A sailor was injured when a racing yacht capsized in a leg of a European race which is due to head to Plymouth today.

The French MOD70 Spindrift capsized in waters off Dublin at the weekend, leaving a crew member with a fractured pelvis in an incident involving large multi-hull yachts racing in big breezes.

It comes just a month after British Olympic sailor Andrew Simpson, from Sherborne in Dorset, died after becoming trapped underneath an upturned AC72 catamaran in San Francisco.

In the incident on Saturday, the eight-strong crew on Spindrift were catapaulted into the water when the 70ft multihull was overturned by a 30-knot gust of wind during a race in the 2013 Route des Princes at Dun Laoghaire.

However, it was not possible to draw comparisons between this accident and the catamaran capsize in San Francisco, according to round-the-world yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.

He told The Telegraph: "I have sailed on one of these MOD70s and they are amazing boats but they are sailed at the limit.

"You are flying on one hull most of the time, which makes it very exciting but if we are going to sail these machines like this, there are bound to be accidents."

The Route des Princes yacht race will sail for Plymouth today, when nine multihulls will depart the port of Dun Laoghaire at midday headed for Plymouth Sound. They are expected to begin arriving in the city from tomorrow – during Plymouth's Festival of Sail.

Speaking in Dublin, territories director Louis Noel Vivies, said Plymouth's vibrant waterfront and historic Barbican were among the reasons they chose the city as a stopover venue.

He explained: "Plymouth is a historical harbour for lots of multihull races. It was the start of the biggest and most prestigious transatlantic race and we believe the South West is quite interesting in terms of territory. There is Dartmoor National Park, some very good chefs and a very dynamic gastro mix there – you have a very wide variety."

A Conservative MP has criticised the coalition Government for allowing solar farms to bring about the "industrialisation" of the countryside.

Totnes MP Sarah Wollaston hit out after the Government revealed its ambitions for a ten-fold expansion of the energy form over the next seven years.

She took to the social networking website Twitter to say: "Covering prime farmland with sterile PV arrays won't power the nation just starve it, impoverish the fuel poor & desecrate rural Britain."

And in a clear attack on the direction of Conservative energy policies she went on: "The Conservative Party used to understand the importance of our rural heritage & food security."

Dr Wollaston claimed there had been "little debate" over the future implications of cultivated land lost to renewable energy development.

Her warning came after the energy and climate change minister, Greg Barker, disclosed his intentions for up to 20GW of energy to be produced by solar panels by 2020. Rural campaigners in the Westcountry say the proposals are "sheer insanity".

At the same time, planning Minister Nick Boles – another Conservative – sparked rural controversy by saying developers should be allowed to build on green fields that were "boring".

He told a fellow Tory in a letter that people had to be realistic about putting more housing on "environmentally uninteresting green spaces".

But Shaun Spiers, chief executive of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), accused the Government of being "in denial" about the scale of countryside building.

"What he classes as uninteresting fields might be essential for growing food or somewhere that people absolutely love walking their dog on or just looking at," said Mr Spiers.

Cornish Lib Dem MP Stephen Gilbert urged planning authorities to prioritise "local need over developers' greed".

He said there was still a "significant demand" for housing among local people, after figures showed the homes shortfall in the South West was the biggest in the country in 2011.

Opposition continues to grow against the Government's solar energy drive as ministers face warnings the plans could even overload the country's electricity system. Duchy residents may mount a High Court challenge in order to block plans for 15,720 panels stretching over 36 acres of farmland in Egloshayle near Wadebridge. The project, proposed by US firm SunPower Corporation was given final approved by Cornwall council earlier this year.

The landowner, Andrew Hawkey, said the project would "be of benefit... for the whole of Cornwall", but local opponent Antonia Willis described the process as "undemocratic".

Bob Barfoot, chairman of the North Devon CPRE branch, said: "Building on agricultural land is sheer insanity. Where do they think all our food will come from?"

Dr Wollaston said farmland should not be developed and panels instead put on roof tops and brownfield sites. She urged people to visit a solar farm to discover their "hideous reality".

The Royal Navy has changed two of its oldest traditions to reflect "cultural changes" and the fact that women have been at sea for over 20 years, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

Officers will no longer say the established Saturday night toast of "To our wives and sweethearts", which prompts the unofficial reply of "May they never meet!"

