Local Democracy is a precious and fragile thing which our forebears defended with their lives and paid for in blood. Currently it has never been under greater threat as the silent docile majority unwittingly betray this sacred legacy through sloth and apathy. Ask the average Cornish Person how they feel about their place of birth and most will puff their chest with pride and declare their undying allegiance.

Unfortunately in the majority of cases that is as far as it goes apart from scoffing countless pasties, watching a Jethro DVD or rallying around our currently lacklustre County Rugby Team. By regularly indulging in these innocuous activities many feel their patriotic duty is done and all is well in our Far Western Land at the Atlantics edge.

Cornwall is a very special place, to be Cornish is a great privelige, as with all priveliges they are accompanied by obligations. We Cornish are merely custodians of our Land and must nuture it before handing it over in good order to our successors.

 For an isolated peninsula at the very edge of the British Isles our forebears gave so much to others across the Globe. From the earliest shoots of Christianity through peculiar skills in metalurgy and hard rock mining to cutting edge engineeering that drove the Industrial Revolution forward elsewhere. Cornwalls scions have excelled in science, innovation, business, the Military and exploration for centuries, out of all proportion to our numbers in relation to the overall population of the British Isles. Out of grim necessity Cornish People took their expertise to the four corners of the World to the greater benefit off all.

Despite this mighty legacy those who remained behind have let themselves, largely by default, become regarded as a backward, often difficult bunch of malcontents suspicious of strangers and resistant to change. This is largely the result of the collapse of indiginous heavy industry leading to a generally lower wage economy and lower expectations over an extented period since the middle of the 20th century.

Like it or not change is and always has been inevitable, change for the better is highly desireable, the route to success lies in being able to embrace change and actively participate in its competent management towards a sucessful outcome. This should deliver the best solutions for all while acknowledging and preserving diversity and tradition. Current developments tend to indicate that undesireable social engineering is taking place to artificially increase the population of Cornwall to the serious detriment of the indiginous people in an already overpopulated area.

Given its recent track record it is not unreasonable to conclude that Cornwall County Council has colluded in this policy evinced by its unhealthy aquiescence to and eager co-operation with both the discredited RDA and Regional Aseembly. The policies pursued by these (on the Governments own admission) ineffectual organisations seem intent on Cornwalls asimillation into a Region rather than sympathetic development to benefit the clearly disadvanteged indiginous population.

In abdicating the basic obligation of democracy by largely failing to vote and therefore participate in its satisfactory conduct the majority of Cornish People now find that decisions are out of their hands and effectively beyond their control. The problem is exacerbated by the politicisation of the democratic process when  dogma, diktat and blind obedience to the Party message subsumes local  allegiances, considerations and needs further lowering voter expectation and perception in the process.

This fault line has been glaringly exposed on numerous occasions during the current tenure of County Hall by the incumbent majority interest. Objective One, waste management, the Unitary Authority, newspaper, and logo fiasco’s are but a few examples of failure to properly formulate policy, consult, evaluate, and competently control outcomes.

Basically in any democracy the electorate get the standard of representation they deserve, if the majority cannot be bothered to participate the second rate and incompetent candidates will slip under the radar and get elected on a party political ticket.

This is the current situation at County Hall where our County currently faces undesireable, ill concieved and badly debated major policy changes that threaten to divide and haunt us for generations to come. Democracy has collapsed to such a degree that debate is despised and dissidents merely branded troublemakers out to rock the boat.

Fortunately there are still some good Councillors who are well aware of the mischief being perpetrated in our collective name. Their vioce is stifled by the compliant but nonetheless the smoke signals denote that a doughty resistance is being mounted to the outrages being perpetrated.

We are at or very dangerously close to the point where the Governance of Cornwall is decided by the appointed rather than the elected. The bunch of incompetent quasi traitors that have been seduced into this awful situation are about to finalise the betrayal of the Cornish electorate by effectively destroying the democratic process as we know it.

The recent announcement of the appointment of the new Unitary Chief Executive at a salary of £200,000 per annum is an excellent case in point. A glance at his C/V confirms he is a high flyer, obviously well connected, flitting from one juicy post to the next. This must beggar the question of commitment, the very nature of this new post dictates that continuity is a pre-requisite, as is an in-depth knowlege of the unique nature of the task ahead.

Given the transitory nature of the appointees previous posts this immediately raises serious suitability issues such as is there a minimum period of service specification in his contract? if not why not. This further beggars the even more awkward question, has he merely been parachuted in to fulfil the role of an expensive short term hatchet man? If this were subsequentlty to prove to be the case rule by the appointed at County Hall is already fact.

This highly questionable appointment is a classic example of the potentially disastrous outcome of the Cornish Electorates ongoing neglect of its duty to question and monitor the conduct and performance of its elected representatives over the past decade of accelerating failure at County Hall. 

We have also recently been blithely informed that our right to deliver our collective verdict on this serial ineptitude through the Ballot Box has been delayed at least until late Autumn 2009 by which time the Unitary Authority will have been in existence without an effective mandate for at least five momths.