³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Only 64 of the 123 Cornwall Councillors responded to an official questionnaire about car parking charges. You can find the list of those who bothered . It's not as if the document lacks the potential for controversy - for example, in Truro are double those at Watergate Bay, Newquay. The document now goes out for public consultation at the end of October.

Adam Killeya, Mayor of Saltash, emails with an update:

"We are holding a (cross-party & cross-Cornwall) 'Respect the Tamar' rally in Saltash on Jubilee Green at 2pm on Sunday 10th October to whip up Regional and National Attention for the Keep Cornwall Whole cause, just before it comes back to Parliament that following week.

"For the rally at Saltash we are expecting a turnout of 500 plus, with various speakers including me as Mayor of Saltash, the Grand Bard of the Gorsedd, the Chairman of Cornwall Council (all confirmed), as well as the MPs and others. we will also have music and probably a good old rendition of Trelawney!

"Any help you can give in promoting this event, especially in the week just before the 10th, would be really appreciated.

"Members of Keep Cornwall Whole will also be parading down the Cornish border on the 8th and 9th of October, with stop offs at a number of towns and parishes, arriving at Cargreen on the evening of the 9th. Perhaps Radio Cornwall could also cover this on the 9th - with update on progress etc, to build awareness for the rally on the 10th."

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Cornwall breakfast programme is fast becoming a "must listen to" programme for anyone who enjoys spotting the sort of double entendres which made Frankie Howerd famous, except that this is local radio and any innuendo is entirely accidental. Pam Spriggs this morning: "You get more from licking than kicking." Debbie McCrory a few months ago: "Can I come on your trampoline?" Pam Spriggs again: "I've got a little button...." And so on. All 100% unintentional and not rude at all. Honest.

As if I wasn't already confused. The headline in today's Western Morning News tells me that the Royal Cornwall Hospital Trust (still "Treliske" to most people in Cornwall) has been penalised nearly £1million for "over-performance." Apparently the doctors and nurses have been carrying out too many operations to help the sick and injured get better. About £340,000 worth of these operations were "urgent" - but still over-contract. The definition of a further £600,000 worth of over-contract operations as "non-urgent" might be disputed by the patients.

Anyway, I do hope that all this means is that the money is now simply banked in another part of the National Health Service and that the doctors and nurses at Treliske will be encouraged to continue their good work, regardless of what the accountants might say.

Meanwhile another piece of health news comes my way today - a press release telling me that the contract to run the NHS treatment centre at Bodmin has again been won by the Australian-based multi-national, It's a three-year, £5.5million contract, which I'm sure will comfort shareholders as they digest news of the 33% increase in global profits during the first half of the year.

The UK's contribution to Ramsay's total annual revenue was nearly £172million. spoke of the "cost efficiencies achieved in the UK.....operating margins before rent increased to 25.5%.....There continues to be broad support for a competitive market for NHS services and Ramsay is strongly positioned to continue growing its business in this expanding, publically funded market."

Ramsay's net profit, after tax, was just over $AU 91million, or about £55million. Treliske is about £34 million "in debt." You could employ a lot of doctors and nurses for £55million. Or pay off Treliske's debt. And still have some change for a few accountants.

Grateful hat-tip to for drawing my attention to the detailed, constituency-by-constituency breakdown of how cast their votes in the leadership contest. David Miliband got 231 votes, Ed got 196, Ed Balls got 88, Andy Burnham 41 and Dianne Abbott 38. Ed then sneaked it on the second preferences. There were three spoiled ballot papers. The Labour Party issued 793 ballot papers in Cornwall, which gives some indication of the party's overall countywide support. Turnout across the six constituencies averaged 75%.

Full marks to Labour's Jude Robinson for telling the bigwigs some uncomfortable truths when she addressed her party conference. Jude said Labour's dismal showing in the South West, and in Cornwall in particular, was not helped by the reluctance of Cabinet members to campaign here. Jude didn't name him, but we all know who she meant (Lord Mandelson) when she criticised senior Labour figures for flirting with the idea of anti-Tory tactical voting.

Labour now has a new leader and, having just about drawn level with the Conservatives without a leader, can expect to move ahead in the next few months - particularly after October's comprehensive spending review and a new wave of cuts to public services. Opinion polls and general elections are, of course, very different things.