Instead, officers will say "our families", in accordance with an instruction from Second Sea Lord Vice-Admiral David Steel in a bid to reflect the changing gender balance of the Senior Service.

And the traditional Tuesday night toast to "our men" has been changed to "our sailors".

A spokesman for the MoD said: "To reflect cultural changes and our modern and inclusive Navy, two of the naval toasts, used at mess dinners, have been updated.

"The Royal Navy values the diversity and range of its personnel and it is only right that its traditional toasts should reflect the fact that women have been at sea for over 20 years."

Women have been serving at sea since 1990 but it was only last year when the first female was made commander of a major Royal Navy warship.

Commander Sarah West, from Middlesex, took command of Type 23 frigate HMS Portland in May 2012 and described it as the highlight of her 16-year-long Royal Navy career.

Before that, in another milestone for the Royal Navy, Commander Sue Moore became the first woman to command a squadron of minor war vessels, the First Patrol Boat Squadron (1PBS), based in Portsmouth.

The two women were described as being part of a "cohort of talented female officers" who joined the Royal Navy to serve at sea and are now undertaking or approaching key appointments in their naval careers.

At the time, the MoD said that since women went to sea with the Navy they have achieved success in many fields and have become pilots, observers and mine clearance divers.

In 2011, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced that women would go to sea with their male counterparts on the Royal Navy's Submarine Service by the end of this year for the first time in its 110-year history.

Concerns about higher levels of carbon dioxide in a submarine's atmosphere carrying risks to women's health ruled them out of service in Britain's fleet of nuclear boats.

But research by the Institute of Naval Medicine in Gosport showed that these risks were unfounded and that there were no medical reasons for excluding women from service in submarines.

It is understood that the traditional toasts do not take place every night.

The toast for Sunday is "absent friends", Monday is "our ships at sea", Thursday is "a bloody war or a sickly season", and Friday is "a willing foe and sea-room".

Wednesday's toast is "ourselves (as no-one else is likely to concern themselves with our welfare!)".

The Government's country-side department, Defra, is monitoring social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter to help tackle badger cull protests.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is seen as being at the forefront of so-called "horizon scanning" software, which gains "early warning" of public protests.

Other Whitehall departments have been encouraged to use the tactic, which was revealed in the Government's communication plan for this year.

But a Defra spokesman made clear the department is completely transparent about the technology it uses. It said it adopts communications techniques used by many public relations companies to engage with people.

Two pilot badger culls have been given permission to start in the South West this month as part of a policy to curb the spread of TB in cows, which is rife in the region. The culls have divided the community.

Defra is also monitoring Interent traffic from farmers in the Westcountry who might be planning dairy depot protests. A number were heavily involved in protests against the tumbling price of milk paid by processors and supermarkets.

In July last year, about 100 farmers descended on the Robert Wiseman Dairy in Bridgwater as part of a group blockade in protest at dramatic reductions in milk prices.

In the communication plan, Defra is indentified as a "centre of excellence" for its use of horizon-scanning software, a technique more often deployed in the private sector as companies attempt to protect their brands against online backlashes.

The document reads: "Defra... uses social analytics to act as an early warning of emerging issues (anti-badger culling demonstrations, public farmer protests) that affect the Department by reporting on social network discussions and hot topics in real time so that the communications team can respond quickly.

"Insight from this scanning has enabled effective low-cost, high-impact campaigns, for example more than 24 million followers across communities and stakeholders on a day-long forestry tweetathon, and an innovative take on ministerial announcements with #chipmydog."

Defra's "incident response team" also uses the software, which is developed with commercial partner Gorkana, to "ensure that the right information (floods, horsemeat, disease outbreaks) is delivered to targeted audiences quickly and effectively".

It goes on: "The need to prevent public panic during incidents and emergencies (food shortages, flood evacuations) is high on Defra's agenda, and so their social media monitoring has been crafted to meet exacting standards."

"The old bill have got me now," yelled Matthew Bird down his mobile phone to co-organiser Joseph Tucker before it was confiscated by the police officer who was arresting him.

