Don't mess with Pat

I'm grateful to the Parliamentary authorities for confirming the limits to the powers of the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Speaker may suspend a sitting (usually due to rowdy behaviour) or might allow an unscheduled emergency debate. But the Speaker does not have the authority to re-schedule a debate which has already been timetabled.

So in that respect, if Cornwall Council's interpretation of its own constitution is correct, council chairman Pat Harvey is more powerful than the Speaker of the House of Commons. I somehow doubt that this is what Cornwall's wise elders had in mind when they wrote the constitution, so despite the clear absence of any skull-duggery I'm continuing to make a nuisance of myself by seeking clarification. Apologies to all concerned.

So nothing to do with getting the votes out, obviously

This press release from Cornwall Council:

"The Chairman of Cornwall Council Mrs Pat Harvey has made the decision to postpone the meeting of the full Council due to take place tomorrow, Tuesday 30 November, as a result of the weather conditions.


The meeting was due to set the Council's emergency budget and Mrs Harvey made the decision to postpone the meeting in the interests of safety of those who would be attending the meeting and, in particular, following consideration of the distance that both Members and interested members of the public will have to travel, in some cases from some parts of Cornwall that have been the hardest hit by the adverse weather.

The meeting will now be held on Friday 3 December 2010 at 10:30am in the Council Chamber at County Hall in Truro.

The agenda will be the same as that already published by the Council and no additional agenda items will be added.

As the Agenda and public reports pack for the meeting have already been published in advance of the postponed meeting the Council is able to rely on the provisions in section 106A of the Local Government Act 1972 that allow a meeting to be called at less than five clear days notice. These provisions are reflected in Council Procedure Rule 6 in the Council's Constitution. By publishing this notice today, 29 November 2010, the Council is still giving three clear days notice of the holding of the postponed meeting.

"There has considerable public interest in the emergency budget and I am aware that there are many people and groups who wanted to attend the meeting in person" said Mrs Harvey.

"It is always difficult to make the decision to postpone such an important meeting at the last moment but I think it is vital that both councillors and members of the public are not prevented from attending because of the weather conditions".

Cornwall Council scraps tomorrow's budget meeting

and promises a new date in due course. When it's not so cold. How about July?

Cold weather council

Some interesting chatter from the Twitter gang about today's West Cornwall snow and it's potential to disrupt tomorrow's full council budget meeting in Truro. They raise the following questions: will the meeting be quorate? Will the "wrong kind" of councillors attend (ie those minded to vote down the budget?) Might the meeting be re-located to that (majority) part of Cornwall where there is no snow? And so on. Hours of harmless fun. I think the sun is coming out now...

STOP PRESS: Cornwall Council itself is now tweeting about the possibility of scrapping tomorrow's budget meeting. A decision due this afternoon. I'm sure this isn't a case of phoning around to make sure that enough "right kind" of councillors can attend...

Winter wonderland

Two thirds of Cornwall has not yet seen one single snowflake today. Just thought I'd mention it.

Reality AV

What if X-Factor and Strictly were decided on the Alternative Vote system? Just a thought...

The Press we deserve

Some time ago I promised to blog about Cornwall's media. I have to confess I have been putting it off, somewhat daunted by the scale of the project. I reckon the thing to do is split it up into printed publications, radio, television and new media - although the word "new" in relation to blogs and web-sites these days seems a bit strange.

First up then, printed publications, daily and weekly. I reckon we have at least 16 local newspaper titles to chose from.

It can be argued that almost every word of most local newspapers in Cornwall is published by just three men. To say that "it can be argued" does not mean that this is a view I hold myself, but stick with it because it gets more interesting...

The Western Morning News, the Cornish Guardian, The West Briton and The Cornishman are all published by Cornwall & Devon Media, owned by Northcliffe Media, owned in turn by the Daily Mail & General Trust in London. The chairman of DMGT is, at it seems it has always been, Viscount Rothermere. Jonathan Harmsworth now controls a media empire launched by his ancestor, Lord Northcliffe, in 1896.

The Cornish Times, the Cornish & Devon Post and the Sunday Independent are all owned by the Surrey-based Tindle Newspapers, whose chairman is Sir Ray Tindle. In 2003 Tindle told his reporters they should no longer cover protestors demonstrating against the Iraq war.

The Packet and Gazette titles also have their parent company HQ in Surrey, although Newsquest is particularly interesting as its ultimate parent company is the US-based Gannett media group. The President and chief executive of Gannett is Texas-educated Craig A. Dubow, whose annual salary package last year was worth $2.4 million.

The St Ives Times & Echo, and the Newquay and St Austell Voice newspapers, as far as I can tell, remain relatively small, independent publications. Some will say I have neglected the glossy mags market, and they are right, but I've never read Cornwall Today or even Brides In Cornwall (also both DMGT) and have no plans to start now. If I have missed any titles, please feel free to correct me.

Still to come - radio, newspapers and new media. But does this apparent concentration of media ownership matter? Over to you.