The latest YouGov poll, taken before Ed Miliband's election on Saturday, had the Conservatives on 41, Labour on 37 and the Liberal Democrats on 13. Another YouGov poll, taken two days earlier, had the Conservatives and Labour both on 39.

However, according to the Electoral Calculus website, even these polling figures would not be enough to return Jude's Camborne & Redruth constituency to Labour: EC forecasts a comfortable Conservative victory in with 41%, Liberal Democrats down 10 to 28% and Labour up 8 to 24%. Others are down 2 to 7%.

The Electoral Calculus site nevertheless now rates Labour's chances of winning Camborne & Redruth as slightly bettter than the Lib Dems (15% to 13%.) Chances of the Conservatives holding the seat: 72%.

Six months ago I blogged about plans by Cornwall's Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE) to advise teachers on how to deal with potential suicide bombers (or "violent religious extremists" to use the officials' own phrase.) I wrote a follow-up post which you can read here. There was to have been a summer training camp for 31 schools, at a cost of £3,500.

It didn't happen. I am told it's not been cancelled, the summer school has not been dropped, but there is no date for when the idea might be pursued again. My request for an interview with the Cornwall Council official behind the project has been turned down.

, fed up with official delays, has now written his own letter to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. An interesting precedent...

Anybody in search of a cheap laugh at the expense of Cornwall Council could do worse than read the Audit Commission's Interim Maybe it's just me, but is there not joy to be found in seeing a group of powerful people (the most senior officials who lead departments,) who each earn more than £100,000 a year, humbled by their call to the headmaster's study?

The Commissioner's report starts with the words "I am disappointed..." and goes downhill from there. Here are some extracts:

"The financial statements adopted by the Council on 30 June 2010 were incomplete..." "I have identified a significant number of errors and omissions in the Council's financial statements..." "This, together with the considerable number of errors, identified in the Council's accounts, means that I am not in a position to issue my opinion at this time."

When you look at the detail you can see why the Commissioner feels a bit fed up - even journalists know the difference between taxable expenses and non-taxable expenses (sometimes it's the only thing we're sure of.) Accepting that there were major difficulties reconciling information from the former district councils, the commissioner reports a long list of discrepancies. In a £1.2 billion organsation, a very small percentage discrepancy is still a lot of money.

A couple more extracts:

"The Council's data quality arrangements were weak during 2009/10 and performance management and reporting systems were not fully in place across the whole of the organisation."
"The Council did not have fully embedded risk management arrangements in place throughout the year and anti-fraud and corruption arrangements needed to be strengthened."

The bottom line, though, is that as far as we can tell (er...) the council does provide value for money in five out of nine "key lines of inquiry." Somehow, we're just about doing OK - even though we don't really know what's going on.

The government announced in the summer it was abolishing the Audit Commission.

A politician in a suit tells a party conference: "Capitalism takes no prisoners and kills competition where it can." He describes said capitalists as "spivs and gamblers." His speech is all about why he is privatising the Royal Mail. I need a drink.

When at school I was rubbish at religion (or "scripture" as it was called in my day) but I know that somewhere near the beginning of the Old Testament, Cain slew Abel. I know that David Miliband is older than his brother Ed. Was Cain older than Abel? Or will we be writing that Abel slew Cain? The Labour Party will have a new leader on Saturday.

OK, I know that for blog readers, this is getting boring. I know that at Cornwall Council, I risk making myself even more irritating than is strictly necessary. But there's still no sign of any letter from the council to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg about second home voters.

Just over two weeks ago councillors were told that the letter they first asked for on 2nd July was still being prepared and would be posted "within the next few weeks." It still hasn't happened.

The next full council meeting is on 19th October. My guess is there'll be quite a few angry councillors if the letter hasn't been written, approved, posted and delivered before then.

Conservative blogger , assisted by "the expert advice of some leading LibDems including an MP, a blogger, a party insider and two pundits" has drawn up a list of the 50 most influential Liberal Democrats. None of them is from Cornwall. I don't detect much science behind Dale's analysis, but as George Orwell once said, "some things are true, even if they are printed in the Daily Telegraph..."

Currently trying to get my head round tomorrow's board meeting of the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust, which (it seems to me) has to make a very important decision.