Now outside the St Dennis home of Sarah Morgan, an old friend, the police had been watching the pair since they met up earlier that day. A search of Bird's pockets had uncovered a set of electronic scales, but a look through Morgan's home was more fruitful – revealing two bundles of cash totalling £4,500. Later the mother-of-three would claim they were thrown there by Bird earlier in the day and that she had no idea of the contents.

Tucker, meanwhile, had been in constant touch with Ian Singleton, his Manchester contact, who in turn had been messaging courier Jason Carter, as he travelled towards Cornwall from his home in Ashton-under-Lyne. When Carter was close, Tucker hopped in to a taxi for the Whitecross area of St Columb. Arriving at 3.40pm at the destination, a road just off the A392, Tucker left the taxi and walked towards Carter, who had pulled up in a Citroen Picasso hire car. The pair greeted and Carter handed Tucker a white carrier bag before he turned to walk back to the taxi.

It was at this point the police moved in, arresting Tucker and surrounding Carter's car.

Realising the predicament he was in, Carter made a frantic bolt for it. Jumping in to his car, he turned the ignition and slammed it in to reverse, straight in to a police vehicle. But having created room for himself, he threw the car in to first and wheeled away, knocking over a police motorcycle parked in front of him. A high-speed chase ensued, with Carter flinging his car down a nearby lane. But with the police on his tail he lost control and crashed. Scrambling free of the wreckage, he attempted to continue his escape on foot, but was not quick enough.

When searched by the police officers who arrested him, Carter was discovered to have £760 in cash in his pockets. Tucker, who months earlier had been given a cancer diagnosis, told officers he did not know what was going on and said he had caught the taxi to the area to go to a car workshop. The bag he was given was found to contain 2kg of cocaine that had been cut with benzocaine to a 17% purity.

Singleton's fingerprints were later discovered on one of the black bin liners that had been used to wrap the bricks of cocaine and an examination of phone records showed that a similar journey had been completed two weeks earlier.

It was February 3, 2011 – the height of police movements to disrupt the activities of a criminal network of more than 20 people trafficking cocaine, cannabis and amphetamines in to Cornwall.

In total, 21 people will be sentenced for their part in the drugs ring uncovered by Operation Ipanema.

Pulled before Truro Crown Court last week, 20 of them were given a mix of prison sentences, spanning more than 100 years, with nearly one million pounds' worth of drugs seized during the nine-month operation.

The police had focused on two gangs, one in the Falmouth area and the other predominately based in Newquay. Although they operated independently, the groups were linked, meeting for an exchange just a month after the February arrests.

In their tackling of the conspiracies, the police worked methodically, using a mixture of surveillance techniques to foil operations. But they were helped, as one defence barrister put it, by the gangs' lack of sophistication – for example not knowing that mobile phones could be traced.

It was perhaps, at times, more Trainspotting than Scarface, with scant evidence of the lavish lifestyles connected with drugs trafficking revealed in court.

But the gravity of their crime was not lost on Judge John Neligan, who reminded each perpetrator during sentencing of the consequences of their actions in leading to the "loss of health" and "downward spiral" associated with drug addiction.

The Newquay gang that was involved in the February 3 bust had been the first to be disrupted. On October 13, 2010, Anthony Bird, the father of Matthew, was stopped travelling southbound on the M5 near to Exeter. Visibly "nervous", he remarked "I have no idea how that got in there" when police discovered 4kg of cocaine, with a street value of £180,000 stored in a bank bag in the back of his van. Phone analysis had shown he had travelled to Asthon-under-Lyne and back, while reporting back to his son Matthew, and Samuel Tucker, the brother of Joseph, on his progress.

It was one of eight similar journeys he was known to have made up until his arrest and a search of his home revealed 1.4kg of benzocaine, a cutting agent used to reduce the purity of cocaine, in a biscuit tin in his shed.

Whether this arrest was known to the Falmouth gang, fronted by Roy Jones, a 33-year-old father of three, is unclear, but they were next to be hit later that month. Jack Clark, then a 19-year-old from Falmouth, described in court as a "Jack-the-lad", was spotted on CCTV entering Birmingham New Street station carrying a black Nike holdall on October 29. Mobile phone analysis had shown that he travelled up to the city by car with Jones – and his half-brother Michael Dean Thom, a father of two who had suffered from a drinking problem. After dropping off Clark, Jones and Thom headed back to Cornwall, but were pulled over near Launceston. Although, they were discovered with nothing but Jack Clark's passport, mobile phone information showed they later met up with him. A similar journey by Clark to Liverpool was shown to have been made on November 13, but this time with Jon Hughes, a school friend of Jones, who said he was making the trip to part repay a £500 debt to him.

