will follow up these issues and more with him and other ministers.

Thank you to all those who have done so much to assist our communities.

 

• So, Lloyds Bank finally turned its back on west Cornwall this week when it closed its last branch in Penzance. As they stated and we expected, they are disrespecting their vulnerable customers, local businesses and the 30% of their 33,000 local customers who don’t use online banking. Without shame nor thanking taxpayers who bailed them out with £37 billion during the banking crisis. They put top exec rewards above concern for a functioning financial service, and regardless of the 100 years privilege of dominating the town centre’s iconic building. Shocking.