At stake, eventually, is the future direction of all health services now provided by the £75million/year PCT, which employs 2,400 people. The choices are quite fundamental and highly political. The vision of a health service driven by a local competitive market does not sit comfortably with the post-war vision promoted by Nye Bevan in 1948.

Essentially it's between sticking with the NHS or going down the road of a new "Social Enterprise" organisation called a Community Interest Company. Staff first in line include health visitors, school and community nurses, those working in 14 Cornish community hospitals, the home care service and speech and language therapists.

For children's services the advice is to find a NHS "host" for two years "with a clear exit strategy." The recommendation to tomorrow's meeting is to take adult services into the "Social Enterprise" model. Staff in this group would be leaving NHS employment and are understandably concerned about the long-term prospects for pay and conditions. Inevitably at some point there will be yet more re-branding. I forecast it won't be long before someone introduces words like "creative freedom," "liberation" and "privatisation" into the debate.

The board of the PCT seem a decent bunch - as far as I can tell from their - and no doubt when they agreed to become quangocrats it was with a view to running the NHS to the best of their abilities, not making decisions like this. Not one of them has been elected.

The PCT has tried to engage the public on all this and has held around half a dozen meetings and done its best to brief staff. Yet there has been very little debate in the media - mea culpa, I suppose (too much going on elsewhere.) Tomorrow's PCT board meeting, in Bodmin, is open to press and public. If the recommendation is approved it will lead to the establishment of a business case, and a new Community Interest Company to take over the running of things within six months.

This split between provider and commissioner of health services has been widening, under successive governments, for many years. Next up, as a result of government reforms announced in July, will be GPs, pharmacies and non-emergency dentistry. One thing which everyone is keen to stress is that patients won't be affected. The PCT tells me that as far as patients are concerned, it will be business as usual. But aren't patients what it's all about? So why, exactly, is this happening?

Cornwall councillor Bill Jenkin, facing sexual assault charges, has indicated a "not guilty" plea. Remanded on bail until 1st November.

We're starting to get some detail now on how Cornwall Council is meeting the challenge of this year's cuts. Councillors will learn on Thursday how the reduction in central government's Area Based Grants : a total of £1.7 million off things like support for children with special educational needs, speech therapy, advice and support for teenage pregnancy projects, youth centres and so on. According to the "Impact on Service Delivery" line a number of schemes will simply be attempted with fewer staff, as vacant posts remain unfilled.

Sure Start seems set to take a beating. According to the council's accountants:

"The funding for Children's Centres and Quality and Access is to be managed down."

More to come, of course, with next month's Comprehensive Spending Review and Cornwall Council's emergency budget in November.

Cornwall Council leader Alec Robertson is booked to appear on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Cornwall breakfast programme tomorrow morning, answering questions about last week's Star Chambers and the council's forthcoming emergency budget.

Cornwall Council emails to ask if I have any objection to some emails I sent being disclosed to a third party. The council's received a Freedom of Information application looking for

"all correspondence between Cornwall Council and any governmental and non-governmental bodies/persons in relation to the Tortoise Garden being classified under the Zoo Licensing Act 1981."

I need to type faster. MPs are now tabling amendments to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill quicker than I can report them. Two more of note: have tabled amendments which would have the effect of securing Cornwall's political border.

The minute I pressed the button on my keyboard I thought..."better check" - and hey presto, there's an which would have the effect of protecting Cornwall's political boundary with Devon for as long as Cornwall wants to keep it. Andrew seems on some sort of kamikaze mission, as his amendment would also reduce the number of MPs not by the proposed 50, but by 150. That would probably cost Cornwall two MPs. Next question, obviously, is will Cornwall's five other MPs support this amendment?

Memories of yesterday's Keep Cornwall Whole campaign meeting with Nick Clegg seem to be producing slightly different versions of the DPM's approach to a Devonwall constituency. Jennifer Forbes, Vice-Chair of Cornwall Labour Party who attended the cross party meeting, says in a press release:

"When I asked the Deputy Prime Minister what he would do to amend the bill to prevent a so-called "Dornwall" constituency being created I was told special exceptions for Cornwall or elsewhere could not be made in the bill because where will that end. This was infuriating because the bill already makes exceptions for the Scottish Isles, for the boundaries of Wales and Scotland and - by limiting the geographical size of seats - the Highlands as well. Clearly the Lib Dem leader has no appreciation of Cornwall's unique cultural and historical identity. Mr Clegg also said that 'You cannot piggy back an issue of principle (such as one of Cornish national identity) on to a Bill like this', although the whole Bill is a piggy back on the Alternative Vote referendum."

