More of the Same

The new house of States of Jersey, have shown themselves to be much the same as the old house. Following their own self interest.

As soon as they are elected they are happy to sit back on their £43K or so income plus expenses.

So no compensation as yet for the Woolworth workers. No adequate redundancy protection for Islanders. A vague idea to pump £140 million of our money into the economy. But who to? Debates in secret about the suspension of the police chief. No comment about the amounts of money given to airlines only for them to pull out within two years. No deposit protection scheme just some reliance on the "too big to fail" UK banks who are now all but nationalised by the UK Government. Do they think that the UK Government will be happy owning offshore entities created in part so that the Exchequer does not receive all its tax take and are in the location where so many off balance sheet vehicles were created so as to effectively hide the true position of the Banks.

And we have a new transport minister. Clearly more of the same here as well. He wants to introduce taxes on parking spaces just at a time where all governments are reducing taxes or not imposing new ones.

How will this new bunch of talents deal with a real onslaught on the finance industry and the next wave of redundancies and the recession. Not very well I venture - it appears from the spin of Economic Development and the rest of them that they don't really have a clue - I suppose they could draft in some experts to point out the obvious.