Councillor Dick Cole | |
---|---|
Leader of Mebyon Kernow | |
Assumed office 1997 | |
Preceded by | Loveday Jenkin |
Cornwall Councillor for St Enoder | |
In office 2009–2021 | |
Preceded by | Electoral division established |
Succeeded by | Electoral division abolished |
Cornwall Councillor for St Dennis and St Enoder | |
Assumed office 2021 | |
Preceded by | Electoral division established |
Personal details | |
Born | 6 April 1967 |
Citizenship | British |
Political party | Mebyon Kernow |
Residence(s) | St Enoder,Cornwall |
Occupation | Councillor |
Website | Dick Cole's blog |
Dick Cole (born 6 April 1967) is a Cornish politician, [1] currently serving as an elected member of Cornwall Council and the leader of the Cornish devolutionist political party,Mebyon Kernow,a role he has held since 1997. He is currently one of the longest serving political leaders in Britain. [2] Dick Cole was first elected MK leader in 1997.
Cole grew up in Cornwall on the edge of the Goss Moor and was educated at Treviglas School,Newquay and University of Wales,Lampeter. [3]
Before becoming party leader in 1997,Cole had been Mebyon Kernow's press officer for the previous five years. Previous to that he had also campaigned for Plaid Cymru whilst at University in Wales.[ citation needed ]
In 1999,he was elected as a member of the borough council of Restormel,representing St Enoder,retaining his seat until the council was abolished as part of the 2009 structural changes. [4]
In the 2005 general election,he stood for parliament in North Cornwall and gained 1351 votes,coming fifth of six candidates standing.
In 2009,a new unitary authority called Cornwall Council was formed. [5] On 4 June 2009,Cole contested both the local and European Parliament elections held in Cornwall on that day. In the European Parliament election,he headed the Mebyon Kernow party list for the South West England constituency. [4] In the Cornwall Council election held on the same day,he fought the St Enoder electoral division,achieving a 78 per cent of the vote,comfortably beating the Conservative and Lib Dem candidates into second and third places respectively. [6]
In 2010 Cole was Mebyon Kernow's prospective parliamentary candidate for the newly formed St Austell and Newquay constituency in the United Kingdom general election. He gained 2,007 votes (4.2% of votes cast),placing him in fourth position. [7]
In 2015 Cole again stood as Mebyon Kernow's parliamentary candidate for the St Austell and Newquay constituency in the United Kingdom general election. He gained 2,063 votes (4.1% of votes cast) placing him in last position (out of 6 candidates). Although he increased his vote total,his percentage of the votes cast declined by 0.1%. [8]
He lives in Fraddon,in Mid-Cornwall,where he is a member of St Enoder parish council,a governor of Summercourt Primary School,and a trustee of the Fraddon Millennium Green and the Indian Queens Pit. [9]
In Cornwall Council,Cole leads the Mebyon Kernow political group,chairs the Planning Policy Advisory Panel,and represents the council in the Local Government Association's County Councils Network Special Interest Group. [10]
He has been outspoken on issues regarding the incinerator in St Dennis and the plans to build thousands of new homes through the development of an eco-town. He has also led a delegation to 10 Downing Street to present 50,000 signatures from Cornwall in support of calls for a referendum on the creation of a Cornish Assembly. [11]
The Cornish Nationalist Party is a political party, founded by Dr James Whetter, who campaigned for independence for Cornwall.
Mebyon Kernow – The Party for Cornwall is a Cornish nationalist, centre-left political party in Cornwall, in southwestern Britain. It currently has five elected councillors on Cornwall Council, and several town and parish councillors across Cornwall.
Fraddon is a village in mid-Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, in the parish of St Enoder. It is roughly midway between Newquay and St Austell and is south of the linked villages of St Columb Road and Indian Queens.
