THE new PM has been busy. This week announcing he’ll hand more power to “Mayoral authorities”; including a share of nationally collected taxes and a promise to strengthen policy control over transport, home building, youth employment initiatives amongst other powers and principles of devolution.

That sounds fine to (I guess) the majority, but what does this mean for Cornwall and for Scilly? It seems we’re not included. Nor are large swathes of the country, because they have not adopted a (directly elected) mayoral devolved structure. Though Cornwall, rightly of course, should not cede the miniscule power it currently has to a mayor and places outside Cornwall.

To combat this devolution apartheid, I’m urging my MP colleagues and the council to again work together and make sure we send a very strong, clear message to the PM. Cornwall deserves the same offer of powers as combined mayoral authorities, but we should not be forced to effectively destroy our greatest political asset – our unifying identity - to gain such powers and opportunities, especially where the seat of that power will sit somewhere else. Cornwall is a unique and special place. The placeless government zone of the Southwest would be a Soviet-style construct. Effectively punishing Cornwall for properly refusing to accept this dreadful prospect is contrary to how devolution should work; ie on the principle of central government letting go of control, not imposing a central government fabrication and ignoring the will of the people.

The so-called “silly season” has arrived. The Westminster village scribblers have decamped to their holiday retreats. So, second division and perhaps AI created stories are being unearthed as fillers. According to one, scores of MPs apparently need to have their “stomachs pumped” because of a shameful Westminster “drinking culture”! I’ve never seen such a thing.

Then the journalist girlfriend of Reform UK’s deputy leader - who doesn’t live in the UK, but is tax exiled in Dubai - has been publicly fulminating because she discovered the “shameful” news a Muslim woman won a ‘British Citizen’ award. So, live thousands of miles abroad but remains steadfastly irony-free!

A big shout out to the many local groups and charities which do so much to protect and support nature, and who work to enhance public understanding of the wonders as well as the vulnerabilities. Not all fledgeling gulls fledge. We had one which, after nearly a week seeking to build an unhealthy (for him) familiarity with humans in our garden, clearly wasn’t going to take to the air. So, after a local vet visit, was admitted at Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital, where we hope he’ll be nursed to full health and then sent out to terrorise visitors on the St Ives seafront (winky emoji). Joking aside, many folk are surprised to discover even these herring gulls are on the official (JNCC) “Red List” due to a dramatic population fall in recent decades.