A somewhat different emphasis to the more optimistic note reported by North Cornwall Lib Dem MP Dan Rogerson on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Cornwall yesterday. Meanwhile Keep Cornwall Whole campaign organiser Adam Killeya emails to say:

"I was going to email to tell you how it went but I see you already have a pretty accurate version from Dan's interview on your blog. No promises at all, except the unexpected promise that he would definitely mention it to Cameron."

As many of Cornwall's Lib Dems head off to Liverpool for their party conference I thought I would draw your attention to the website which forecasts what would happen if a general election were to be held on current levels of party support (as recorded by YouGov.) According to EC, the Conservatives would still be the largest party, 24 short of a majority but the Liberal Democrats take a beating and would no longer be able to keep them in power: Conservatives 302, Labour 292, Liberal Democrats 22. According to Electoral Calculus, all three of Cornwall's Lib Dem seats would fall to the Conservatives.

Some sniggering at the back during today's Cornwall Council Cabinet meeting as some members had to rein in their planned assault on their political and practical objections to academy schools. In the audience, given a hearty welcome by the council leader, was a group of students from Bodmin College - which has just decided to wave cheerio to County Hall as it opts out of local authority control and becomes an academy.

No promises, but a sympathetic hearing. That's how North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson describes his encounter with Nick Clegg - listeners to ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Cornwall can hear the whole interview on Martin Bailie's Drivetime programme after 5pm. Dan was with the Keep Cornwall Whole campaigners as they bent the DPM's ear at lunchtime today, seeking ways of avoiding a Devonwall constituency if boundaries are re-drawn the way current legislative plans suggest. Clegg promised to talk to David Cameron about it. "But we're not coming away from that meeting thinking that we've won the battle," says Dan.

Looking ahead to next week's Liberal Democrat party conference I notice that the "Facing the Future" consultation paper poses this question:

"Are there any of our values which are seriously challenged by contemporary developments?"

I've been a journalist for 35 years and I don't think a single year has gone by in which I have not reported something about farmers blaming badgers for TB in cattle. Government ministers have come and gone, and I have to say it's not too cynical to suggest that mostly they have have been motivated simply by the interest-groups that supported them rather than a genuine desire to find a long-term solution.

We appear to be in a cycle in which, variously, scientists alternate with landowners for control of the debate. On the one hand we have a small clutch of objective facts and on the other there is an article of faith which says farmers know best.

My first encounter with the badger/TB issue was in the 1970s and something called the Thornbury Report; then there was the Dunnet Report and most recently the Krebs Report: no doubt several other emminent scientists in between, before and possibly more to come. Once upon a time it was received wisdom that only by gassing badgers underground could bovine TB be eradicated. And yet bovine TB continued.

Scientific knowledge took a significant, if controversial, step forward with Krebs and the randomised badger culling trial. It trapped and shot 11,000 badgers in a bid to establish a link to TB in cattle. It found that although about 20% of the badgers were infected with TB (ie more than 8,000 healthy badgers were shot) there was no clear transmission route to cows. Scientists are clear that other wild mammals, and even some domestic pets, can also carry TB. No-one disputes that cows carry TB and transmit it very easily to each other.

I forecast that today's public consultation exercise will tell us nothing that we do not already know. It is a massive waste of time and money.

Members of Parliament are clearly very worked up about the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. You can see how it is attracting fresh amendments on an almost daily basis. Among those tabled so far - hands off the Isle of Wight, letting the Boundary Commission take county boundaries into account (but not at the expense of equal sized constituencies,) promoting a fully proportional voting system, rather than the Alternative Vote, and delaying the date of the proposed referendum to 8th September rather than 5th May (which coincides with elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and could see interesting variations in turnout in different parts of the UK.) But no specific mention of Cornwall. Yet. What can explain this very relaxed approach of Cornwall's MPs? Do they have an ace up their sleeve?

