Today's Talkback

[Jason the Maverick]

Listened to this today and I found it surprising that ministers are still insisting that they never expected food to rise after the introduction of GST.

It just beggars belief.

[Conductor]

You could not make it up 

[Jack]

Yes, I heard it this morning as well.

I am struck by the lack of balance in all things fiscal, even within the contrived one sided interviews towing THE party line!

Just like this interview, our goverment is also un-balanced in the people who make up its members, it is controlled by the few who haved tipped the balance in their self-serving favour.

I don't know about you, but I am fed up of hearing phrases which include "THE council of ministers have decided"!

Within OUR (the people) government, where are the voices of the rest of the elected in which we have placed our faith in by voting them to stand and represent us......

The only good which came from this broadcast, was the voice of reason, Senator Stuart Syvret, to add balance to this one voice!

[Jason the Maverick]

Just to comment about Talkback in general, it is being repetitive now.

Every week the same callers are coming on and saying the same thing.

I just wonder how long it will be before GST is accepted as here to stay......

[Voltaire]

I was a bit astounded by todays talkback which had Mike Vibert on as one of the two guests. This guy was so wishy washy in his answers that I was tempted to slap the radio. His views on GST seemed to waver so much between questions from the audience that you could have used him as a cooling device. His replies were all "I totally agree with your sentiment" type answers but no actual details, especially the reply about HDLG.

I hope that people watch out for this in the next elections and see through his way of talking.

[Eastern correspondent]

I agree that Talkback is becoming repetitive, someone asked why Vibert was on the show again ( having been on only a few weeks ago) apparently his appearance was due to the child care issue................the other guy on was Constable of Trinity - I think - he made such an impression I cannot recall who he was.....................anyway it got me thinking............has every states member been on Talkback................over say a three year period...................I dont think so................
PHONE IN
I am sick of hearng Brigid on the Radio, she is on eveyday, if lines are not busy Roger Bara appears to just let her drone on..and on and onnnnnnnnnnnn.its got so bad I have to switch off the radio as soon as I hear her................mind you life must be pretty desperate if I am listening in the first place............

[Jason the Maverick]

What amazes me is that the same people phone in and always bring up GST but they only announced in Saturday's rag that they want to use £10 Million from GST mainly to help the very people who feel hard done by.  £4 Million of this money will be used for a weekly 20 hours free child care for 3-4 year olds.

Now what do they want, do they still want GST removed now?  Even extra money is being pumped into the Social Security fund.  I think it was one young person elect who said the child care sweetener is blatant electioneering.  So forget it then?

It just makes me wonder sometimes as to whether people just want their whole cake.

What pisses me off is that I get nothing back from the system myself.  I pay GST, soon to be 20 means 20, my annual income tax runs into double figures and I wouldn't mind it if I even used the hospital from time to time but I don't, I get zilch back.  So many people just have to pay all this tax and grin and bear it.

Most of the callers phoning in with their gripes I would imagine don't pay any tax at all except GST now and it is almost as if the people who pay the real money into the system are totally ignored.

We then hear HDLG every week, the same callers saying "people are dismayed with the Government on this etc".  But I find when I speak to people away from Talkback that they are more dismayed at the police handling of the whole dam thing.  Nobody ever phones up and asks how come this has cost £7.5 Million like I hear in the work place?

How come a Deputy Police officer manipulated the media etc?

The phone in is just being used by a minority and a few of which are only using the show for blatent electioneering and because of this it just lacks sensible balance at the moment.

And I just do not believe that this is the voice of the majority even though they obviously think they are.......

[Voltaire]

I think it was one young person elect who said the child care sweetener is blatant electioneering.  So forget it then?

Same said young person elect uses the talkback for his own electioning playground EVERY WEEK no matter what the subject matter (along with some of his cronies) and yet is two faced enough to say this?

If a family spends £100 a week on food thats only around £156 a year on GST. I spend around £100 on food for a family of 5 because I pay rents much higher than those in housing due to not being locally grown (and belive me rent on a property for 5 costs MOST of my wage) and because my wage is now classed as the "average" wage £32,500 I get no help from social at all as apparently I earn too much.

I don't begrudge £156 a year if it means that my wife can put my daughter to nursery a year earlier than waiting to go to school and then go back to work and earn some money. Any saying they HAVE to pay more than this are probably the same people that throw out food when it goes off at the end of the week or are overweight and/or have overweight children. I wouldn't be surprised if they spend most of their money on cigarettes or booze instead of their children, both items I had to give up to provide for my family.

Use some of the GST to reduce the cost of fruit and veg in another way and keep it on food, thats what I say...

[ageofaquarius]

Same said young person elect uses the talkback for his own electioning playground EVERY WEEK no matter what the subject matter (along with some of his cronies) and yet is two faced enough to say this?

