Mayonnaise Jar & Two Beers..

A wise parable I was emailed:


When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him..

When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full.


They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly.


The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.


He then asked the students again if the jar was full.


They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.


Of course, the sand filled up everything else.


He asked once more if the jar was full.


The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.


The students laughed..

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.


The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else---the small stuff.


'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.


The same goes for life.


If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you..

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.


Spend time with your children.


Spend time with your parents.


Visit with grandparents..


Take time to get medical checkups.


Take your spouse out to dinner.


Play another 18.


There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.


Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter.


Set your priorities.


The rest is just sand.


One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented.


The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.'

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

Please share this with someone you care about. I JUST DID!

Relief and Disappointment

The by-election result has given me plenty of food for thought, and not all of it as gloomy as the campaign made me feel.

Four or five weeks ago, I would have said Francis le Gresley was very likely to win by a country mile, on the strength of his CV being so much better than anybody else's. But, when he did in fact do so, I was actually quite surprised. He did not have a particularly good campaign, and his lacklustre hustings performances were well reported on the local blog scene.

So, I think my first lesson is that campaigning counts for less than it should – a decisive proportion of voters are going to vote according to their preconceptions of the candidates, and Francis le Gresley's public standing has been very high for a very long time. And a second lesson is that we bloggers are taken much less notice of by the general public than we like to think.

The upside of impotent blogging is that the vociferous clamour of the Syvret loyalists did not translate into enough votes to let him take any more long holidays at our expense. Now he can put his abject failure as a politician behind him, I hope he can make something of his journalistic career. Although he is an unpleasant man and a crushing disappointment to meet in person, he does have some real abilities, and could make the world a better place if he could only find an effective channel for them. By Election Day, I thought, from all the noise of his fans, that he was going to win, and I am glad to be wrong.

And on the subject of abject failures, I am upset to be proved right about the utter folly of Geoff Southern's campaign. Now it is too late, even he realises that people were not going to like the idea of voting for him when he is already in the States. He campaigned far better than Francis, but, as I said above, campaigning counts for less than preconceptions. And on the other hand, forcing Syvret voters, who had been JDA voters too, to choose has alienated a hefty chunk of the JDA's core vote. For the next couple of elections, the JDA may have to be a behind-the-scenes alliance again, as it was in the Deputies' round of the 2005 Election, until it has lived down this fiasco. Having put years of hard work into the JDA, I am most displeased by this setback.

Two more good things were that the turnout was far higher then I expected, and the lightweight candidates all did far worse than I thought they would. In particular, I thought Peter Remon-Whorral's cheeky charm was striking a chord with the public. However when it came to casting their votes, his lack of serious policy was overwhelmingly rejected. He may be well-liked, but almost nobody made the mistake of making that a reason to vote him into office.

I had better not be too dogmatic about campaigning not counting for much. Patrick Ryan was as good as Geoff Southern on the stage at Trinity hustings, and he managed to run Syvret a close third. I think he could be a Senator and Minister come 2012.

All in all, a lot better than I dared to hope for.

Depressing Guessing

Having been to my parish hustings, and followed the buzz on the internet and a bit of good old-fashioned word of mouth, I am starting to get an idea where the Jersey by-election is heading. And I want to be wrong!

I reckon that there will be quite a low turnout, except amongst committed Syvret supporters, who will make sure that they endorse their man. All the rest will split each other's meagre votes.

So my prediction is:-
Syvret to win with about 3,500 votes
le Gresley runner up with about 2,500
Southern 3rd with about 2,000
Ryan 4th with about 1,500
Whorall, everybody's favourite dark horse, with about 1,000
Baudains, capable but lacking charm, with about 900
le Cornu maybe 700
Risoli perhaps 500
and Maguire, clever and thoughtful, but selling himself badly, with just 200 odd.

I want Syvret out, but I don't believe it will happen.

Roll on Thursday morning! Let us see how much better than this reality turns out to be.

I Never Said It Was All Lies, Although I Wish I Didn't Believe This One

While my commentators still have not convinced me that I should ever vote for Stuart Syvret again, I do continue to keep up with his blog. It needs a sceptical approach, as I am sure that not all of is true, but I am equally sure that over half of it is. And this morning, on the current comment thread
he revealed a new take on the outrageous police raid on the home he used to share with Deputy Carolyn Labey. Maybe just another plausible lie, but this one has a horrible believability about it. Not proven beyond all reasonable doubt, but certainly reasonable grounds for suspicion and a case to answer.

The gist, is that Deputy Labey had gathered evidence of corruption involving someone who was a minister until very recently, and a police officer whom Syvret regularly accuses of also being grossly corrupt used Syvret as an excuse to try and snatch Deputy Labey's evidence and dispose of it. Go read Syvret's own version.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7124117913567332282&postID=237044571634590900

I think investigative journalism is a much apter vocation for him than politics ever was. I do not see voting for him as part of the answer to this kind of problem, but he is doing a fine job in raising the questions. It will be interesting to see whether anyone, who has not been silly enough to throw their seat in the States away, picks this ball up and runs with it. I hope so.

Democracy, Principles and Sacrifices

This week's “swivel-eyed, frothy-mouthed rant”(Thanks, Other Exile) is going to be more introspective. Although, I am going to keep to my self-set brief that this blog is about content, not me, and draw some general conclusions from my musings.

I have been an active member of the Jersey Democratic Alliance for some years. Although I am temperamentally inclined to stand up for myself and be counted, irrespective of who is with me, I understand the importance of collective action and teamwork, both pragmatically, as a means of achieving ends, and morally, by fulfilling my human nature as a member of a social species. Thus, I have embraced the opportunity to work with like-minded people on trying to influence the development of Jersey into a better place, or at least defend against its decline into a worse one. It can be frustrating to actually achieve so little, for so much effort invested, but one never knows when one will cross a tipping point,and it all start to come good.

Because, by and large, the JDA is a team of fairly like minds, there is a lot of consensus on how we do what. However, we are not realistically going to all agree about everything all of the time. If somebody is having frequent disagreements with the majority of other members about big issues of principle, there comes a point where it has to be admitted that they are out of sympathy with the party generally, and it would be hypocrisy to cling on when the decent course would be resignation. Occasional differences of opinion are inevitable, though, and are the fuel on which meetings and discussions run. Sometimes one can be really disappointed with a particular decision, but the disappointment has to be weighed against one's commitment to the larger long-term project of the party. Were it obligatory to quit any time one did not get one's own way, the party would soon dwindle to nothing. They show must go on, even if you have to sing a song you don't really like, now and then.

I have been having to keep those priorities in the front of my mind this week. Neither myself, nor the party's other main spin-doctor, liked the principle of putting up a sitting States Member in a by-election. For one thing, it seemed a waste of time and effort to run a campaign, when the inevitable result, win or lose, will be that same person in the States after the election. Beyond that, it is an abuse of process: Because our member is in the States anyway, voting for him is tantamount to spoiling your paper with the message “none of the above”, when the ostensible purpose of the election is to choose a new member to fill the vacancy. However, the will of our colleagues was almost unanimous, that Geoff must run, so we had to accept it, or flounce out in a sulk.

I mentioned the ostensible purpose. What changes things is, that it is becoming very clear that many of the public want to project other purposes onto this election; to make it an opinion poll or unofficial referendum on some of the candidates' pet issues, rather than just selecting them for their fitness for the office. In my last article, I argued that it was about choosing the best candidate, and that Stuart Syvret was no longer up to the job for numerous reasons. I never knew who, if anyone, reads this blog, but I suddenly found out that I have intelligent and articulate readers, who retain complete confidence in, and loyalty to Mr Syvret, and put up a forceful defence of his position. The best comment thread I have ever seen on any blog, to be honest. And their conclusion was that no, it was very much about the pet issues.