I thought I'd stumbled across a good story while purusing the voting record for Thursday's House of Commons debate on Afghanistan. Andrew George, Sarah Newton, George Eustice, Stephen Gilbert and Sheryll Murray all trooped through the lobby in favour of keeping British troops in Afghanistan. Hang on, I thought, that's only five....

Alas, it turns out that North Cornwall's Dan Rogerson was not making a point. "I was in Cornwall," he tells me. "It was a prior engagement, constituency business, and I'd been released by the whips."

Oh to be fly-on-the-wall when deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg grants an audience to the Keep Cornwall Whole campaign tomorrow. I wonder if Mebyon Kernow leader Dick Cole will use the opportunity to remind Nick of what he said on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Cornwall on 31st March - that the Liberal Democrats were a party "which has Cornwall sort of coursing through its veins..."

The Cornwall Council meeting of 7th September is now The amendment from councillor Mike Eathorne-Gibbons, which sought to limit expansion of the webcasting project, was carried by 44 votes to 37. It also limited the meetings which can be covered to full Council and to Cabinet. The crucial part of the amendment was paragraph (b), which appears to have survived intact:

"arrangements include the Trelawney Room so that meetings of Cabinet are webcast from October 2010."

"It just means the equipment necessary to webcast the Cabinet meetings will have to be installed in the Trelawney Room."

The Keep Cornwall Whole campaign, fighting measures in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill which would destroy the political boundary with Devon, has a 30-minute meeting with deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg after Prime Minister's Questions tomorrow. The KCW delegation will include Adam Killeya, Dick Cole, Bert Biscoe, Jen Forbes, Malcolm Brown and others - probably a few of Cornwall's MPs. Will this result in the amendment that stops a Devonwall constituency? We might know by tomorow afternoon.

The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill is examined by a on 12th October. Cornwall's six coalition MPs, who for different reasons are supporting the Bill, hope to lobby deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg before then to secure the sort of amendment that would prevent abolition of the historic political border with Devon. In its present form the Bill commands the Boundary Commission to design new constituencies every five years - something which has not gone down well with those MPs who have noticed this detail. I expect the issue to surface on the fringes, if not the floors, of the three main party conferences in the next few weeks.

When Steve Cirell left Cornwall Council at the end of his year-long secondment as director of the Green Cornwall project, all sorts of initiatives were on the launch pad - revision of planning rules to encourage more wind turbines, solar energy farms; we were even told to believe battery-powered cars could soon be whizzing up and down the A30. When Steve joined the council in July 2009 he penned this If "Green Cornwall" were a movie, does it end up dead - or does it emerge battered, betrayed but ultimately stronger? Is it possible the "Sliding Doors" alternative endings analogy that Steve wrote about is even more pertinent than he might have imagined?

Imagine the scene: a nervous Cornwall Council cabinet member, surrounded by his or her colleagues, with chief executive Kevin Lavery in attendance. Councillor Jim Currie leads for the prosecution. He will let nothing distract him from his mission - to find the missing £108 million.

No councillor will be allowed to play to the gallery (the gallery is closed.) There will be no parade of bleeding stumps; no populist appeals to the mob. The axe will swing, silently, and the first we will hear of the work it has done is when "recommendations" are brought to next month's Cabinet meeting.

We do, however, have some clues - we know that Adult Social Care is £2.3 million overspent; Environmental Services is about £850,000 overspent; Communities about £700,000 overspent. That's to say they are spending more than the current business plan allows. But in the star chamber, no-one can hear you scream.

The blog previously known as The Cornish Democrat is now known as the I confess I sometimes feel hopelessly lost trying to navigate the narrower sidestreets of Cornish nationalism, but I think this is mainly to avoid confusion with the political party known as the and to make it clear that while the Cornish Republican blogger, , would prefer Cornwall to be known as a Duchy, he has no time for the privately-owned landed estate known as the

Hilarious confusion at today's full meeting of Cornwall Council over whether or not the Trelawney Room should be equipped with webcasting facilities, at a cost of £12,000, to allow coverage of Cabinet meetings. If not, then Cabinet meetings will apparently now have to be held in the full council chamber - where the cameras are already. The only clear record of what councillors actually intended and voted on is, er, the webcast...

Remember that Cornwall Council Electoral Review Panel meeting on 2nd July? The one which instructed officials to write to Nick Clegg about the issues surrounding second home owners and the influence they might wield in Cornwall's elections?

