I thought the CNLA was a joke to start with

tho i still think its a joke now..

We are all part of the same bloody country, what do they want us to be split up like the US into different states?

people are buying up 2nd homes as rental property all over the bloody shop, not just limited to holiday homes in cornwall..

Seriously, have you been there? I say let them have their little stink-hole.

Any group of people who can refer to their daily bread and butter as emmits (I was told this was a parasite) deserve to have absolutely no-one go there for at least a year.

We'll see how they feel when there's no money coming in from tourists.

Hey cornish: we might be 'emmits', but you're ingrates.

No chance of "where's the IT angle here", as you managed to mention "Penryn" several times in the article. Personally, I'd suggest water cooling or a larger Heatsink with a 120mm fan, if they're having thermal issues with Penryn. They didn't mention whether it had been overclocked at the time, but I doubt it was... Cornwall isn't exactly known for trying to do things particularly fast.

Ian

... of the "Ooh Arr Eyy" LOL

..all the way up the Devon side of the Tamar and let the Cornish go their own way.

I sincerely hope you never stray over the border again, after that remark about a "little stink hole", you smug, ignorant git.

Try living in the poorest part of the UK through a damp Atlantic winter, on a minimum wage job, in rented accomodation, waiting for the fat ba$tards from the home counties to arrive at their holiday homes each spring, driving their Chelsea tractors to the beach while looking for a place to buy as an investment.

If you did, you'd know that although the wages might be better in the summer, when it's possible to work much longer hours serving the needs of the spoilt middle class to$$ers who come down each year from Kensington or Surrey, there's only a limited amount of satisfaction to be had from spitting into the froth on their cappucinos, or scratching the paintwork on their X5s.

Cornish revenue streams?

Retirement industry, farming, clay mining (until recently.), and Industrial sites in St Austell, Penzance and Camborne. Fishing and ship building are a bit of a sore point these days... Just because Newquay depends on tourists (And needs nuking) doesn't set the tone for the rest of the county.

FYI "Emit" means "Ant". (Holiday Makers, like ants get everywhere.) Most holiday makers are pretty good, it's the 30% that are chavs for whom everything's a target that's the problem. We've had three cars vandalised by chavs on their way back to the local campsite, as well as graffiti, asaults, broken windows... and that's just my household.

Second homers? Again most are as good as gold, but I've seen one threaten a traffic warden who'd given him five minutes to shift his SUV!

Oo-Ar-Ay should be put straight on who the enemy is, and kitted out with SA-80's[1]

Then, they are welcome to "Let em have it."

[1] Yeah Yeah I know, but you've got to give these emits some sort of chance.

None of us like the way the housing market is (i.e. that i cant get on it) which is due to rising prices, and stoked in cornwall by second homers no doubt.

But since there is little or no tin left, only a small pastie industry and its not on the way anywhere, tourism is pretty much their only revenue.

So if you want to get rid of the tourists with fear of terrorism and drive out the second homers who contribute too, then it will be a very very poor separate country.

If they did separate, and then we realised there was oil there, maybe the parts of the US that dont support the CNLA could invade ... now that would be fun!

Is Cornish for ants.

So you're not a parasite - just a hard-working, asexual automaton.

Feel better now?

GROW UP!!!

I mean seriously, it's not going to make the house prices go down if you fire bomb all of those around you who aren't proper, pukker Cornish. We all have to deal with stupidly high house prices all over the country, especially in the south east and small farming communities.

What will happen though, if you persist is that you'll drive a wedge between people in your society and kill off the tourism, which will leave Cornwall more dependant on handouts from the government and generally fucked.

If it wasn't for greedy locals selling houses to outsiders, there'd be no housing price problem in any of the tourist areas that bleat on about it - Cornwall, lake district or wherever.

You can just imagine the scene at the estate agents:

Cornish Local: "Both my parents are now dead, they left me their house so I'd like to sell it please"

Estate Agent: "OK, how much do you want to put it on the market for?"

Cornish Local: "How much is it worth?"