If a voter wants to keep things as they are, then it is clear that the establishment's man is Francis le Gresley. I think he has the background and ability to make a good politician, but the taint of Rod Bryans' endorsement rings alarm bells about his true sympathies. Or, if they want a right-winger from outside the clique, there is always Patrick Ryan. If the voter wants protest and rebellion, then it is equally clear that Stuart Syvret is flying that flag for them to rally to. But suppose the voter wants orderly and constitutional progress. Nick le Cornu has awesome intellectual capacity and a tenacious commitment to his very left-wing ideals, but most people are daunted by his cleverness, out of sympathy with his aims, or both, so he is an unlikely candidate to succeed. So, there is a gap for a serious progressive candidate in this by-election. Despite the absurdity of fighting for a place he already has, Geoff can be that serious progressive, and now that their private falling out has released him from any loyalties towards Syvret, he has stepped into the breach.

As a democrat, I have had to accept firstly, the will of the party, to put Geoff up, and secondly, the will of the public, that it is about more than who gets the job. So I have been typing with gritted teeth to call for a vote for Southern. I am not happy to sacrifice my vote on who the new States Member is , just to send a message, but it is now obvious that sending a message is really what this by-election is about, in the eyes of my fellow islanders. So, I shall have to put my democratic principles ahead of my desire to vote for the new member, and vote Southern. If you want serious progress, I invite you to send that message too, even if, in your heart, you would have liked to vote for Syvret because he is a rebel, or Maguire or Risoli because they are nice men

He's Just A Very Naughty Boy

“Infamy, infamy, they've all got it in for me!” This quote from a classic British comedy film serves as a succinct paraphrase of Stuart Syvret's verbose blog. (Link on the left, if you have got the patience for it.) Of course, another clichéd witticism is “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you!”, and in his case, given the number of important (and unimportant) people Syvret has taken pains to deliberately offend over the years, they very probably are really out to get him.

Now Syvret is seeking to renew his mandate as Senator in a by-election. I have voted for him in every election he has stood in, in the past, but this time I have lost confidence in him as a political representative, and shall not do so. I shall explain why not, in the hope that none (neither?) of my readers do so, either.

Mr. Syvret is a magnificent orator able to imbue the many home truths he tells with immense depth and gravity. He is also bold in lifting stones to show the creatures of darkness lurking beneath them. That much I admire, and am happy to praise. Indeed, were that the whole story, I would be writing a different blog canvassing for him. However, the first reason that I have lost my trust in him is that he will tell untruths, be they malicious lies or merely reckless errors, with the same gravity, and identify the wrong people as the creatures he found under the stones. If he will do this where I know he is wrong, how many of the other claims, that I have only his word for, are also false? A very occasional mistake, promptly and apologetically retracted might be forgiveable, but Syvret has launched a plethora of disputed accusations, and stubbornly stood by every word.

(I lost faith in his veracity when he selected local blogger “Tom Gruchy” as his Victim of the Week. Syvret confidently asserted that “Tom” was a certain mutual acquaintance of ours, who has a very distinctive writing style quite unlike “Tom's”, and went on to make plausible but very private and personal revelations about long-past romantic rivalries. It took me until some time afterwards to work out who “Tom Gruchy” really is, but Syvret's readiness to denounce him, for what was plainly another man's scandal, gave me the measure of his own credibility.)

Syvret's long and ineffectual reign over Jersey's Health department ended when he unveiled severe failings in our Children's Service, despite his own senior civil servants denials. His accusations of a conspiracy to conceal the truth from him may or may not be true, but they are at least in accordance with public perceptions of how the upper levels of administration work, here and throughout the English-speaking world, in public and corporate sectors alike. Those who worked on the front line of his Department, however, say that they remember him as taking no direct interest in them, and being content to rule entirely through his allegedly treacherous mandarins. Anyway, once the relationship broke down, Syvret was forced from office in a way that cast a very bad light on Jersey's Civil Service and Council of Ministers, and gave him a large and genuine grievance. THE BY-ELECTION IS NOT ABOUT HIS SACKING AS HEALTH MINISTER. Even if, like me, you think he was wronged by it, that is not the proposition we shall be voting on.

The aggrieved ex-minister then turned to justifying himself on the internet. He has given publicity to various serious and credible people who have also had careers crash apparently as a result of revealing or disputing deficiencies in Jersey's Children's Services. It is a tenable theory that they have all been let down by the same flaws in the system, but Syvret and his disciples would go further, and conclude that they are all victims of one overarching conspiracy. The improbability of this is the second reason I have lost trust in him. THE BY-ELECTION IS NOT ABOUT WHETHER YOU BELIEVE THE SYSTEM TO BE DEFECTIVE, NOR WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IN A GRAND CONSPIRACY. Tentatively, I would say “Yes” and “No” respectively, but there is evidence against both views, too. Whichever, we shall not be voting on it.

Other serious and credible people, elsewhere, are casting doubts on some of Syvret's star witnesses. This muddies the waters. I would contend that each and every claim or accusation, of crime, or conspiracy, or incompetence, or corruption, needs to stand or fall on its own merit, and nothing can either be proved by its proponent being right about something else, nor disproved by its proponent being wrong about something else. There is clearly not enough information in the public domain for anyone to have more than a gut feeling that something is wrong, or that things are all right really, if only the troublemakers would shut up. So, justice has not been seen to be done for or to anybody caught in the linked webs of the Children's Service and Haut de la Garenne scandals. Neither the alleged criminals, nor the alleged concealers of their crimes, nor the supposedly incompetent investigators, nor the alleged victims of abuse themselves. THE BY-ELECTION CANNOT GIVE JUSTICE TO ANY OF THOSE DENIED IT. You cannot vindicate anybody by your vote, so don't let it distort your judgement.

Another reason for losing trust in Syvret as a politician is his disinclination to work constructively with anyone else. Parliamentary politics needs teamwork, and instead he turns viciously on all those he should be working with. His disloyalty and rebelliousness as a minister could be justified by open differences of policy and principle, but then he extends the same enmity to the progressive cause, too. He has publicly vowed to destroy the JDA, for instance. He started by claiming that he knew for a fact that two known paedophiles were JDA members, although he shut up when challenged about how he found out they were paedophiles or how he obtained the JDA membership list. No doubt he will be back with more lies when he gets around to it, though. In the meantime, he has just been generally unsupportive. Even so he pulled strings with his few friends in the party to censor mention of him on a JDA web page. None of the independent progressives ever get any backing from him, either. A VOTE FOR SYVRET IS A VOTE AGAINST PROGRESS AND REFORM.

Even worse than his refusal to work constructively, for six months, he refused to make himself available for the political work he was being paid well for, at all. The charges he fled from facing were for relatively minor offences, and the more serious one was eminently defensible, so his flight was a grave error of judgement, as well as disappointing cowardice from a man who offered himself as our brave champion. So, he shamelessly claimed £20k of public money to be deliberately useless. Now he claims it was to force a by-election, costing another £50k or so of public money. But he could have resigned back then and saved the wasted £20k, had the by-election been the real objective. Putting everyone to the trouble and expense of a by-election in the hope of being re-elected, when he already had the seat do what political work he would from, is an irresponsible sacrifice of the public interest to his personal vanity, anyway, be it part of the plan or mere consequence of the flight. A VOTE FOR SYVRET IS A VOTE FOR PUTTING VANITY BEFORE THE PUBLIC INTEREST. Discourage others from following his silliness, by punishing him with votes for anyone else but him.

