Let the Cornish people have their say
Cornwall’s five Liberal Democrat MPs say they are disappointed Brown has called off plans for a General Election. The Cornish MPs say the electorate, not just Labour members, should have had the chance to have their say on the choice of successor to Tony Blair as Prime Minister.
Julia Goldsworthy, MP for Falmouth and Camborne said:
“The Prime Minister brought forward important announcements on Iraq and the economy and was clearly gearing up for an autumn election. However, he dithered and bottled out of it at the last minute, meaning that Cornish people will no longer get their say about the successor to Blair for at least 18 months.
“Maybe the reason why Gordon Brown lost his nerve was because he realised that after 10 years of a Labour Government, the Cornish people are still waiting for a fair deal. The Liberal Democrats were prepared to fight an early election and were confident of doing very well here.”
Matthew Taylor, Chair of the Parliamentary Team for Cornwall and MP for Truro and St Austell added:
“The Cornish Labour party is clearly in disarray, they have only selected one candidate in Cornwall and they were set to do very badly in the event of a snap election. If this is an indication of the state of Labour’s readiness for an election, no wonder they called it off.”
The Liberal Democrats say they had completed plans for a local Manifesto which they would have published this week if the election was called. It included proposals for fairer water bills and fair funding formulas for local services. While the Manifesto itself will now have to await the postponed General Election, they say they will be presenting many of the proposals to Ministers over the next 18 months – many of them designed to correct unfair policies first introduced by the Conservatives, and left unchanged by Labour, while here Cornish services have been starved of investment.
Dan Rogerson, MP for North Cornwall, commented:
"Gordon Brown has denied people in Cornwall and across the country the chance to make their choice of new Prime Minister. He has enjoyed a coronation not by country but by party and has assumed an office to which he was never elected. Meanwhile, Cornish residents I've met were keen to give their verdict on David Cameron's leadership too. Year after year the Conservatives have been found wanting, having introduced policies that hit Cornwall hard when in Government. Council house sales led to our affordable housing crisis, and the Council Tax system they introduced has been a serious burden for many people; the disaster of water privatisation has left us with the highest water bills in the UK, and Cornish public services still receive less funding than the national average. It’s no surprise the Conservatives are struggling to win back support down here."