Estate Agent: "Well, there's this bloke in London who wants it for a holiday home, he'll pay you £300,000"

Cornish Local: "Blimey, my mum and dad only paid £500 for it, but I suppose that was a long time ago. Hang on though, seems a bit of a waste the place only being used for weekends. Are there any local people looking for houses?"

Estate Agent: "Oh yes, there's a lovely young couple, just got married, looking to move into a place of their own. Both of them are Cornish, work and live locally"

Cornish Local: "Awww, that's nice. How much are they looking to spend?"

Estate Agent: "Well, he's a mechanic at the local garage and his wife's a teaching assistant. They can afford about £100,000"

Cornish Local: "Sod them then, I'll take the £300,000 from the stupid emmit, pay off my mortgage and buy a speedboat."

Nobody is forcing Locals to sell houses to outsiders, they are choosing to do so because they get more money that way.

... so treat them as such.

Time to start profiling people with Cornish

accents at airports then? Or is that just

for Muslims?

The IT angle is that the good folks of Cornwall could get jobs working remotely and then they might be able to afford the sky high prices that bloody incomers are paying for houses. But of course big blue chip companies want big plush HQs in London and stuff the tech that allows distance working (not so glamourous).

As someone who had to leave my village in the north of Scotland becuase of the incomers pricing the locals out their own town I can fully understand the actions of the CNLA.

It will come out in later reports that the fire was really caused by agitated Gateway and Lenovo insurgents throwing combustible Dell laptops through the window.

Once again, American citizens are funding a terrorist insurgency on British soil. I wonder if their judiciary will shield fugitives from justuce this time 'round..

Are we really allies in the 'war on terror'?

I'd like to watch you spout that particular line of cobblers in the public bar of any St.Austell drinking den.

I'd pi$$ myself watching while you got your come uppance for being as ignorant as the Runcible Spoon moron.

If Cornwall was to be separated from the rest of the dis-United Kingdom, as a sovereign nation within the EU, and with the level of per-capita income it currently "enjoys", it would attract such a huge amount of EU financial assistance it would be able to rejuvenate itself without putting up with ignorant chav visitors getting pi$$ed en masse in Newquay, or ignorant monied second-homers arriving at weekends to have dinner at Ricks place.

This reminds me of the great "Not The Nine O'Clock News" spoof ad which was a tie-in of the Welsh tourist board and the National Coal Board entitled "Come home to a real fire (Buy a cottage in wales)" - Dave

Vulpes Vulpes,

So how, exactly are local sellers being forced to accept more money for houses than is affordable by local buyers? Please enlighten me out of my state of ignorance.

The "the fat ba$tard from the home counties" only has a holiday home in your town because one of your Local neighbours chose to sell it to him at a vastly greater profit than if he'd sold it to another local.

If the greedy local sellers were at all bothered about keeping property in local hands, they would turn down the outsider's offers and only accept lower offers from genuine local buyers.

They've made their own bed full of ants, so they can't moan about having to lay in it.

At least you have a tourist industry to boost things in the summer. The place I grew up is a complete "stink hole" with minimum wage employment (if you're lucky) all year round. House prices are cheap enough there though if you're interested in moving somewhere you can afford to buy. :o)

So, Vulpes Vulpes, your position is that Cornwall could seperate, because it would be much better off living off EU grants than actually hvaing to have a viable economy? Sounds like an ignorant chav dole-scrounger to me. Presumably, you'll stop accepting tourists at that point (as that would be working-while-claiming).

What proportion of the population of the county are of 'celtic origin' exactly?

Just...keep taking whatever it is you're taking.

It's not just local individuals that sell houses in cornwall.

You've got the families of people who retired to cornwall who now want to sell dead gran's old cottage... they want top dollar pure and simple.

There are land owners who have been quietly winding up leases on properties let to locals.

And in this particular case, there have been green-field new built houses.

... If we sent all the londoners who moved to Cornwal because they could never get a job here. (And so stay on the dole forever) back over the tamar (Or over the nearest cliff.) It'd be doing the world at large a favour.

Tourism isn't cornwall's only income and is hardly the basis of a "viable" economy. Vulpes Vulpes indicated "rejuvination"; and with EU finding Cornwall could drastically extend the industrial operations.