Syvret's own excuse for his dereliction is that he has been doing some “investigative journalism”. True, wild accusations continue to appear on his blog. Every action of the officials on his hate list gets interpreted as another piece of the Grand Conspiracy. However, given that this man will shamelessly lie about others on the progressive side of Jersey politics he ostensibly is part of himself, can he be trusted to tell the truth about establishment figures, when not backed by quotes from more reliable sources? Or is he simply blackening the names of everybody he doesn't like, and he is an unfriendly man who doesn't like many people, out of sheer spite? He seems to believe that anyone who cannot afford to bring a defamation action against a respondent who manifestly cannot repay even the court costs must automatically be guilty of anything. This is the old idea of trial by ordeal revived in a more urbane style, not truth or justice. A VOTE FOR SYVRET IS A VOTE FOR PUTTING GOSSIP BEFORE JUSTICE.

The thing that disgusts and annoys myself and others most about Syvret, though is his sheer hypocrisy. He started from the widely shared position that political interference in criminal justice is wrong and inherently corrupt. He was right to question the apparent pressure on the police not to pursue certain corruption and malfeasance cases. However, he has then gone on to rage at the police and allege corruption, because they have not prosecuted anyone on the strength of his hearsay allegations. He is another politician who should be keeping a discreet separation from the judicial process, not trying to call the shots as to who is and is not charged. Instead he calls for the heads of all who stand in the way of his hate campaigns. A VOTE FOR SYVRET IS A VOTE FOR HYPOCRISY.

What the by-election is really about is to put a competent politician, who commands the support of more of the public than the alternatives, into the States to do a job for us for a year or so. I expect that there will be a good choice of old hands and promising newcomers, but, I fear, also a fringe of fruitloops. Stuart Syvret has earned his place amongst the last, by his consistent lack of judgement in the last year or two. Once, he looked like tomorrow's man. Now, having dismally failed to fulfil that apparent potential, he is not even yesterday's man. We must all send this noxious ball of narcissism and spite the message that Jersey wants better from our politicians, by voting for others.

There are a little band of loyal disciples who have been overjoyed at the second coming of their beloved ex-carpenter. Another classic British comedy film sums up their error, though: “He's not the Messiah, he's just a very naughty boy!”

Strong Democracy, not Strong Government

The traditional British disrespect for our politicians being what it is, most people probably start trying to imagine what 650 nooses look like, when they hear the term “hung parliament”. On the other hand, many politicians and political journalists see it as a different kind of nightmare. Partisans of an affiliation with a hope of power get very enthusiastic about “strong government”, as they would. The hung parliament, of course, does not deliver that. So, we have to read and hear all the cant about weak government and market uncertainty and The End Of Civilisation As We Know It and all the rest.

Anyway, my home is in semi-autonomous Jersey, and although the goings-on in Westminster still matter here, their effects are a little more indirect. We have our own little parliament to worry about, instead. For any outsiders who may have stumbled across this blog, Jersey has one small formal party and a mass of nominally independent politicians dividing into about two-thirds in an informal Tory grouping holding power and one third in a slightly more openly organised Liberal grouping in opposition. The complex electoral system discourages voting and frustrates change, so the unofficial Tories have been entrenched in government since time immemorial. Recent reforms have aggravated the problem by marginalising most politicians. There used to be a Committee based system that put almost every politician to work in government, irrespective of their leanings, but that has been replaced by a select group of ministers and an impotent squad of backbenchers. I don't think it works half as well, personally.

Jersey and mainland Britain do share widespread feelings that their respective parliaments do not represent, nor even listen to their publics. Moreover, the two party system, official there and unofficial here, corrupts the houses by inducing members to vote against measures that they would have supported on their own merits, or for ones they would have opposed, just to spite the other party and boost their own.

I would suggest that the optimum would, therefore, be a four party system. Four parties each gaining 20% to 30% of the votes in a left, centre-left, centre right, right spectrum would always have to cooperate to form viable coalitions, and would be discouraged from veering into extremism. Mainland Britain already potentially has the four in Labour, Liberal, Conservative and UKIP. These days, there is not much centre-right about the Conservatives, but having to compromise with the Liberal Democrats will force them to modify the policies they actually govern with, even if they dream of a harsher style in their hearts. Had there been a Labour-Liberal coalition instead, there would have been a different set of compromises, but once again they would have forced each other to keep to ideas likely to command wide support.

Jersey only has the centre-left JDA for now, however. Thus, Jersey voters, unless they are really sure they want to support the JDA, vote for independents, who mostly turn out to be conservatives in practice. Plenty of voters are disappointed in how their choices turn out, but without the clear indication of general direction provided by formal parties, those choices can only be more guesswork than anything. Clear party allegiances would make what policies they could vote for or against much clearer to voters, and especially the potential voters who are too overwhelmed by the difficulty of deciding, and make abstentions the poll-topper in most electoral districts,. In a multi-party democracy, where the expectation is for a coalition, and a government can fall by throwing away the support of its junior partner, each party would have to pitch for the backing of its rivals, as well as the voters, and so would have to refrain from plans that were not moderate and serious.

When Jersey had its committee system government, it effectively functioned as a coalition of everyone, and, although it occasionally vacillated irritatingly on difficult dilemmas, it generally had legendary stability. It is unlikely to return, however, so we must look forward to getting what we now have, instead, right. Drawing the Council of Ministers from a wider base may cramp individual styles a little, but it would probably result in a concern for leading the public where they actually wanted to go replacing the current arrogance and hubris; If so, this would be a huge improvement. The only way to drive the creation of a more diverse government, though, is parties and party coalitions.

So, let us have strong democracy instead of strong government, and create the parties by which we can be counted when we stand up for what we believe in.

March and Rally 24th April

There will be a March and Rally in St Helier on 24th April 2010, led by Jersey's teachers, and supported by other public sector workers and their families, to protest at the abrogation of normal pay negotiation by the Council of Ministers and the States of Jersey Employment Board.

The March will begin at Howard Davis Park, gathering at 11am for a 12 noon start, and proceed to a Rally at The Opera House, with a possible secondary Rally in Parade Gardens, should the crowd exceed The Opera House's capacity.

Below is an abridged version of the final confirmation document from the organisers' legal advisors to the organisers and authorities, to clarify arrangements.

PLEASE GIVE THE MARCH YOUR SUPPORT, IF YOU ARE ABLE TO COME.

Stewards will be present at the entrances of Howard Davis Park to count the number of participants entering the park. Once the march starts, stewards will count the number of  participants  leaving the park
…
Announcements will be made in respect of the contingency plan in Howard Davis Park prior to the march starting. Participants are not to walk more than 4 persons abreast along the march route, particularly through the centre of town (Queen Street / King Street). Stewards will monitor this and direct people along the route as necessary. Announcements will also be made about safe dispersal from either the Opera House / Parade Gardens.

The march is to begin at approximately 12 noon. Local Radio Stations have been advised to warn road users and the public to stay clear of Howard Davis Park around this time.

Howard Davis Park MUST be vacated by 1.30pm at the latest.

The March
Honorary Police will be located along the march route closing roads / diverting traffic. An officer will be available to spearhead the march. …
Stewards will be located at key points along the march, directing participants to keep a smooth flow.  Stewards will be positioned at Snow Hill to carry out a further people count. Once approximately 650 people have passed, a steward will form a marker to alert the stewards at the junction of York Street / Seale street to direct any overflow toward Parade Gardens.

Stewards will be located along the march route with megaphones to direct participants and make sure there are no blockages, or disturbances. ...
Stewards will be at the spearhead of the march and at the rear of the march, and as discussed above, at key points along the march.

