Tories pledge 'minister for Cornwall' - probably because they know they won't win seats here

I read today that the Conservatives are planning to have a Minister for Cornwall should they win the General Election.

Two thoughts arise...

First, that there is nothing in the article which definitely confirms whether the Conservatives will do this - or whether they are just blowing smoke at the voters of Cornwall in the hope that they will fall for a fairly blatant bit of patronising campaigning. I've written to Mr Cameron asking him to confirm this one way or another.

Second, does this indicate that the Conservatives are actually a lot less sure about winning Cornish seats than they would have us believe? After all, at the moment Cornwall has five Lib Dem MPs who do a fine job in representing local people. Having a tokenistic minister for Cornwall - who will either be unpaid and powerless or will be a minister with about five different job titles - will do little to add to what good quality MPs can do.

My real concern is that a 'Minister for Cornwall' will be cover for Conservative MPs who are just not up to the job of standing up for local people themselves.