"better off living off EU grants than actually hvaing to have a viable economy"

Eh?

No, using the EU grants to make a viable economy for Cornwall that doesn't have to rely on home counties twats with more money than sense.

"one of your Local neighbours chose to sell (it) to (a fat bastard) at a vastly greater profit than if he'd sold it to another local."

Yes, amazing how desperate people can get after a generation or two of economic decline isn't it, you smug tosser?

firebomb antics aside, I'd just like to make a couple of points:

1. The word "emmett" although widely used in Cornwall isn't actually Conish it's derived from the Old English:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/emmet

2. What's the IT connection? Well several fibre optic cables originating overseas make landfall in the west of Cornwall. These include

RIOJA 1 & 2 UK - Belgium - Netherlands - Spain

GEMINI SOUTH UK - USA

FLAG Fibre (Optic) Link Around (the) Globe...

http://www.atlantic-cable.com/CableCos/Porthcurno/

although it is still hard to get domestic broadband in many parts of the county. Perhaps the CNLA or whatever they call themelves should target these if they want to make their presence felt !?! (joking)

Cornwall would actually be a very good place for the IT industry to look at - good environment, low(ish) crime and workforce that has been screwed over so many times they'll work for anyone who'll offer them half decent pay and conditions.

Oh and as for EU grants, wasn't Cornawall given Objective 1 funding a few years back to help regeneration? Wonder whose pocket that ended up in? One o' they Lundun buggers, I daresay!!

@Vulpes Vulpes: Quite why he'd venture into aforementioned drinking den is beyond me. Aside from the fact you only have two now that you lack a town centre, Truro is clearly superior. Skinners ftw :D

"If Cornwall was to be separated from the rest of the dis-United Kingdom, as a sovereign nation within the EU, and with the level of per-capita income it currently "enjoys", it would attract such a huge amount of EU financial assistance it would be able to rejuvenate itself without putting up with ignorant chav visitors getting pi$$ed en masse in Newquay, or ignorant monied second-homers arriving at weekends to have dinner at Ricks place."

So you're a bunch of lazy scroungers then? Much like the very chavs that you're complaining about?

Perhaps a better option is that we allow Cornwall to separate from the UK and block it joining the EU so that they have no choice but to get off their lazy arses, create their own viable business and learn to look after themselves for once just like, you know, many other parts of the UK have such as Yorkshire after the mining collapse (look at how impressive Leeds and Sheffield is nowadays...), or Glasgow, another fantastic success now.

Is that referring to people with an income ?

One word.

Infrastructure.

Have you ever tried GETTING to most of Cornwall?

And don't you DARE say the Cornish are lazy; other posters have already said there's a "workforce that has been screwed over so many times they'll work for anyone who'll offer them half decent pay and conditions."

I said nothing about scrounging, you arrogant toerag, I talked about making a viable economy for Cornwall that doesn't have to rely on visiting home counties twats with more money than sense.

And finally, your very language gives the game away when you say "Perhaps a better option is that we allow Cornwall to separate".

Your use of "we" and "allow" says it all.

Stay away, your type are not welcome.

So, being American, I figured that Cornwall was still all about:

1. Tin Mines

2. Pasties

...and not much else.

From reading the other comments though, it seems that it is now some kind of hot vacation destination, much to the chagrin of locals who didn't own a house there when prices started going up. So, the natural response is for the disaffected to set fire to things under the banner of National Liberation.

Setting aside for the moment the question of when, exactly, the last time Cornwall or Brittany were "nations", I must thank my lucky stars that when similar housing inflation occured in my part of the states, our first reaction wasn't "get the bastards!"

Sure, people gripe about every doctor from New Jersey needing a summer cottage on Narragansett Bay now, but the Right Thing to Do is never, ever, to key his Mercedes.

Look at it this way-you vandalize his car, set fire to his house, and go to jail. He's out money, might move away, might not. You are doing five to ten for arson and struggling not to be cornholed in the shower by the chollos.

Are nights of forcible sodomy really worth the satisfaction of seeing someone else's life made temporarily miserable?