Contingency Plan
In the event of the contingency plan i.e. that more than approximately 650 participants are in attendance, provision is made to direct any overflow at the junction of York Street / Seale Street to Parade Gardens

Stewards / Legal Observers
The NASUWT / NUT are to provide approximately 20 stewards (hopefully more) comprising of locals and non-locals.

There will also be 4 legal advisors present from Viberts, with a contingency plan of more should there be larger numbers than expected.

A full briefing will be given to the stewards at 10am regarding health and safety, and the march route and contingency plan.

Vacating Opera House / Parade Gardens
Stewards and Honorary Police will be positioned at the Opera House / Parade Gardens to ensure a smooth dispersal of people and to ensure the public traffic and road users are not overly disrupted. Special provision will be made outside of The Opera House to ensure the participants / public are not forced onto the actual road. There will be a States Police attendance also.

Inequality is Inevitable, but Useable

This morning I turned on the radio, to hear an interviewee on the news complaining about Britain's growing inequality. However, I felt his case came across rather weakly. He did set me to thinking about what I already know on the subject, though.

Social and economic inequality is another of the many things in life that look different, according to which angle you approach them from. Polemics can be more focussed and passionate by ignoring other aspects, but they are also less credible; so much less that it can rob them of their persuasive force.

The most fundamental basic fact is what is sometimes called Pareto's Law. This is that the pattern of personal wealth in a society tends towards a “power-law distribution”, in which small amounts are commonplace, and ever-larger amounts are ever-rarer. Thus we read of various studies estimating that 10% or so of people have 90% or so of the wealth in nations, or even 5% having 95% of the world's wealth. There is a simple mathematical underpinning to Pareto's Law, and I have seen it shown that it would rapidly and inevitably re-emerge, were the whole world somehow to be be transformed to a perfect “level playing field” as a starting condition. The asymmetry arises mathematically from the insight that someone on a random lucky streak can go on getting richer and richer, but someone on a random unlucky streak can not get broker than broke.

Pareto's Law is a fact of life we have to deal with. Doing so is complicated by human nature being shaped for other purposes. I sometimes think that evolutionary psychologists push their ideas too far, and forget that we have already had several hundred generations of something like civilisation as we now know it, to temper our primeval instincts. Even so, I cannot reject the truth, that we got to where we are from where we have been. Our distant ancestors were troops of monkeys, and then apes, with no property and flat, mobile hierarchies in which the alpha-male got to be boss for a spell in his prime. Our more recent ancestors were tribes of nomads with scant possessions and flat hierarchies usually respecting the wisdom of elders and sometimes the strength of bullies. In neither case would tolerating the unfair hoarding of resources by certain individuals particularly enhance the groups long-term survival overall. So, instead, we share with other primates innate tendencies toward envy and covetousness, when we see others flaunting more than we have ourselves.

Unlike a baboon or chimpanzee, though, we have the ability to cognitively control our behaviour, according to concepts our minds can hold and communicate through the software of language. We learn from infancy that we cannot just act on whatever instinct comes to the top of our minds, but we must measure our desires against social values. Of course, there are those who, by brain pathology or plain negligent upbringing, lack the full set of social values, and do indulge themselves without respect for their fellows. These are criminals, and it would be a grave error if we were to look to them for our moral leadership. For the rest of us, respect for society's other members is an essential value for social animals like ourselves, and respect means curbing those dark envious instincts and substituting more positive ones, like admiration, aspiration and ambition.

And yet, despite believing that one should respect the right of others to have more than oneself, I find that those dark instincts eventually get unlocked when having more becomes so egregious that it itself constitutes a disrespecting of the rest of society. I can live with entrepreneurs like Richard Branson or Kevin Leech reaping their rewards for providing work for their employees and goods and services for their customers. I can live with creators like JK Rowling or Paul McCartney receiving tangible thanks for the hundreds of millions of hours of pleasure they have given the world. I hit a personal sticking point at Victoria Beckham mincing through Heathrow airport with yet another £2,000 bag and a thunderous expression suggesting she is still not satisfied. I am pushed way beyond it by Fred the Shred Goodwin trousering a king's ransom for catastrophically ruining a multi-billion pound bank.Your sticking point may lie somewhere else. I expect you have one, though. So, I would contend that it can be generally agreed that the right to property does not bear extension to a right to appropriate an unfair share of society's resources. How much is unfair is a matter of subjective opinion, of course. The best way to achieve a working consensus is to have democratic elections between candidates with different opinions, and see who the most people agree with.

It is not only the top of the power-law curve that needs artificial constraint for social justice. More important than a few people having excess wealth are the many having insufficient. Even Adam Smith, hero of the cynical hard-right, had strong words to say on the obligation to keep people above a threshold income on which they can not only subsist, but take part in life. One of the most essential features of the many that make humans such special creatures is our instinctive drive to look after all members of our community, even and especially those who would not be viable without assistance. Left-wing sociologists sometimes bang on about an absurd concept of “relative poverty”, where if you are comfortably off in a rich place you should count as a pauper for not reaching some arbitrary fraction of the average wage. Much less amusing is real poverty: Not being able to provide oneself and any dependants with adequate food and shelter to survive in good health, or able to provide only that, with minimal quality of life. Unless we deny our own humanity, it is incumbent on us all to share sufficient of our society's resources that even the losers can survive and enjoy, at least, modest and basic comforts.

I have said that some people would not have enough, without help. I have also suggested that others achieve an unfair and unjustifiable share of wealth. The solution to both of these thing lies in progressive taxation. We all need to contribute to the costs of maintaining our civilisation and the fairest and most reasonable way is to extract the largest contribution from those who will have the most left for themselves afterwards. And, as that remainder grows, the amount skimmed by taxation can grow by more, without any hardship for the taxpayer, or appreciably greater injustice than they would themselves have shown society by keeping the surplus to themselves.

Although I believe that inequality is natural and inevitable, it can and should be constrained at the margins by welfare and taxation. All it needs is progressive taxation, and economic inequality becomes the means by which the strong fulfil their human destiny to look after the weak.

To be fair, the man on the radio was also concerned with inequality of opportunity. This is another matter, but if you applied what I have written above to families, rather than individuals you come to the root of it. Some families are winners generation upon generation, rather more get stuck at rock bottom, and most of us have ups and downs in between them. To keep society functional, the hereditary rich have to keep the tradition of noblesse oblige and look after the poor, or else it all falls down.

Gift Aid In Jersey

"Tony the Prof", an online correspondent of mine, and Deputy Monty Tadier are launching a campaign to bring UK-style "Gift Aid" to Jersey charities.

It is a tax relief scheme, that you can find an excellent explanation of at Tony's Musings - link in the Blogs box on the left.

Monty has started a Facebook campaign at http://www.facebook.com/n/?group.php&gid=255188056438&mid=1be8e1aG23361d2fG51ef33eG6 . If you can read this, you can visit that. I suppose some sort of argument could be made against it, but I think it is an excellent scheme, and I recommend that you, too, support it.

End Compulsory Retirement in Jersey, too.

Harriet Harman's call for a ban on compulsory retirement in mainland Britain needs to be echoed here in Jersey. For those whose circumstances permit it, it is a fine thing to be able to devote one's life to leisure and, maybe, voluntary work before one has grown too frail. On the other hand, there are many more who can still work, when they reach nominal retirement age, and would rather continue to earn a real wage than struggle on a pension.