By this time the police were hot on the collar of the Falmouth gang. Around £85,000 worth of cannabis and £5,285 of cocaine was seized from Andrew Smith, a class A drug user at the time, in November as he returned from a trip to Huddersfield in a car lent to him by Jones. Then in January, Jones and co-conspirator Roy Wilkes were shown to have met a contact named Kevin Waller, just out of jail for a drug trafficking offence, in a pub in Sunbury-upon-Thames. A week later, William Mason, who had also been on that trip, was pulled over near Helston, after returning on an almost-identical journey, this time with £135,000 of cannabis and cocaine with him. Upon arrest Mason also admitted to working in cohort with Wilkes on a cannabis farm in his double garage in Ashton – with an anticipated yield of £100,000.

The Newquay gang followed shortly after when Ian Smith, under the direction of Joseph Tucker, a school friend, was stopped on February 25 with £40,000 worth of cocaine after a trip to the Broadbottom area of Manchester.

Then perhaps under pressure, members of the two gangs decided to meet in March outside the Newquay home of Matthew Bird. An exchange between Bird and Jones and Thom, who were sat in a car, was seen and then acted upon by police – who discovered £7,000 as well as parts of a cocaine press. Ten days later, Thom's dad, Michael George Thom, a retired merchant seaman, was arrested after being passed a package by Samuel Tucker outside the County Arms in Truro containing £6,640.

But despite the police pressure, arrests and bails, the Newquay gang continued to operate and were caught in the act again in June when Brian Callaghan, a former shop manager, and his partner Michelle Mageean were caught trying to exchange £90,000 worth of cocaine at Quintrell Downs with John Fullard. Callaghan had thaht day been in contact with Joseph Tucker, and Fullard with Singleton – still running things from the northern end.

As the police wound up the investigation, now with enough information to charge the suspects, Tucker was photographed meeting with Singleton on the M6; shortly afterwards Singleton was arrested.

The capture of the 21, according to Serious Organised Crime Investigation Team detective inspector David Dale, is a message to substantial drug dealers in Cornwall that "we will locate you, we will arrest you, and we will prosecute you".

School pupils have returned home from a residential adventure training centre in Cornwall after more than half its 74 staff went on strike in a dispute related to a colleague who had been made redundant.

Managing director at Adventure International Keith Marshall told the BBC that some pupils had returned home, while others were staying on while he negotiated with staff about returning.

A Devon woman scooped £300,000 on a scratchcard but says she will continue clocking in at her factory job.

Carrie-Anne Targett, from Colyton, near Lyme Regis, has been buying the cards every week for three years after shopping trips.

The 37-year-old, mother of 11-year-old Joshua and a fanatic for the dance-exercise craze Zumba, bought the winning Super 7s card at her local Premier Stores using £3 she won from a previous card.

"I was just in total shock when it showed up," she said.

Carrie-Anne has worked at the town ceramic factory, CeramTec UK, since leaving school and doesn't plan to hand in her cards.

"I'm sure my life won't change too much – it will just be nice to be able to live more comfortably," she added. "Just last month I was overdrawn and my brother, who has been brilliant, helped me out.

"At the moment I borrow my dad Roy's Passat, but would love a car of my own.

"I bought an Auto Trader magazine, but just can't decide on anything. It's overwhelming – I'm just looking for a run-around."

Westcountry aircrew swapped wings for sails as Royal Naval Air Stations battled it out for the Inter Command Sailing Championships.

The Naval Air Command Sailing Regatta saw personnel from RNAS Culdrose, near Helston in West Cornwall, face their colleagues from RNAS Yeovilton in Somerset.

Sailors welcomed a break in the weather for perfect sailing conditions but faced some tough racing conditions in Falmouth Bay.

A fleet of 16 lasers and bosun dinghies competed over two days in a memorable event, which included the occasional capsize.