Let's look at it another way-these people are showing up in your neighborhood. Accept that they are going to be here; and that they have way too much money. The proper response is to sell them goods and services they don't need at an extortionate rate, during the time they are on vacation, and use their money to buy your own house. That way, you get a house, they get soaked, and in November you can drop your prices so as not to offend your neighbors.

This has worked pretty well in New England. There's never been a need for a Cape Cod Liberation Army, or the Armed Brotherhood of Lake Winnipesaukee, or Al-Qaida-in-Nantucket. We just charge the summer people $6.00 for ice cream cones in July. Why can't that work in Cornwall?

okeedokee, we'll be having our fishing waters back.

The CR(a)P regeneration company could f*ck off back up country and let crofty get on with it.

It's is admittedly a shame that the Oo Arr Ey nobbled a brewery, since cornish beer's a darnsite better than that piss that comes out of liverpool.

Oh... and there'll be no transatlantic fibre for _you_.

The argument seems to be that cornwall's only income is from the tourist industry, and that simply isn't true.

It's Emmets you mis-spelt fools

This is too funny...

Charge the summer ppl 6 bucks a cone and youll get your own house soon enough!!!

For once the yank has a point.

There's far more to Cornwall than tin mines and pasties and the holiday industry.

I don't think there's any support in this discussion for the criminal antics being comitted. But there are some twats claiming that cornwall as an area is full inbred, unskilled, lazy scroungers. (Admittedly we've a few, and they all came from london to avoid getting jobs.) There are also a number of cornish I.T. types suggesting that said twats present themselves in Truro and argue their case.

>From reading the other comments though, it seems that it is now some kind

>of hot vacation destination, much to the chagrin of locals

Nah, It's just the politics of envy. Hot? It's in Britain FFS :) Years ago it was a tourist destination. The jams on the motorways down to Devon and Cornwell were almost days long.

Today even folk on benefits can afford to holiday abroad [except the whinging Vagina Vulpes I guess, obviously it's all much, much harder for them]

If Vagina Verruca [or whatever it was] gets a clue and makes some money of his own [which, like many of us, wherever we live, might mean leaving mummy and daddy for a few years and living somewhere else] he'll want the freedom to spend it in Europe just like everyone else does.

It's crass stupidity to use "EU" as an alternative to "Britain" - WTF does he think the rights the EU grants to Europeans are? "Cornland for the Cornish" is pretty much the anti-thesis to what the EU is.

If you want to separate Viking Virgin you'll need to think a bit harder than 'Cheque from EU". Not the least if you can't compete with the rest of the British [jeez, you must be in a sorry state if that's the case] you don't stand much chance against the hard working nations in the EU.

Hello, hello. What's going on? What's all this shouting? We'll have no trouble here.

This is a local shop[1], for local people!

[1] Substitute with "little stink hole" depending upon your point of view.

Nothing quite like fighting the inevitable. Kinda like the dutch girl with her finger in the dyke... er... ooops!

FLAME ON!!!!

Ignoring the usual flaming, yokel jibes etc...

I grew up in Cornwall, moved away to study, trained in IT, got some experience and have just moved back as a programming contractor at 30. Have sold a good sized house in Bristol to find even with my solicitor partner I really do have to get my work from Bristol or Hampshire or Reading or etc. for us to be able to afford a house in Cornwall that isn't:

- mundic (dodgy arsenic-based brickwork from the 30s that crumbles in the rain)

- 150 years old and of iffy upkeep (enough to put off a mortgage lender)

- in need of hefty renovation

- a bedsit

It's taken us 3 months of house offers and survey discoveries before we found something solid. I'm lucky in that I can drive 200 miles to get work to bring back home. How are those working locally going to afford it? With that and severe regional variance (Truro and St Ives are hideously expensive - way out of our range) you'll one day end up with towns of empty second homes and others full of locals, unless a pile of cheap housing is built to help out...

...which is why burning them is idiotic - although those new Wainhomes developments are priced for out-of-county wages (again, we couldn't afford anything there above a 1-bed flat), a good proportion are forced to be 'affordable housing' which are a good thing for the locals.