There are a lot of employers who follow good practice in allowing the willing to work on past their official retirement age. Sadly, there also plenty more with no shame in taking an “ageist” approach to their human resources management. There would be benefits both to the individuals concerned and to Jersey as a society and economy, if there were to be legal constraints placed on employers' freedom to put their workers on the street just for exceeding an arbitrary number of birthdays.

For individuals, the fall in income spells at best a sharp reduction in their standard of living, and quite possibly real hardship, especially for those whose employers insist on retiring them before States Pension age.

For Jersey as a whole, maximising the years of work from each person helps to address two perennial problems. Firstly, to fill the job that has been vacated, another worker must be found, and that person may have to be imported, aggravating the overpopulation: Keeping people as economically active instead of replacing them as employees and adding them to the pension burden makes economic sense. Secondly, Social Security and Pension funding has long been difficult. A parallel change to ending compulsory retirement, in which the many who have not spent their entire working life in Jersey could continue to pay contributions to add to their credits beyond their eligible retirement date, instead of claiming the pension, would both help the fund's income, and improve the lot of the workers, when they do decide that they are ready to retire.

I take quite a personal interest in this subject, as my own employer warned me a couple of years ago that I would be terminated at 60, when the company pension scheme matures. However, only having a few years contributions to this scheme will give me nothing like a living income from it, for the five years before I can get state pensions from Jersey and the UK. And 60 year-olds tend not to go to the front of the queue in applying for new jobs. So, already, I am having to look around for lower-paid work, just to be able to stay until I am 65 or more. I am still likely to have dependent children in further education to support then, let alone myself. My wife's career is secure enough, but it is hardly fair to expect her to keep me as a house husband in her own middle age. It would be a weght off my shoulders if I no longer had to worry about the sack for a 60th birthday present.

Perhaps the “establishment” and “anti-establishment” groupings in the States could take a break from the point-scoring and get together on this matter, as something where they could make a positive difference for many islanders, for once.

Human Rights Group

Somebody posted a plug for this in a comment to another article, but it deserves a mention in its own right.

Further and complementary to the existing groups such as the Jersey Rights Association and the Community Relations Trust, Deputy Bob Hill has been working hard in recent months to establish a group to monitor and campaign on Human Rights in Jersey in the strictest legal definition, which still covers a lot of ground.

Deputy Hill's group has now reached readiness to formally establish itself, and will be holding its inaugural Annual General Meeting in the States Building at 5.30pm on Monday 23rd November 2009. For security reasons, attenders must be escorted in by States Members, so will be assembling in the Royal Square for 5.25pm.

Although, as it stands, there are only single candidates for each of the offices, so there will not be any contested elections, it is still important for as many of us as possible to attend, for two reasons. Firstly, the more people come to rubberstamp the appointments, the greater the credibility of the new group and its representatives. Secondly, it is a chance to meet others who care about these things, and reassure ourselves that we are not alone.

If you really can't make it, and I myself have difficulty with the group's customary teatime meetings, then at least email Bob Hill with a message of support and an address to send a membership form to, and return it with your subscription.

A Big Boy Did It, And Then He Ran Away

A Big Boy Did It...

Senator Stuart Syvret has been conducting a bold and astonishing battle with the forces of the Jersey establishment for the past couple of years.

He had seemed a somewhat ineffectual Health Minister, but, once forced from office, he revealed, or at least alleged, an outrageous power struggle between himself and his theoretically subordinate executive officers. Assuming his anecdotes to be as true as they are plausible, Syvret was insulated from the matters that should have commanded his attention and action by his staff, and once he became aware of some grave problems through alternative channels, strings were pulled to ensure his swift replacement by a more amenable figurehead. There is a link to his blog on the left – it is a juicier read than this one, so if you don't already read it, I recommend taking a few hours catching up on it.

So, he then proceeded with a flanking tactic, telling all on his “Quite Vile” blog – I think everyone can agree on that description, it is just that some of us think it is the tales that are vile, while others think it is the telling – and daring those he accused of serious crimes of abuse and corruption to sue him if they thought their denials would stand up in court. To date, no-one has. This could be because all his accusations are just and well-founded. Or it could be that he has been smearing people with no confidence in the efficacy of defamation suits in restoring reputations. This was certainly a brave and bold course, for losing such a case would ruin him, not only financially, but reputationally. The latter would doubtless be the greater personal loss for him.

Although one can only admire the courage shown in blowing the whistle on such terrible things, the ethics are more complex and harder to assess. Quite a lot of the material for the revelations on his blog came into his possession in confidence and in his official capacity. To publish it as a private citizen is undeniably wrong and criminal. However, he has weighed that wrongness and criminality against the wrongness and criminality of the crimes he alleges, and of keeping quiet about them, and decided publication to be the lesser evil. A tenable position that I personally am inclined to support.

Yet, having a tenable and defensible moral position does not and should not put anybody above the law. There is undoubtedly a case for Syvret to answer on data protection issues, and I, along with thousands of others, thought he was indeed going to answer the case. The improper police action he suffered, when ambushed in a dawn raid like a gangster, must have been a terrible experience for him, but it was also prime ammunition for him to throw back at his enemies. And so we all looked forward to the establishment breaking its teeth on our man of iron.

...And Then He Ran Away.

It is one thing to admire a man for having the courage to pick a fight that I think I would have chickened out of. It would be another to continue admiring him when, having blustered for so long, he turns tail and flees when it is time for the real action to start. When it comes to the crunch, Stuart Syvret is no braver or more heroic than me after all; he just talks a better fight beforehand.

I still read his blog from his London bolt-hole, and still worry about his revelations, accusations, paranoid ravings or whatever they may really be. I am naturally of a sceptical disposition, though, and I am finding that I need to take him with ever larger pinches of salt.

He does have a defensible case to answer on the data protection charges, and an indefensible one on the driving licence charge. Neither of which would have landed him in life-wrecking amounts of trouble, if convicted. To instead bring upon himself the more serious consequences of wilful and calculated contempt of court is his own silly fault. Syvret is probably right about the unsatisfactory nature of Jersey's judicial system. He is very wrong to attempt to put himself above it, though. If the law is not to be respected by the overwhelming majority, and punishment meted out to the transgressive minority, then anarchy and disaster must follow. And after that a new repressive order, as the desire for restored stability and security becomes paramount for the survivors.

After all, his very point has been that people in high places have been wrongly escaping prosecution. For he, as another man in a high place, to expect a blind eye to be turned to his own intentional flouting of the law is illogical and hypocritical. Undoubtedly, he has been wronged by the establishment in his ousting as Health Minister, and again in the ludicrous dawn raid. This cannot excuse his own minor crimes, though. The rule of law depends on holding people responsible for what they themselves choose to do, not on looking at what they have had done to them.

An interesting contrast to Syvret's case is the recent one where an accountant operating outside the clique of big firms was sacrificed as an example of Jersey getting tough with financial crime. The Privy Council quashed his conviction, because, despite the rock-solid case against him, the Royal Court did not bother to conduct the trial in a fair manner. So there is effective recourse for being unfairly tried in Jersey. However, unlike Jersey politics' other bad boys, such as Terry le Main and Geoff Southern, Stuart Syvret has not got the balls to face the music.

We all know that thing are not quite as they should be in Jersey, but we now need a new leader for the long campaign to improve matters. Syvret has been tested and failed,but hopefully another will emerge soon.

Rocking Across the Generation Gap

It has been a good summer for live popular music in Jersey, and I have been keenly enjoying many of the events.

It has struck me though, as I look around all the grey heads, that the idea of rock as a youth activity is somewhat past its expiry. Indeed, teenagers do tend to have more time available for listening to and playing music than those whose lives have moved on into fuller phases, but there has been a remarkable change subtly happening, since I myself was a teen.

