Where’s Carbis Bay?
As a welcome diversion, we started off the week with the announcement that the June G7 meeting of world leaders will be held in Carbis Bay, Cornwall.
In typical Cornish fashion, the news was greeted with self-congratulations by local politicians and total disdain and apathy by the rest of the population. The big question is why Carbis Bay? It is next door to a bigger resort, St. Ives, but the narrow streets of St. Ives would present a huge security risk if the meeting were held there. The hotel being used is the waterfront property to the left of the photo.
Apparently, the dignitaries will fly into Newquay airport, 33 miles away and then trundle along the single carriageway A30 trunk road at the height of the holiday season. I can see the logic of using Newquay airport, it has a runway length of 2,744 metres with a width of 100 metres and can be extended to 3,000 metres. It is an ex coastal command airfield (St. Mawgan) with clear access approach from the sea and sparse housing on the southern approach. There are very few buildings at the airport and very few within a mile or so of the airport. Security would be relatively easy to implement at Newquay airport. The airport is currently closed because of the covid crisis and the cancellation of all flights in and out.
The big problem is going to be ferrying the leaders to and from Carbis Bay as the roads are single lane except for the Blackwater and Redruth bypasses. The other option is to helicopter them in from Newquay airport and land on the beach at Carbis Bay. That would be dependent on tide times.
They would be well looked after, there is a Tesco supermarket and a fish and chip shop in Carbis Bay. If they get peckish, they can always sneak out and get a Cornish pasty from the bakery. This is not advised for Joe Biden, as he could have a senior moment and get seriously lost in the back streets of St. Ives.
While the dignitaries are having their fun, the rest of the county will be trying to scratch a living from the few tourists that may be allowed down here or fighting the post-brexit paperwork to get the fishing industry kick-started. The tourists are the life blood of the county, but there is a lot of bridge building to be done due to the behaviour of tourists and second-home owners flooding into the county over Christmas in breach of the lockdown regulations. Cornwall was subject to low level tier one restrictions at the time and last week Newquay was one of the most highly infected towns in the country. Which makes a change from the STDs which are endemic in the summer.
On a more personal note, a close friend had the Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccination on Saturday. By Saturday night she was suffering from a severe headache, general muscular aches all over her body, feeling hot and sweaty (but no raised temperature), nausea and fatigue. These symptoms intensified overnight, and she spent all day in bed on Sunday, showing a slight improvement by Sunday night and continuing the slow improvement during Monday. Tonight, Tuesday, she is back to normal, but feeling drained. Three of her workmates who had the vaccination at the same time endured the same reactions and they are just about back to normal as well.
They are all agreed that even though the reactions were severe it was worth it for the overall benefit that they received. As they are front line workers it was essential not just for their benefit, but also to safeguard the people in their care.
Back in the fantasy world of the politicians the leader of the Senned Cymru (Welsh Parliament) Mark Drakeford (Labour) informed his people that there would be a delay in the administration of the vaccine because it was in short supply and he didn’t want to use it all up before new supplies came in and have the vaccination staff standing idle.
So, he refuses to vaccinate the needy on the grounds that he doesn’t want his staff hanging around.
There was a poll three days previous to his comment showing that his party had dropped four points to 34% and that the other leftist parties (Greens, Plaid Cymru, Lib Dems) were improving slowly. They all poll insignificant numbers although Plaid Cymru gained 1% to 22%. The Conservatives were steady on 26%. In a surprise, Nigel Farage’s newly formed Reform UK party polled 5% ahead of the Greens, Lib Dems etc.
It will be interesting to see what the polls would have shown had they been taken after the latest statement from Drakeford. The performance of the Welsh parliament has been heavily criticised, and they can’t blame Westminster as health is a devolved issue. That is why England is outperforming Wales on the application of the vaccination programme. Another of Tony Blair’s legacies coming home to roost.