Send the separatists to London to campaign for tax on 2nd homes: I understand their motivation, but they're provoking despair down here amongst those they're trying to fight for.

Hey, Michael, great flame! Such originality.

As you have stooped to personal insults, here're a few facts to chew over:

I left the SW 30 years ago to look for work.

I'm working in London making more cash than you can imagine fleecing the morons who come through my doors every day.

I'm afraid I see them coming, and boy do they pay for it.

Most years my wife and I holiday in California.

So don't give me any crap about getting off my arse or competing with the rest of the British.

Most of my relatives and peers from school days, who still live in Cornwall, worry that their children will leave the county to find work elsewhere, as their prospects in their home county remain poor.

They deserve better, and they certainly deserve better than the sort of scum who post in here with sneering comments like yours.

Why is it I read Vulpes Vulpes comments and I get the mental image of a cloth capped old man waving his walking stick angrily in the air shouting toerag's at the local kids ? =D (And no thats not a Cornish stereotype, we have cloth capped old gents in Hampshire & Surrey as well.)

Sadly everywhere is expensive right now. Ridiculously so. In fact my wife and I are expecting our first child and are looking for a three bedroom house around the Guildford area. (As its convenient for the UK equivalent of Silicon Valley, and London.) We've pretty much given up on buying as prices keep increasing, and renting has shot up in the last 12 months along by 20% and will continue to do so.

Its gotten to the point that low income wage earners in our area are at the point that they can't afford to rent or buy as you need to be a mid to large sized Company Director, or IT Contractor to be able to afford a place to live. In fact it has me seriously considering chucking in my new permanent job and going back to contracting just to be able to afford to live here.

So quit whining about poor old Cornwall. Whine about poor old Blighty in general and demand the Government do something about the housing price crisis for all of the UK.

As for Cornish terrorists....tbh I thought they were joke as well to begin with. And I still smile at the thought of the Ooh Arr Eyy. Sorry but Cornish Terrorists are never going to be taken seriously in my book lol

Fear not, my good man - I sympathise with your plight, and it just so happens that I bought my tiny violin with me so I can properly express these feelings...

However, you may want to check a few things out before you go about advocating separatism...

"If Cornwall was to be separated from the rest of the dis-United Kingdom [...] it would attract such a huge amount of EU financial assistance..."

Erm... this is assuming you would be granted entry to the EU... Despite attempts at enlargement the EU still demands that new member states bring something to the table other than pasties and a sailor-threateningly bad tempter. Be careful what you wish for!

And another point - tourism is a perfectly viable basis for a sound economy, but like everything it has to be worked at; Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the Seychelles.

Dan: "So quit whining about poor old Cornwall"

I take your point that it's not just Cornwall that suffers, but I would like to explain the depth of feeling here by pointing you at the recent news that in a recent survey of UK house prices versus local salaries, the Truro area suffered the worst with average prices being 10.3x the local salary average, followed by a number of other Cornish areas in the top 10.

It's not just expense that's the issue, it's also the ability of employees in the region to pay for them.

So taking worst-case scenario Truro with house prices being 10.3x the average salary...

If Cornish people weren't so funny-looking and abrasive to non-Cornish people then the solution would be simple; marriage. Then the average hosue price becomes 5.15x the average household income, which isn't at all bad! Then you're in the same boat as the rest of us; get a house slightly worse than your salary should be able to afford and wait for a windfall when your relatives die/get killed by angry descendants of sailors bent on revenge...

Sorry to deviate from the general bitching but I'm still laughing about them getting [the technical assistance of "a member of the Free Wales Army who were responsible for the burning of English holiday homes"]

"See now boyo - rub them there sticks together and what you got? 'fi-er'"

PS I live in the north of england and our house prices locally are over 9x my salary, Wish we had rich tourists to fleece ;0)

Grow up

Power to the pasties!!

I can't see all this messing around burning things do what we do in the states steal all the lumber and other building supplies right off the homes plumbing wiring anything that way you can make some money and they either sell whats left or buy the stuff back from you. If that gets too dangerous then burn them (with the rich bastards inside) also rob them and take their credit cards and their women if they aren't too ugly.