In the 60's and 70's rock music really was very much a youth interest, and it was rather eccentric of the tiny proportion of older fans to show enthusiasm. The music press of the day liked to reinforce the generation divide. As a reader, I used to wonder if they envied their predecessors covering the original rock'n'roll phenomenon and wanted to bestow the same historic significance on their own times.

However, a taste for classic rock and blues seems to be a one way ticket rather than a passing fad for most people. Moreover the appeal of the musical genres seems to be intrinsic, and not about generational rebellion: These days, I sometimes find myself playing the sounds of my own youth with men young enough to have been my grandkids, had I started a family sooner. To these lads, the music is not a barrier to exclude my generation, but a bridge and a shared heritage. We are just fellow rockers and grey hair counts for no more or less than blonde or red.

The point I am working toward is that rock is no longer a “youth” activity but a “people” one, and although it attracts plenty of young people the operative word is “people”, not “young”. Jersey should continue to provide maximum opportunity for its extensive resources of talent to entertain the abundant audiences of all ages, not merely as a token amusement to patronise youth with, but as general public entertainment. Let us take pride in our burgeoning music scene as one of the upsides of 21st Century Jersey: it is fun, and, moreover, a force for positive social bonding.

Spin Doctor Gibaut's Dodgy Statistics

This week has seen widespread outrage over the new Jersey pay statistics, particularly the £620 average weekly wage. Caller after caller complained on the radio that they were getting nothing like that.

This comes of using the wrong type of average for the sake of spin.

There are different ways to calculate averages to give the most meaningful value in different contexts, but they can also be misused to give a misleading value in a context where the truth could be inconvenient.

The commonest type of average, the first one most people learn about at primary school, is a “mean”. Where figures cluster around a single central value, a good approximation of that value can be made by adding the values of every datum up, and then dividing the total by their count. The trouble with processing wage statistics in this way is that earnings do not follow the “bell-curve” distribution around a medium value that means are designed for. Instead, they have a “power-law” distribution in which relatively low figures are commonplace and ever higher figures become ever rarer. The meaningful average for a power law distribution is the “median” in which just as many data have a higher value as a lower one.

Now if you were a cynically dishonest government wishing to tell the world how prosperous your policies were making your people, you could instead calculate the mean wage and pass that off as the average. But it would not be: The tiny number of very large figures would distort and inflate the mean to well above any sensible concept of the average. Wouldn't it make the government look good? See how rich even the ordinary workers are, with the economy in their safe hands!

However, there is a serious downside to the puffing up of the statistics: By making all the people who are actually doing all right think that they are a lot further behind than they really are, the misapplied average spreads discontentment and unhappiness. Worse still, from an economic management viewpoint, it creates an aspiration amongst genuine medium earners to seek hefty pay increases to restore their apparent position, an inflationary pressure that we could well have done without, in these troubled times.

Worse still, the politicians who commission these inflated figures may use them to justify regressive taxation measures, and to excuse failures to remedy the excessive costs of certain things in Jersey, such as housing and public transport.

The Statistics Unit appear to see themselves as spin-doctors to the Council of Ministers, rather than information providers to the island as a whole. They are letting us all down by this approach. I for one would like to see a change of heart, and the provision of useful and helpful information to become their new objective.

Admit it! We can't afford excellent buildings

Freddie Cohen confuses me. He talks the talk about wanting architectural excellence for Jersey, but, when it comes down to it, he both approves glass and concrete monstrosities for landmark sites and turns down the chance to get a Quinlan Terry neo-classical masterpiece on another one.

To be honest, Jersey does not have a very deep tradition of fine architecture to draw on, anyway. Victoria College, St Thomas’s Church, a few 1,1,(k) mansions and that is about it. I am not saying that there is not a good deal of historical interest in our other principal buildings, but they lack the combination of artistic magnificence and engineering excellence that makes great architecture great.

Walking around central London on holiday last week, I was able to look up and around at the splendour of so many of the buildings there, and appreciate it in a way I could never spare the attention to, when I used to drive around there years ago. In particular, many of the big Nineteenth Century buildings make the more recent stuff rising around them look somewhat shoddy.

Of course, 19th Century building styles reflected both a wealth that is now sadly behind us, and a degree of social inequality that is sadly threatening to creep back. The packed rows of cramped two-up-two-down terraced cottages in London’s back streets are no better than those in St Helier, and for the same reason; they were built to rent to the people who did not matter. However, when it came to building for the collective public, rather than its individual members, a different ethos used to prevail. The Natural History Museum, The Houses of Parliament, The War Office, even the main theatres have a harmonious fractal quality of well proportioned structures composed of neat and pleasing sub-units down to fine detailing. These are deliberately impressive structures glorying in the abilities to both afford and build them, and successfully meant to serve the following generations for centuries to come. Even the old County Hall, from the lean years following the First Wold War, was built both sturdily and with a visual presence. Although it has outlived its original purpose, the excellence of its structure continues to provide premises to a variety of tourist enterprises; hotels, exhibitions, shows and restaurants.

In the bankrupt turmoil of the Twenty-first Century, the labour-intensive beauty of Gothic architecture is an indefensible extravagance for public buildings. With money tight, down-to-a-price has to be the general principle, not up-to-a-standard, although, for buildings whose purpose is likely to endure for centuries, such as schools, it may be a false economy not to build similarly enduring structures, using proven classic techniques and materials.

If excellence cannot be on the menu, however, perhaps we should have no empty boasting about the supposed quality of our built environment. A sober admission, that times are hard and this is all that we can have, would be more appropriate.

Back with a Plug

I have been taking a few days away from Jersey for a family break in London. Although my wife and I have both spent enough time there to get sick of the place in bygone years, our children had never seen it. We all found that a few days taking a tourist’s eye view of the place was very agreeable indeed. I also found that coming back from a few days in radically different surroundings has given me a fresh perspective on my usual ones, which I can mine for blog material.

Firstly, though, a recommendation: If you want a comfortable, friendly hotel in easy reach of all the major attractions, the Premier Inn in the North-East corner of the old County Hall delivers on its promises of a good night’s sleep and a good breakfast, and moreover is better than some at putting staff with personal charm into customer contact roles.

Hollow Celebrations Part 2

May 9th looms, and the Channel Islands prepare to celebrate Liberation Day, the anniversary of the capitulation of the German occupiers in 1945.

Unfortunately, although the Third Reich's claim to the territory may be sixty-four years lapsed, an alarming amount of their spirit seems to linger in the way the States of Jersey exercise their restored autonomy. The Occupation may be long over, but Jersey can hardly claim to be liberated. Freedoms that mainland Britain takes for granted are grudgingly controlled by authoritarian bureaucrats or parish officials.

Our planning department has shockingly intrusive powers to interfere in how citizens use their private space, and yet permit an endless series of massive eyesores to be built in prime locations, so long as it is by or for a big and well-connected business.

A peaceful outdoor music event will be policed even more heavily than an angry political demonstration, and the promoters forced to pay the overtime for all the surplus officers. In fact, in an echo of the old Lord Chamberlain of England, all public entertainments are obliged to seek permission from the Bailiff, whether policed or not. It has become legal to dance on a Sunday in recent years, but you must not be caught doing it any day to a pub band.

A very recent case chillingly revealed that the Police no longer need search warrants, but, if they follow the prescribed procedure, may thoroughly ransack a private family home like a gang of burglars, on the pretext that one of its residents is suspected of a minor offence.

