Show caption Wednesday's storms damaged the railway link to Cornwall by undermining the line at Dawlish in Devon. Photograph: Clive Postlethwaite/Rex Opinion Proper job! It's England that's cut off from Cornwall, not the other way round The Kernow King We look west for our weather, scrutinising the Atlantic storms for surf. Without a rail link to London we're more Cornish than ever

Thu 6 Feb 2014 12.35 GMT Share on Facebook

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Before the railway line between Cornwall and London was undermined by storms yesterday, I hadn't given masses of thought to our obsession with the weather. I've never really given much of a toss for what the actual weather is doing in Cornwall. Rain, sun, mizzle (a Cornish phenomenon somewhere between rain and drizzle) … I honestly don't care. I love a walk on Gwithian in the pissing rain as much as I do in the sun.

For me, and thousands of other surfers, the real weather fascination has always been what's going on in the big blue expanse right on our doorstep that covers 20% of the earth's surface – the Atlantic Ocean. I've probably watched thousands of low pressures brew over 25 years, and waited patiently for the surf to lash our shores days later. Once one storm's gone, you're waiting impatiently for the next.

Early January saw a super storm smash our shores. We eagerly watched the weather charts online where the typical blues and greens which informed us of swell size, were swapped for reds, blacks and eventually whites, each colour a greater magnitude of wave size.

This week, another huge weather system hit Cornwall, with the mother of all storms reportedly heading our way this weekend. The storm called Brigid that hit us on Wednesday gave us such an incredible battering overnight that there was only one word for it – it's same word that the shipping forecast uses to describe such sea conditions – "phenomenal".

And, as I have already mentioned, it destroyed the railway link to London that so many rely on. We're stranded.

Within minutes the Twitter conversation turned to the subject of infrastructure. One of the two main road routes to London, the A303, is impassable and flights from Newquay , are threatened with closure. I'm not even sure if you can get on a plane to London now.

Then I spotted the tweet, the one I had been waiting for: "The bad news is Cornwall is cut off from England. On the other hand, the good news is Cornwall is cut off from England". Wuh! Hell up!

You see, we've always felt different in Cornwall. Not just cut off. The majority of us don't feel especially English, which really winds some outsiders up because they think it means we don't like them. It's why squillions of people come to Cornwall every year! Our history, our language, our culture, our sports, our people … we're Cornish before we're anything else. Without that rail link, we may well be cut off, but because communities pull together for each other, we're even more Cornish now.

But does the rest of the country actually give a shit? Have they ever? Someone said to me recently that the further you get away from London, the poorer the country becomes. It's certainly the case that some parts of Cornwall are classed as "deprived"? The Centre for Social Justice recently commissioned a study into areas of the country which Westminster policymakers have simply forgotten about. What they found in Camborne, Pool and Redruth startled them

Another startling fact: central government spending on arts and culture in the capital amounted to £69 per resident in 2012-13, compared with £4.60 per person elsewhere in England. It was even less in Cornwall.

So, what are the options?

• Dave Cameron stops visiting the beautiful Port Isaac for his holidays and has a look around the real Cornwall. I'll show him. He can buy me a bleddy pasty since he started taxing them though! Maybe it'll inspire him.

• Get the Duke of Cornwall involved. I'd love to know his opinion. The Channel Islands, for example, have a great personal relationship with the Queen. It's a partnership, with the Queen and the islands working together and being mutually beneficial.

• A Cornish Assembly. In a nutshell, bring devolved powers from central government into the hands of the people of Cornwall. The Scottish referendum takes place this year and the Welsh Assembly is working for a "fairer and more prosperous Wales". Would Cornwall do a better job managing her own affairs? I think we could.