Devonwall Constituency

My first reaction to the news that Bude was to merge with Bideford in the new Devonwall constituency was ‘Hey, what the heck, it’s only Bude, nowhere important.’  Then I saw that it was a huge swathe of North Cornwall that will ‘merge’ with Devon; not just Bude, but Launceston, Camelford, Delabole and as far down as St Teath.  It seems  dreadful to lose so much Cornish Territory but what actually are we losing and how Cornish is what we are giving up to the boundary changes?

 If the Cornish boundary is the Tamar then Bude doesn’t count as the A39 road does not cross the Tamar; it passes to the north of the river’s source before it reaches Bude!  Also the Plymouth suburb of Saltash is in Cornish territory. And how about that chunk of Devon that is on the west side of the Tamar near Bridgerule?  So the Tamar is not that absolute a demarcation line really, is it? (Interestingly, the Launceston RFC Ground at Polson Bridge is in a bend of the Tamar that only defence works keep from becoming an Ox Bow lake on the Devon side of the river; would that the team’s defence was as strong!!!).

If Cornishness is measured by having Truro as a focus then it is to be noted that Launceston has more connection with Plymouth than it has with Truro: medical services, shopping and social activities all take place from the City; likewise Bude with Barnstaple and Bideford. In Bude, if someone is going to go to Truro they say “I am going down to Cornwall”. So, if the argument is that there should be link between all the people within a constituency then placing Bude in with Bideford makes a lot of sense!

So socially these places turn away from Truro and focus on Devon towns and the Tamar is no stay either! So both those arguments are specious.

Are Bude and Launceston part of the infrastructure of Cornwall?  Try and get a bus from either town to Cornwall and then answer that question yourself!

Of the other towns, Camelford has so little in common with the rest of Cornwall (it has a free car park!) (and no main road!) that it should have its own MP.  In this new constituency we give Devon Delabole and they give us Lundy Island...a bleak, terrible, windswept, uncivilised place...

Culturally are Bude and Launceston linked to Cornwall?  A decent pasty is not made east of Auntie Avice’s at St Kew or Barnecutt’s in Bodmin and Ginster’s factory is on the doorstep of Launceston and the Lansonians haven’t organised a torch carrying mob to storm the abomination.  ‘Nuff said I think!

 I’m told that the Bude version of the White Rose is sung as they travel to the Supermarket in Holsworthy and goes: ‘I love the Waitrose it is splendid...”

Over the years of my living and working in Cornwall I have noted that the borders of the ‘true Cornwall’ vary according to where you are. I have heard people in mid Cornwall  say that east of Bodmin is not proper Cornwall, further west people say that east of Truro is ‘Foreign’ and in Sennen they say that Crows an Wra is where England starts.

I can’t help thinking about the Falkland Islands. For years the British Government was uninterested in them until they were taken by force from us; then the Government got all uppity.  If the Argies had phoned up Maggie T and said ‘Please can we have the Islands?’ She would have let them have them without a murmer. (At that time the oil was thought to be around South Georgia...we would have kept that island!) The North Cornwall area is the same; ignored and neglected by the Council, poorly served by public transport and settled over generations by the Devonians so that there is little genetic link between the dwellers of the East with the Cornish of the West, yet we get all tetchy and offended about it being taken from us by ‘force’. Yes, we are all part of some marketing concept that is ‘OggyLand’ but in reality losing North Cornwall to some ‘Upper Tamar’ constituency is only right and fair to the people living in those areas.  Let’s stop pretending  the Tamar is the boundary of modern Cornwall and that it makes a ha’pence of difference whether an MP is representing a purely Cornish constituency or not. Could a cross-border MP represent his Cornish voters as well as George Eustice does. Of course he could!