Captain Mark Burgess, physical training officer at RNAS Culdrose, said: "All the people who took part agreed it was the perfect way to break away from the office routine and enjoy a fun few days on the water – with a competitive edge for good measure.

"Admiral Nelson would have been so proud of his sailors battling to a conclusion on the choppy seas of Falmouth estuary on a wet cold Cornish summer afternoon."

The overall championship winners were RNAS Culdrose, with Leading Seaman (HM) Natalie Roach and Leading Hand Alex Pickles winning the top prize in the gold fleet race. The nautical rivalry will be renewed next year with the championships set to return to Cornish waters.

The Government has promised a crackdown on schools in rural and coastal areas after Schools Minister David Laws branded disparities in pupil achievement compared to inner-city areas "unacceptable".

Mr Laws said education watchdog Ofsted and the Government's accountability measures would make sure that schools which have a low proportion of poorer children – but are still seeing some pupils underachieve – will be forced to improve. He said a fairer national funding formula for schools will be introduced to help rural and coastal schools and that the details would be made clearer after this week's spending review announcements.

The Lib Dem's comments came days after Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw warned of "invisible" disadvantaged children in provincial and coastal schools, who are in the minority, facing a culture of low expectations and being left languishing "unseen".

Ofsted pointed to figures showing disadvantaged children in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset are doing worse than in London, Manchester and Birmingham.

But some have blamed under-funding in rural areas. Devon has been particularly hard hit by a formula created by the previous Labour administration which left it sixth from bottom of the national league table of 151 local authority areas. Cornwall is only marginally better off.

During education questions in the Commons, Mr Laws, Liberal Democrat MP for Yeovil, said: "We are committed to introducing a fairer national funding formula and we hope to be able to say more about that once we're clear about the spending review announcements later on this week.

"I would also say that we intend to make sure through Ofsted and through the accountability measures we publish that schools in rural and coastal and other areas that may have low proportions of young people on free school meals and entitled to the pupil premium are still under intense pressure in the future to narrow these gaps, which are as unacceptable in rural and coastal areas as they are in our inner cities."

Mr Laws was replying to a question from Conservative Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness), who said: "Last week the chief inspector of schools said that the Ofsted report on unseen children painted a striking new picture of disadvantage and educational underachievement.

"In his speech he said that we need new policies and approaches to deal with underachievement in rural and coastal areas.

"If those policies are to succeed they will need to be financed. Will you commit today to a re-distributions to rural areas so that allocations are both fairer and more equal?"

Conservationists, business leaders, landowners, celebrities and academics from across the South West have today signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling on him to commit to addressing the decline of wildlife in the region.

The call follows the publication of last month's landmark "State of Nature" – authored by a coalition of wildlife charities – which documented serious declines in a wide range of species.

Tony Richardson, regional director for RSPB in the South West, said: "The report is a wake-up call. The declines it describes are truly shocking and we need clear leadership and collective action to start to restore what has been lost."

The letter to David Cameron outlines three immediate actions for the Government to take – accelerating marine protection areas, guaranteeing support for "high nature value" farming and giving clear guidance to Local Enterprise Partnerships to invest in our "natural capital".

It describes the region as one that "trades on the relative quality of our natural environment" and states that the "well-being and prosperity of people and nature are intimately linked".

Mr Richardson added: "Although wildlife is at the heart of this, it's critical to remember that here in the Westcountry so much of our economy and our quality of life are dependent on the state of our environment. To ignore such a relentless decline is simply wrong....Leadership counts."

Among the signatories is Dr Matt Lobley, co-director of the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter. "The very many high nature value farms across the South West are at the heart of so many of our special places, like Dartmoor and Exmoor, but they can't do their business without help from the Common Agricultural Policy," he said. "In the South West is so many food, tourism and other rural businesses depend on this key strength, and can do so much better if we get nature properly factored into a rural renaissance."

A former Cabinet minister has urged MPs to join him by boycotting Prime Minister's Questions because the "rowdiness" is "deeply off-putting" to the general public.

Ben Bradshaw, Labour MP for Exeter, says the half-hour weekly grilling of David Cameron "might improve" if other Members avoided the House of Commons too.

Mr Bradshaw has been an MP since 1997, so has been in the chamber for PMQs when Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and now Mr Cameron have faced the leader of the Opposition and backbenchers.

