THE government is to specifically exclude the Cornish from the protections offered by the council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. There is also the failure to allow the Cornish to record themselves on the next decennial census in 2011 by means of the unambiguous inclusion of a Cornish tickbox.

The complementary nature of these actions is the inability to collect meaningful statistical Cornish information that will, over time, confirm the levels of cultural and psychological genocide being carried out against the Cornish as one of the indigenous peoples of Britain. It is the Framework Convention that offers appropriate protections for the minority nations within the states from such devious actions by the majority. The state offers no substantive reasons for pursuing such negative policies specifically against the Cornish. It should, therefore, be a matter of serious concern for the public conscience.

E J Pengelly, Trevarth, Lanner