A Slap in the Face for Keep Cornwall Whole
Tory MP Eleanor Laing’s intervention on the Daily Politics Show regarding the ‘Keep Cornwall Whole’ campaign is a slap in the face by any standard.
Speaking on the BBC show Eleanor Laing, who is the Conservative MP for Epping Forest (where?) said:#
“But traditional boundaries are traditional boundaries and I really do not believe that Cornwall as an entity, the wonderful county [sic] of Cornwall, will be really affected in any way at all as far as its feeling about being Cornish is concerned because a little bit of Devon might go into one of its seats. Come on”
Restraining myself womanfully, my response:
This was a patronising and unwelcome contribution to the debate. This government may talk about localism and ‘big society’ but its MPs betray their contempt for local concerns.
On the subject of boundaries, perhaps Ms Laing should stick to her own in Epping Forest and the coalition government start to listen to our strongly held views in Cornwall about our boundaries.
The Keep Cornwall Whole campaign is cross party. Labour’s campaign against the boundary changes was launched by Ed Miliband MP on his visit to Cornwall in early August. The Labour Party has put down several amendments to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill in order to protect Cornwall’s boundaries. Given Nick Clegg’s response that you could not ‘piggy back’ an issue of principle onto the Bill and the government’s desperation to make constituency boundaries more favourable to them, we fear it will be a long, tough fight.
A piper plays, mournfully, in the forest: she represents this sector of the “donut,” no more.
Nothing to do with the bill being rushed through without time for proper discussion then? As I remember Stephen Gilbert and Dan Rogerson both expressed their disapproval of the part of the Bill that will ensure a boundary review every five years and said that the Keep Cornwall Whole group should use this to put pressure on MPs to vote against the Bill. Odd then that they both voted in favour of this and Stephen objects to discussion of it.
Aren’t the @parliament.uk emails funded by the taxpayer? Is this what we are paying for – researchers to snipe at public discussion??