Cornwall Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Cornwall County Council, is the local authority which governs the non-metropolitan county of Cornwall in South West England. Since 2009 it has been a unitary authority, having taken over district-level functions when the county's districts were abolished. The non-metropolitan county of Cornwall is slightly smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes the Isles of Scilly. The council has had a Conservative Party majority since the 2021 local elections. Its headquarters is Lys Kernow in Truro.
St Austell and Newquay is a constituency in Cornwall represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Noah Law, a Labour MP. It is on the South West Peninsula of England, bordered by both the Celtic Sea to the northwest and English Channel to the southeast.
A Cornish Assembly is a proposed devolved law-making assembly for Cornwall along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly in the United Kingdom.
Cornwall is administered as a county of South West England whose politics are influenced by a number of issues that make it distinct from the general political scene in the wider United Kingdom, and the political trends of neighbouring counties. Its position on the geographical periphery of the island of Great Britain is also a factor.
James C. A. Whetter was a Cornish historian and politician, noted as a Cornish nationalist and editor of The Cornish Banner. He contested elections for two Cornish independence parties. A prolific writer, Dr James Whetter was the editor of Mebyon Kernow's monthly magazine Cornish Nation in the early 1970s before later becoming active in the Cornish Nationalist Party. While active in Mebyon Kernow he authored A Celtic Tomorrow - Essays in Cornish Nationalism and The Celtic Background of Kernow, the latter intended to assist schoolchildren in a better understanding of Cornish Celtic history and culture.
Cornish nationalism is a cultural, political and social movement that seeks the recognition of Cornwall – the south-westernmost part of the island of Great Britain – as a nation distinct from England. It is usually based on three general arguments:
Richard Garfield Jenkin, was a Cornish nationalist politician and one of the founding members of Mebyon Kernow. He was also a Grand Bard of the Gorseth Kernow.
Garry Harcourt Tregidga is a Cornish academic, director of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, UK, and editor of the journal Cornish Studies.
Summercourt is a village in mid Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is in the civil parish of St Enoder five miles (8 km) southeast of Newquay. The village is centred on the crossroads at OS Grid Ref SW887561 of the old course of the A30 road and the A3058 Newquay to St Austell road.
The Cornwall Council election, 2009, was an election for all 123 seats on the council. Cornwall Council is a unitary authority that covers the majority of the ceremonial county of Cornwall, with the exception of the Isles of Scilly which have an independent local authority. The elections took place concurrently with other local elections across England and Wales as well as the UK component of the elections to the European Parliament. Cornwall had seen its district and county councils abolished, replaced by a single 123-member Cornish unitary authority, for which councillors were elected for a full term.
Loveday Elizabeth Trevenen Jenkin is a politician, biologist and language campaigner. She has been a member of Cornwall Council since 2011, and currently serves as councillor for Crowan, Sithney and Wendron.
Pedyr Prior was a Cornish politician and a noted figure in the Cornish nationalist politics, being Chairman of Mebyon Kernow from 1985 to 1986 and later Chair of the Labour Party in Cornwall.
Mebyon Kernow – The Party for Cornwall is a Cornish nationalist, centre-left political party in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It primarily campaigns for devolution to Cornwall in the form of a Cornish Assembly. It has representatives in local government, but has never succeeded in national elections.
Stephen Daniel Double is a British Conservative Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for St Austell and Newquay from 2015 until 2024 when he was defeated in the 2024 United Kingdom general election by Labour candidate Noah Law. He served as a junior Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from 28 October 2022 to 13 November 2023.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Cornwall: Cornwall – ceremonial county and unitary authority area of England within the United Kingdom. Cornwall is a peninsula bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall is also a royal duchy of the United Kingdom. It has an estimated population of half a million and it has its own distinctive history and culture.
Presented below is an alphabetical index of articles related to Cornwall:
The 2021 Cornwall Council election took place on 6 May 2021 as part of the 2021 United Kingdom local elections. It was contested under new division boundaries as the number of seats on the council falls from 123 to 87. The election was won by the Conservative Party, who took an overall majority of seats.