If a family spends £100 a week on food thats only around £156 a year on GST. I spend around £100 on food for a family of 5 because I pay rents much higher than those in housing due to not being locally grown (and belive me rent on a property for 5 costs MOST of my wage) and because my wage is now classed as the "average" wage £32,500 I get no help from social at all as apparently I earn too much.

I don't begrudge £156 a year if it means that my wife can put my daughter to nursery a year earlier than waiting to go to school and then go back to work and earn some money. Any saying they HAVE to pay more than this are probably the same people that throw out food when it goes off at the end of the week or are overweight and/or have overweight children. I wouldn't be surprised if they spend most of their money on cigarettes or booze instead of their children, both items I had to give up to provide for my family.

Use some of the GST to reduce the cost of fruit and veg in another way and keep it on food, thats what I say...

You shouldn't assume that people who are suffering spend all their spare cash on fags & booze.  Decent food costs decent money, I know of many people who don't smoke and drink moderately and are on less than average wages i.e. £32K, I know I'm one of them!! most of the salary goes on mortgage/rates/electricity/blah blah, if theres anything else yes, a bottle of wine is well deserved. 

[Voltaire]

You shouldn't assume that people who are suffering spend all their spare cash on fags & booze.  Decent food costs decent money, I know of many people who don't smoke and drink moderately and are on less than average wages i.e. £32K, I know I'm one of them!! most of the salary goes on mortgage/rates/electricity/blah blah, if theres anything else yes, a bottle of wine is well deserved. 

I am assuming that those that do spend their spare cash on fags and beer are adding these to their percieved cost of their weekly shop, possible as your well deserved bottle of wine may be, but the GST will only be coming off food, not off the other items like toiletieries, wines, cleaning items etc which are also in a weekly shop and which won't be GST free. Adding this to just food will create a two tier pricing within a supermarket/shop which will be even harder to administer and will push the prices up yet again or will give the supermarkets and shops the same excuse to do so as they had with adding GST.

I believe it is a folley to try to remove it from just food. It won't be saving anyone any great amount of money, possibly around £150 a year, when the money gained from this can go to help those that need it most OR as I mentioned in my previous post to make good food like fruit and veg cheaper by subsidy with the tax gained.

[danrok]

A lot of non-food items which we buy from supermarkets are a big time rip off, even without taking tax in to consideration.  They also generate a lot of waste.

For example, a multi-surface cleaning spray, such as Flash or Mr. Muscle, is nothing more than diluted detergent.  You're paying £2.50 odd for 10 pence worth of detergent.  You could just buy a 5 ltr tub of detergent, dilute it with water and decant in to a reusable spray thing.  Saving a lot of money, and reducing waste.

Alternatively, we could just continue watching the TV ads, and continue believing that soap has somehow gained magical powers, and is not exactly the same as soap from 50 years ago.

[Terminator 4]

I am not even going to bother listening to Talkback anymore.

My Sundays are more important than listening to Montfort, Nic or other members of the old JDA every Sunday and their clueless tittle tattle.

[Eastern correspondent]

GST money being put into childcae is just the start of what 'they' will do with this new stream of income, what concerns me is that government in Jersey are unable to stop spending, and how long will GST remain at 3%?

My theory is that since the 60's until very recent times there has been a surplus of income over expenditure, our politicians have never really had to work within a dwindling income supply and are just not able to reign in their spending. This is nothing new it has ben that way for decades.

Darling has stated that we are facing a time like no other in view of the credit crunch etc, Le Sueur and his posse must take heed of this and not continue with the fallacy that Jersey is cocooned against such global issues.

Jersey needs to get with it - this volte force on GST is a knee jerk reaction to what ..........IN MY PESONAL OPINION........nothing more than the forthcoming elections and the realisation by the Council of Ministers that they are about to get roundly defeated at the polls.  If the strategy had been well thought out and implemented months down the line they should not be doing a U Turn....................and as for Freddie Cohen and the emmissions tax.......well words fail me!

[Deputy Dawg]

GST money being put into childcae is just the start of what 'they' will do with this new stream of income

I thought that GST was to replace the black hole? Although new income, it is already spoken for, or are we being conned again?

[ryanmorrison]

and as for Freddie Cohen and the emmissions tax.......well words fail me!

Freddie Cohen isn't up for election is he?

In fact of the Council of Ministers the only ones up for election are:
Philip Ozouf
Mike Vibert
Wendy Kinnard
Paul Routier
Guy de Faye

Elected three years ago:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/my_island/election_2005/live/index.shtml#results

NB: The BBC Jersey site only went live at the end of 2002 and so just missed covering the last Senatorial elections.

We did cover the Deputy elections that year:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/jersey/news/election.shtml

Oh and this weeks talkback guests are Philip Ozouf and Geoff Southern.