As I've previously blogged, no letter has yet been sent. The official in charge of writing it, Richard Williams, has just told councillors that it was felt "inappropriate" to trouble the deputy Prime Minister during Parliament's summer recess. (Can anyone suggest why this was inappropriate?)

Richard said the letter has at least now been drafted and will be posted in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, North Cornwall MP Dan Rogerson is still trying to organise a meeting with the minister responsible for second-home-owner voters, Mark Harper.

Acting council leader Jim Currie offered the thought that a reconcilliation between the electoral register, and the separate register of those entitled to second home council tax discount, could lead to a reduction in the number of people in Cornwall who are entitled to vote. This, he said, could make it difficult for Cornwall to justify having six MPs.

It's not clear if this was meant to encourage or discourage the pursuit of Cornwall's second-home-owner voters. But at the current rate of progress it looks as if we'll have time for plenty more elections without anything having changed.

The coalition got a last night, with all six of Cornwall's MPs voting in favour of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. All six voted in favour of a measure which would abolish Cornwall's political border with Devon. That's something to ponder the next time a candidate tells you he or she will always put Cornwall ahead of party loyalties (although Labour's opposition to the Bill has more to do with protecting its northern territorities than a recenty discovered interest in Cornish separatism.)

The Bill will now be considered by a committee of the whole House of Commons, with proceedings having to be completed in five days, with a further two days for the Third Reading.

That majority of 52 looks quite solid until you consider that about 45 Conservative MPs have signed Early Day Motion 613 - threatening to rebel against the Alternative Vote referendum. If 26 of those rebellious Tories later swap lobbies and vote with the Opposition, the government could wobble.

Watching MPs voting now on the Bill which would deliver a referendum on the Alternative Vote system, reduce the number of MPs, make all constituencies the same size and force Cornwall to surrender its historic political border with Devon - looks as if the government will get a majority of around 60. Details once Hansard has confirmed. I spoke to North Cornwall's Dan Rogerson this morning who told me that while he planned to vote in favour of the Bill at its Second Reading, the battle against a "Devonwall" constituency would now go to committee - but he was reluctant to speculate about how he would vote at the full Third Reading, should a pro-Cornwall amendment fail.

The Department for Education tells me none of the 16 "Free Schools" to be announced by way of Written Answer in Parliament today is in Cornwall. None in Devon either.

Cornwall Council's cabinet member with responsibility for children's services, councillor Neil Burden, will be on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Cornwall tomorrow morning apologising to scores of people who were once children in the care of Cornwall's social services, and who were forcibly sent to live in Australia, mainly in the 1950s and 60s although a handful of cases were still being recorded in the mid 1970s. Many of these children were beaten and abused and forced to work as little more than slaves, and for more than 20 years Cornwall continued with the deportations despite concern at the highest levels of government in the UK. Neil's apology took guts and determination to navigate the County Hall bureaucracy. Well done.

More than two months now since Cornwall councillors asked officials to mail Nick Clegg about second home voters. Still no letter has been sent.

A new spectator sport kicks off on Monday - who can devise the most entertaining way of getting MPs to vote against things they are really in favour of (or in favour of things they are really against)?

I will be surprised if on Monday evening any of Cornwall's MPs fail to vote in favour of the Bill which in its present form would abolish the historic political boundary with Devon.

Now the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas tells The New Statesman magazine:

"As MPs start the second reading of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill on 6 September, I am tabling an amendment that would rewrite the referendum question to allow people to choose from a wider range of voting systems, including properly proportional options such as the additional member system (used in elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Greater London Assembly) and the single transferable vote (used in Northern Ireland)."

Congratulations to Cornwall councillors and , who have both made it into the top 30 "Councillor Blogger" chart run by Total Politics. Alex has leapt a truly impressive 24 places, from 29 last year to number 5 this year. Andrew is in for the first time at 28. It doesn't matter whether or not you agree with what they have to say - both blogs are an entertaining source of information and make a valuable contribution to the body politic. Well done lads!

Cornwall councillor Bill Jenkin, accused of sexual assault, has been further remanded on bail to West Cornwall magistrates until 20th September. Councillor Jenkin did not appear at court today and no plea was taken.