Blogs

News From Kernow Matters To Us

To cheers and huge applause in Truro on St. Piran's Day and subsequently much shared on social media drawing widespread support, here are the words of Cornwall's Grand Bard:

’The Cornish are an open-hearted people, but we will not be taken for granted. It’s now almost two years since we gained recognition of our National Minority status and we must continue to consolidate and assert this identity.

News From Kernow Matters To Us

St Piran's Day is becoming a huge celebration in Cornwall and this year, the annual Feast Day fell on the day itself, Saturday the 5th March, 2016.

Originally the patron of tinners, Piran has now become widely accepted as the National Saint of Cornwall and his black flag with a white cross is widely seen even now outside of official government offices in the Duchy.

Enormous numbers took to the streets of Cornwall but the Cornish diaspora worldwide also joined in the event.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

Chief Minister Allan Bell MHK has been wittering on about how well we are all doing earnings wise. Strangely his homily on our wonderful earnings level coincides with detail supplied to me on the pay of Deemsters (IOM Judges) which reveals the following:

1st Deemster; £177,988
2nd Deemster £164,639
Deemster £132,184
High Bailiff £116,644
Deputy HB £113.342

Strangely we seem to have some of the best paid – if not THE best paid Judiciary IN THE WORLD by a long shot.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

“It looks like a great engineering job and a much better thing to have on the main street than an old foreign admiral with a broken arm and a missing leg.”

The words were spoken by Liam Sutcliffe in 2003 when ‘the Spire’ which was erected on the site of Nelsons Pillar in Dublin was commissioned.

It turned out, although no one was sought at the time as there was little public concern at its destruction, that Sutcliffe had been the republican who planted the bomb that destroyed Nelsons Pillar that event took place 50 years ago this week.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

Good news for the SNP ahead of the forthcoming Scottish Parliament elections the SNP is recorded on 60% in the constituency voting intention in a new poll. That is more than enough to give them all the constituency seats and a majority in the parliament with the other parties only set to get seats on the ‘list’ system.

It is all the more astonishing because the complex voting system for the parliament was designed to stop any single party getting a majority.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

I’m at it again plagiarising but sometimes the articles by Scottish blogger Paul Kavanagh are just too good to overlook.

Have you ever noticed the map of Scotland is too small on the BBC weather map? Take it from me it is and you would know that if you’ve ever driven the length and breadth of Scotland as I have on a number of occasions.

So is it a fiendish plot by the BBC to make Scotland smaller Paul Kavanagh’s says not. Here’s a snatch of the blog:

Ireland’s President Michael Higgins has launched Seachtain na Gaeilge 2016, the world’s largest Language Festival, in a speech at the opening of the Conradh na Gaeilge Ard-Fheis (Gaelic League Annual Conference). Higgins opened the conference, with the Language Festival to follow during the first two weeks of March, with an optimistic appraisal of the current and future state of the Irish tongue. Referring to statistics which point to a strengthening of the Irish Language revival, Higgins is quoted on the Conradh na Gaeilge website:

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

The daily dose of sycophantic Bell-speak from Manx Radio today focuses on Allan’s angst over the Brexit situation.

In times of crisis it’s important to have a strong hand on the tiller so to speak but Allan Bell the Manx Chief Minister is less a ‘strong hand’ and more a ‘hand ringer’.

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

“Isle of Man’s banking system still akin to that of a banana republic than a highly regulated offshore centre”.

The NAMA (Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency – see link) story has resurfaced to somewhat dent all those assertions last year that the Isle of Man had moved on was no longer a dodgy tax haven where dubious deals were done and had cleaned up its act.