But the ex-journalist contends the session each Wednesday is now "awful", and says the Speaker John Bercow should "throw out" the "worst offenders".

PMQs is regarded as the centrepiece of the political week in Britain, with the bruising encounters married to end-of-pier humour often likened to Punch 'n' Judy. While the Commons is seldom full – save for major events such as the Budget – the chamber is standing-room-only for PMQs almost every week.

But Mr Bradshaw said: "PMQs has become so awful I would rather be doing something more useful with my time like responding to constituents' letters.

"I still table a question every week and if my name is drawn or I have a burning local issue I want to try to raise in a supplementary question I attend, but most weeks I don't.

"The noise and rowdiness in the Commons' chamber is much worse than the public realise, because they only hear what is broadcast by the single microphone activated above the head of the person speaking. If you're actually in the Chamber yourself, the cacophony is dreadful and you often can't hear what Ed Miliband or David Cameron are saying."

He added: "The whole spectacle is deeply off-putting to most people and sets a terrible example to young people. If more MPs boycotted it might improve. The Speaker does his best to keep order and occasionally names the worst offenders, but he should be much tougher and throw them out."

Earlier this month, Liberal Democrat MP Julian Huppert claimed that some of the groans that greeted him as he rose to his feet in the Commons amounted to bullying. He faced a chorus of disapproval during PMQs when he stood up to talk about National Carers Week. Parliament's official record, Hansard, noted the MPs' response to Mr Huppert on February 13 was "oh no".

Also at PMQs, Catherine McKinnell, Labour MP for Newcastle North, got up to the sound of another MP shouting "whey-aye Geordie girl".

Primary school children left their classrooms and headed to the beach to hear a vital safety message.

The 140 youngsters, aged between eight and 11, were taught a surfing safety lesson by RNLI Lifeguards at Exmouth area as part of the charity's 'Hit the Surf' scheme.

The children from five East Devon schools learned about the role of lifeguards, the meaning of the beach safety flags, and what to do if they got into difficulty in the water.

Sarah Beresford, RNLI beach safety supervisor, said: "'Hit the Surf' is a fun and active programme for the children to get involved in but it also carries some very important messages about how to stay safe in the surf and what to do should they find themselves in difficulty.

"Bodyboarding is particularly popular with children so we want to make sure they have the right skills and knowledge to be able to enjoy themselves, but keep safe at the same time."

The lesson involved a 20-minute classroom session before the children donned RNLI wetsuits and rash vests.

The programme is now into its eighth year – but came to Exmouth for the first time.

The chairman of the Conservatives believes the party can seduce Liberal Democrat voters in the Westcountry through the promise of a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU.

Grant Shapps told the Western Morning News the Tories will deploy a "love-bombing plus" strategy to win vital marginal seats from their coalition partners in Devon and Cornwall.

As the WMN revealed in January, the Tory strategy to win in 2015 aims to oust 40 rival MPs.

Ten of the target seats are in the greater South West – and all of those are held by the Lib Dems – making the region a key battleground. They include North Devon, North Cornwall, Somerton and Frome, St Austell and Newquay, St Ives and Torbay.

Mr Shapps, who is spearheading the Tory election campaign, says the party will update the 2010 "love-bombing" strategy – where the Tories claimed to offer policies Lib Dem supporters favour – for the coalition era.

He said: "In the past, when they (Lib Dems) used to play the role of the party of opposition to everyone it was completely sensible to place your vote with them.

"Actually, if now what you want to see is the kind of Britain where we have the best chance of succeeding in the world, where we take our responsibilities to re-negotiate our relationship with Europe seriously, make sure we have a proper system of immigration which is not open to abuse ... a lot of these things are seen as Conservative concerns, and actually they mirror your (Lib Dem voter) concerns much more closely than these people you used to vote for as a protest.

"I'd sort of describe it as 'love-bombing plus'. As we've been saying for ages now, if you're Lib Dem and you have got values that Lib Dems espouse, then actually you've seen as Conservatives we have been quite a liberal government. (Look at) our major social reform (same-sex marriage). It's quite hard to paint us as nasty, socially illiberal."

He added voters tended to be more eurosceptic in Devon and Cornwall, making the Conservative pitch that "we are the only people that will offer you an in-out referendum" compelling, he said.