And then there is the way that ranks close around anyone suspected of abusing authority. Elsewhere, conspiracy theorists usually seem away with the fairies, but here they tend to be serious people with thick files of evidence for their allegations. But will those with the ultimate power defend their credibility by investigating and, if found appropriate, casting out those who shame them? Not while the current shower are in charge, that is for certain.

By all means, let us rejoice in VE Day. It was one of the greatest moments of my parents' generation's lives, and of immense historical importance to what kind of world I grew up in. But, things need to change a lot to make it worthy of calling “Liberation Day”.

We had Chiglet for tea!

I have occasionally grumbled before about the vagaries of food labelling laws, both here and elsewhere on the web. The other day I got caught out, myself.

We did not do a Sunday Roast this week, for various reasons, so I bought a packet of roast chicken breast from the corner shop instead. I do not wear my reading glasses for shopping, or at least I have not until now, but I think I need to start.

The meat was produced by a very famous East Anglian poultry farmer, which maybe should have put me on my guard, as he has a reputation for including some low-quality products in his range. However, it said 100% chicken breast on the front of the packet, and so I bought it.

Later, my daughters and I sat down to eat it. Their comments were not only amusing, but reveal just how impressive the product quality was. “Is this chicken or ham?” asked the 9-year-old. “Did a chicken marry a pig and make chickpigs?” enquired the 5-year-old. “You mean chiglets!” big sister responded. For my own part, I found it surprisingly briny, so I put on my specs and got the packet back out of the fridge.

“MADE FROM 100% Chicken breast” was what the front really said, only I didn't notice the 5-point type in light blue with my naked eyes. Even so, the percentage is both meaningless and misleading, if it refers to how much of an ingredient was itself, rather than how much of the product is that ingredient. I am sure their lawyers have made sure that the label is legal, though. Anyway, I turned the packet over and looked at the details on the back. These contradicted the front, but very much confirmed the eating experience. Really it was only 80% chicken, and reformed chicken (food industry euphemism for sausagemeat) at that. The rest was water, salt and miscellaneous gunk that one would not dream of putting into a home-roasted bird. So the info on the back was honest enough to satisfy the law, but the front packaging was nevertheless misleading enough to get a sale to a customer who would not have been interested, had he known what it really was.

It is no use compelling suppliers to put accurate product information on the backs of packets, if they still have licence to mislead you on the front. As I have said before, we need higher standards of food labelling enshrined in law.

Hollow celebrations - Part 1

As an ethnic Englishman, I get told every year by the media that I should be filling with patriotic pride at the advent of St George's Day.

Apparently, I should take it as a great honour to my people, that the Roman priests of a Jewish prophet assigned us a Greek saint, from what is now Turkey, to share with Portugal, Russia, Greece and a few other countries as our patron saint.

Well, I think that is a gross insult to our nation, not an honour. These halfwits who campaign for it to be a secular National Holiday are swallowing the insult whole. Apart from generally disapproving of the entire concept of patron saints anyway, I really cannot see the point of claiming a special relationship with one who had absolutely nothing to do with us in his lifetime. As the lead missionary in the conversion of Ireland to Christianity, St Patrick had massive and lasting historical significance in making Ireland what it is, and it is not inappropriate for the Irish to remember him when they celebrate their Irishness or vice versa. But which saint ever did much of note in England? St Thomas Becket was too much of a mover and shaker for his own good, and that is about it. If we must have a patron saint, let us celebrate him, instead.

Breathing Space, That's All

Breathing Space
The welcome news, that Jersey has made the G20 whitelist of tax jurisdictions, means that we shall not be losing our “finance” industry just yet. The fear is, though, that there will be a complacent declaration of “business as usual” from our ministers.

The white, grey and black lists were only the first stage in the backlash against tax havens, that their own success has provoked. The longer-term strategy for the G20 is to abolish large scale tax avoidance and havens altogether. Therefore, Jersey's long-term strategy must likewise be to wean itself off the wonderful boost that the finance industry has been giving our economy in recent decades, and return to self-generated wealth as the mainstay of the economy. Our place on the whitelist should buy us a little time to start preparing for a post-finance economy, while the money is still pouring in. But, it is only a breathing space, not a viable future. Nobody really wants to hear that, not the cynical right-wingers enjoying the ride on their gravy train, nor the envious left-wingers hoping to redistribute the gravy train's cargo, nor those of us who like to think we are just ordinary “Middle Jersey” making a living whatever way comes to hand. Not wanting to hear is not at all the same as not needing to know, however, and we should all start thinking about our personal contingency plans, faced with the catastrophic economic effects of 25% unemployment and no dole.

Worse still, the time frame is already looking an order of magnitude narrower than it did, when I started planning this article last week. Gordon Brown has now sent the heads of the Crown Dependencies' governments a curtly menacing warning that they will be expected set the pace in developing tax transparency, and meeting new international standards regarding tax avoidance as they are rolled out. (You can view it yourself at http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Brown_090408_Letter_to_jersey.pdf )

We have not been told to close the finance industry down in so many words. The huge problem for us will be that, if we are compelled to lock into a much less leaky international tax system than there has been since the mid-20th Century, the Unique Selling Proposition for much of our finance industry's traffic will be vitiated. The industry has already declared the depth of its commitment to Jersey in the wonderful soundbite “We can leave at the click of a mouse!”, so only a fool would hope for them to stay around as a favour to us.

From the finance industry's own perspective, we are not looking as good a deal as we did, until the 2008 Credit Crunch. Now the whole sector is in deep trouble worldwide. On top of that, many major players are now being propped up by the very taxes that their offshore operations try to cheat, leading to unprecedented pressure to reprioritise their duties to state and shareholder. And then the profitability of those offshore branches and subsidiaries is going to be driven downwards, by the elimination of substantial chunks of their custom. What will be in it for them, to keep Jersey alive as a financial centre on any grander scale than it was half a century ago?

Attempting to cling to “Business as Usual” as a motto will only bring disaster, as half the income and a quarter of the employment rapidly vanish, and the loss of all that spending power then drags local commerce into the pit after it. While all the ways that Jersey leaks money back out dry up more slowly, further starving us of cash, or even simply starving us.

The buzzwords of Jersey politics in the next couple of years must become “Exit Strategy” and “Contingency Plan”. If our ministers do not have them, and good ones, too, or those that have them do not become our ministers we are doomed to drop into the Third World with a very painful bump.

GST - let's not make it even worse.

I am one of the many who saw the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax, rolled up into retail prices like a Value added Tax, as an unsatisfactory answer to the consequences of the Zero-ten scheme for Jersey's corporate taxation.

On the other hand, I am not so convinced that, now we are stuck with it, that copying the mainland UK pattern of complex exemptions for all kinds of favoured items will not just make it even worse.

The level of the tax is driven by the need to raise a set amount of revenue from Jersey's ordinary households, spread evenly or fairly. Even and fair are seldom synonymous – the less resources one has, the less fair an even share of the burden feels, while conversely, those who can support more than others tend to see being obliged to do so as an injustice against them. But, one way or another, the taxmen will have calculated the average amount that they need to raise from each of us. As they need to take that tax, it makes little difference to the bottom line whether they take a little for all that we buy, or bigger chunks for just some of it. Possibly the latter opens a theoretical opportunity to avoid GST altogether, by a very austere lifestyle with not even the slightest luxury, but in practice the losses will have to be recouped by piling all the more tax on the items that remain within the net. And, not just to compensate for the loss of tax on the “basics”, but even more to cover for the depressed demand for more expensive luxuries. So, the standard of living for pensioners and others on very low incomes will not be appreciably better. It makes no odds whether one has no beer or ciggie money left after buying taxed food or just not enough to pay the new prices after buying untaxed food.

