Cornish actress Susan Penhaligon has ripped up her Liberal Democrat party membership in protest at controversial welfare and NHS reform, writes London Editor Graeme Demianyk.
Ms Penhaligon, who was hailed the "face of the decade" in the Seventies and Britain's answer to Brigitte Bardot, said her late cousin David Penhaligon – the renowned Liberal MP – would be "turning in his grave" over some coalition Government policies.
The television, film and stage actor, who now lives in London but grew up in Falmouth and St Ives, did not renew her Lib Dem subscription amid support for the so-called "bedroom tax" and greater NHS competition, and indicated she would vote for Cornish nationalists Mebyon Kernow if still in the region.
She told the Western Morning News: "I feel slightly betrayed by the Lib Dems by going along with the 'bedroom tax'. And the NHS reforms seem like a step towards privatisation. More competition in the NHS would be a disaster."
Ms Penhaligon added: "The Liberal Democrats are not the old Liberal Party. I think David Penhaligon would be turning in his grave at some of the things that are happening. I don't like the Lib Dems being with the Conservatives, and I think other Lib Dem voters think the same."
The 63-year-old star's second cousin was David Penhaligon, the popular Liberal MP for Truro hailed as a possible party leader. He died in a car crash in Cornwall in 1986.
While Ms Penhaligon said she would not join another party, she has endorsed Mebyon Kernow's Penzance candidate Rob Simmons ahead of next month's local elections – telling him she would "door knock" for the party if she wasn't in London.
Aside from her bafflement at housing benefit being stripped from social housing tenants with spare rooms, and fears of a US-style health system, Ms Penhaligon is alarmed by the "devastating" impact of more holiday homes on Cornish life.
While conscious of living in the capital and commenting on Cornwall from hundreds of miles away, she said: "One of the most shocking things I have read is about a street in St Ives where I grew up – Teetotal Street – where I think out of about 56 houses only ten were lived in permanently. The rest were holiday homes. When I go back all I see is holiday homes. My mother did B&Bs so I know what it's like to live off a good summer season. But there has to be a balance."
