The Labour Party wishes everyone a good Christmas, enjoying time with family and friends and celebrating what is most important to them.  

As the New Year approaches, Cornwall can look with hope to a positive future.  Investment in renewable energy via the wave hub off Hayle will very soon be feeding electricity into the national grid.  Cornwall College, Camborne School of Mines and the Combined Universities in Cornwall are proving excellent providers of courses to develop skills that will move Cornwall towards a green future and a successful economy.  New ideas, such as Geo Thermal Engineering’s project at United Downs show promise that Cornwall can reclaim its status as a world leader in engineering and innovation.

It is not just the big projects that matter.  Local people are campaigning to save Trevu Children's Centre in Camborne,  setting up dance activities for children in Redruth, working on a new playground for Tolvaddon, a leisure activity centre in Hayle and a myriad more projects.  The energies of the people who get involved are what make our communities so special and we wish them well.

Many challenges lie ahead.  Providing desperately needed homes for people, while protecting our very special environment; moving to the future but respecting the past; preserving our heritage but having the courage to change as well. Cornwall’s public services and local democracy face many problems too.  It is up to all of us to work for the future we know this county deserves and Labour members across Cornwall, volunteers, councillors and activists, will continue to do just that.

My hopes for the coming election year, as someone who has stepped into the political arena, are that issues will be debated honestly and without rancour, political opposition does not become personal and holding those in power to account is constructive as well as rigorous.  Above all that political debate will focus on what matters most to all of us – our contribution to making the world and our part of it, better.

Merry Christmas, one and all, and a very Happy New Year in 2010.

Nadelik lowen ha blydhen nowydh da