The Lib Dems are targeting at least four seats in Devon and Cornwall. Party leader Nick Clegg revealed his election pitch to the WMN in January, arguing the coalition would not be doing "fair things" if it "wasn't for the Liberal Democrats in government" – claiming income tax cuts and school funding targeted at the poor were their ideas.

But Mr Shapps suggested Lib Dems being in power "gives them less of an advantage".

"In the past they can vote Lib Dem in the South West with a romantic idea that they were up there in Westminster being different from all the other parties," he said. "It's pretty difficult for them to do that now."

Firemen had to flood a house with water yesterday after a man set himself and the property on fire after dousing it in petrol. Police and the fire service were called to an address in Torpoint shortly before 3am and tried to talk the man out of setting it ablaze. After failing to be dissuaded, the man began to set items in his house on fire. Having flooded the house, emergency services gained entry. The 49-year-old was arrested on suspicion of arson. He will undergo a mental health assessment.

Police are appealing for witnesses after a grandmother was pushed to the floor and had her handbag snatched in front of her two young grandchildren in Taunton. The 73-year-old woman was confronted by the assailant outside a takeaway just off Dorchester Road, at 7.15pm on Friday. She suffered injuries to her elbow and leg and was left shaken. The man is described as white, around 5ft 10in tall, of thin build, with short dark curly hair. He was wearing a brown top.

Police officers are investigating a series of shed break-ins in an East Cornwall village over the weekend, in which hundreds of pounds' worth of gardening equipment was stolen. Thieves hit four garden sheds in different areas of St Cleer between 10pm on Saturday and 8am on Sunday morning. Among the items stolen were an electric concrete mixer, six horse rugs, four strimmers, a nail gun and a number of drills. The windows of two cars were also smashed.

A 68-year-old who fell off a mobility scooter into a pond on Thursday has died. Firefighters, police and ambulance crews were called to rescue the man just after 4pm. He had fallen off the scooter into a pond at Mettaford Cross North Devon. He had managed to keep his head above water before being discovered by a police officer who alerted fire crews to help get him out. He was taken to hospital as a precaution but it was confirmed yesterday that the pensioner had passed away on Friday.

Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps has revealed the party will "love-bomb" Liberal Democrat voters in the Westcountry to win the next general election.

He told the Western Morning News that highlighting socially liberal policies such as same-sex marriage, allied to "hard-nosed" pledges including an in-out EU referendum, would be key to beating the Lib Dems in ten target and marginal seats across the greater South West.

Mr Shapps said a "love-bombing plus" strategy was an updated version of the 2010 election plan, which urged Lib Dem supporters to vote Conservative as they shared common ground but had a better chance of being in power.

Now the message will be that the Conservatives cannot be painted as "nasty, socially illiberal", and at the same time they promise to tackle immigration and Europe that "mirror" concerns of Lib Dem voters in the region.

For their part, the Lib Dem election pitch will centre on having pushed through "fair" policies on income tax and schools funding that would not have happened otherwise.

The Tories need gains in the South West to secure a majority, and will have to take seats from the Lib Dems in their heartland.

But Mr Shapps suggested Lib Dems being in power "gives them less of an advantage" as the "romantic idea" of being a protest party has now disappeared.

The birth of a baby outside a police station in Cornwall has given new meaning to the phrase "delivered by C-section".

For the little boy was brought into the world outside Camborne police station by a group of officers from the locally-based C-Section.

The special delivery took place in the early hours of last Friday when the on-duty officers heard a woman screaming outside the station at around 5.45am.

They found 28-year-old Kristina Kacorri in the final stages of labour, accompanied by her husband Max.

The couple were on their way to the hospital when the baby decided to make his appearance – a week earlier than expected. The couple decided to make a detour into the police station car park as they realised time was of the essence.

PC Dave Cracknell immediately adopted the role of midwife, ably assisted by Sgt Paul Freestone, PC Jason Gilbert, PC Jim Gallienne and PC Tony Wood.

The Devon and Cornwall officers set about making Kristina, from Penzance, as comfortable as possible and a paramedic arrived just as the baby was born naturally at 6am in the back of the family car.

The proud new parents and the baby were taken to the Royal Cornwall Hospital where they were found to be in good health.