What the UK model does bring, though is unwelcome confusion and unfairness. A notorious bone of contention is trying to define the nebulous boundary between untaxed food and taxed confectionery, but in general arbitrary definitions and limits for anything are a raw deal for those whose products are stranded just on the wrong side. Do we really need to hire a couple of civil servants to pick through the UK precedents and choose which ones Jersey should follow, and which it should not, for the sake of keeping Jersey different? The latter is clearly a big issue with GST, or else they could have enabled everyone to get off-the-shelf VAT systems by adopting it lock, stock and barrel in the first place.

Keeping GST broad and light does make us all taxpayers, maybe no bad thing in this age of low levels of civic engagement, but it also means only those of the most extravagant habits need pay much. The fewer exemptions there are, the fewer injustices are generated by them. For instance, I do not see why fuel for luxury motor cruisers is less deserving of taxation than the fuel for the car I commute to work in. The more such exemptions GST becomes peppered with, the more it will become unfair.

Doubtful Thinking

In Jersey, as in many other places, a jury may only choose from two possible verdicts, or else invalidate the whole proceedings by refusing to agree any verdict at all.

It is very wise to keep the standard of proof for punishment at guilt beyond all reasonable doubt. The problem is that, at least as the trials are reported, sometimes what is actually established is that the accused is not innocent beyond all reasonable doubt. In Scotland, they have a third verdict for such cases – not proven. The flaw in the Scottish option is that it is a full and unconditional acquittal, not a starting point for a retrial. However, given the options of maybe punishing a victim of a false accusation, or maybe letting a heinous criminal get away with it, one gets the impression that in the privacy of the jury room they occasionally perceive a moral duty to make sure the case sticks to the accused to take precedence over their legal duty to eliminate doubt.

To my untrained layman's mind, it seems that it would be a boon to jurors, if they could bring a not proven verdict, where neither has the prosecution proved their case beyond doubt, nor has the defence convincingly asserted the accused's innocence, but for that not proven verdict to permit the possibility of a retrial, and maybe for the proceedings of the original trial to be admissible evidence at the retrial. This would enable the jury to take a constructive step towards a final resolution of the case, without feeling obliged to make a decision that the evidence that they have heard does not altogether support.

Do I have any lawyers or law graduates amongst my readers? If so, do you think that this is a good idea, something that could be developed into a good idea with expert assistance or just proof beyond all reasonable doubt that laymen should leave law to lawyers?

Served fresh - Come and get it!

So far, I have mainly kept to serious matters in this blog, apart from one rejected JEP letter about the Amaizin Maize fun park. However, I am a man with a broad range of interests, including some fun and frivolity.

Before I became too busy with important grown-up stuff, like family and politics, I was a keen rock musician, living for the buzz of performing – even if it was much more often solo busking than the big thrill of gigging with a band. When I turned fifty, I decided that I was old enough to have a mid-life crisis if I wanted one, so I treated myself to a nice Les Paul guitar and advertised for musicians to form a band. Sadly, it fizzled out after a tantalising handful of rehearsals, so I was back to churning out rough multitracks for the internet. (I told you back in post #1 that I do quite enough self-promotion elsewhere on the web, without putting my name all over this blog, too.) Deep in my heart, a little pilot light still burns, though.

At the end of last year, I started noticing references to jam sessions at St Helier's “Tipsy Toad – Town House” pub every Tuesday. Between being busy one way or another, and also being a bit shaken in confidence, after recently failing an audition that I thought had gone well, it took me a while to get round to going, but this week I took the opportunity of my family being away to go down. I enjoyed the evening very much, and got the chance to play a few songs myself. I found playing guitar with good musicians a little more worrying than I used to, but I got away with it, and at least the singing felt as if I had never had a break from it. (I wish I could sing like that at home, without the psychological boost of a band behind me.)

Bully for me, I suppose you are thinking, but regular readers should have noticed that my blog articles always have point and purpose. And it is this: There were just about enough people to make it worth it, but not really as many as there must be out there, who would enjoy coming. If you like live rock and blues music, either as a performer yourself or a keen listener, come and secure the future of the sessions by your support. It is far from all being the likes of me: The core is the O'Keeffe brothers from Killian and Suzy's Field, along with other Real Musicians such as The Dirty Aces and Kevin Pallot and Paul Bisson making appearances on my first visit. Definitely a good night out, if you are in Jersey and like that sort of thing. See you there!

The Rubbish Incinerator Again

(This was written for the letters column of the JEP, really, and it goes back over some ground I covered in the blog last year. However, as my next letter, on a different subject, has already appeared, I don't think this will get used now. So as there is some new content, too, I shall put it on here, instead.)

We shall never achieve a world in which mistakes never happen, so we must seize our opportunities to put those that we make right, where we can. Thus, I am very glad to see Deputy Wimberley bringing a proposition that the States undo their blunder with the la Collette incinerator.

The first question to which there has been no satisfactory answer, is why will the planned la Collette cathedral of garbage be so huge? Just across the sea, at Taden in Brittany, they are successfully operating a 90, 000 tonne per year incinerator. To deal with the waste from a catchment of 250,000 people! What are the Council of Ministers intending to grow Jersey's population to during the life of this plant? Bellozanne may be too old and too crude, but, since the third stream was added, it has not faced the problem of being too small. Running the new one way under capacity means either stop/start, or constant underloading, neither of which will produce the clean, hot burn needed for good results. If incineration remains the way forward, let it be on the right scale, at least.

Of course, it is very doubtful whether mass incineration is still the optimum strategy for disposing of tens of thousands of tonnes of mixed waste per annum. Even with the world slump reducing demand and prices for materials in general, most things can be recycled more economically than they were originally created. There is a range of modular systems available that sort and clean, or clean and sort the recyclables, and power it all by processing the burnables into high efficiency fuel, either gas or solid pellets. And these systems fit into normal prefab industrial sheds, too. Best of all, they are around a quarter of the price of mass incinerators.

Which leads to the greatest defect of the la Collette project by far: The immense capital costs, of both the plant itself and the remodelling of the neighbourhood to accommodate it, wipe out any possibility of the economics making sense. About a year ago, I had an interesting and informative discussion with an industry insider. He quoted TTS's own reckoning that municipal waste was costing around £55/tonne to handle at 2007 prices. He also asserted to me that the whole waste operation could be privatised to an operator using a modular clean, sort and pyrolyse process for a charge of as little as £40/tonne, with the private operator making the rest of their money on the recycling. He then drew my attention to the financial implications of what was then expected to be an £80m cost. Updating that figure only makes the picture worse:

The headline cost of the main plant is now £106m, only, since it will be paid in Euros, and the exchange rate is likely to stay crashed for years to come, it will probably work out to something like £140m, or more. On top of that, there is the massive amount of civil engineering envisaged to make la Collette even suitable for the plant. At least another £100m, and maybe a lot more. Let us be optimistic and say £240m altogether. Still being optimistic, let us assume that the new incinerator will last 30 years. That equates to £8m/year. Then suppose all recycling targets fail badly, and we have 80,000 tonnes/year of waste to burn. That would make an effective cost of £100/tonne on top of the £55/tonne handling cost, totalling £155/tonne, against the £40/tonne modular plant operation.

If recycling initiatives do work here as they do elsewhere, the waste volume could easily fall to 40,000 tonnes/year of course, for a more realistic cost of £255/tonne of waste processed. All in all, about six times as expensive to use last century's technology as today's.

Fortunately, the Ministers most personally committed to the la Collette fiasco have now left office. The new House can therefore take the credit for putting a stop to it without losing face themselves. I hope for all of our sakes that they do so.