I've been in Jersey for over 33 years. As an "outsider" I have witnessed the most crass bigotry ever by "locals". Even though my Grandmother lived here up until the occupation ( she lost everything which was taken from her house - by the locals, after she left).
Since then and following the inception of Reg Jeune's "world class finance centre" which now is teetering on the edge of an abyss of economic meltdown, we are actually further behind than where we were 30 odd years ago.
There have been staggering amounts of money made by the Government in the past which have been recklessly used to generate a "supersphere" level of civil service employment, an obnoxious amount of expenditure on things which should have been left in the private sector and the setting up of a "rainy day" fund which notably has been secretly tapped by the civil servants whom are responsible, but not accountable, for their actions.
I think it has been economically pissing with rain for the last four years and what do we have? GST.
Jersey was a phoenix, rising from the ashes of insurgent occupying forces, which stabilised itself out of necessity. This stabilisation made it an attractive place to visit and do business in the 70's and 80's. New generations of ministerial government came and went, each and every member wishing to leave their own personal mark on society, whether it be by changing a law, controlling what others do, or pushing through an expensive piece of statuary or a park, so that generations to come will say "For all his faults he was good". The problem being that each new generation of Politician is a half generation away from the intentions of his predecessors.
New generations of ministers bring with them the "towrope effect" of setting up new departments, adopting new laws to keep up with the Jones's (note David Cameron's recent statement about Britain being a "Nanny state" and the requirement for common sense, proposed relaxations of H&S laws etc), will this happen in Jersey? I do not think so, because when you give authority (as opposed to power) to an individual or a department, it is very difficult in a small village society to take it back.
How is it possible that a paid Civil servant working for (assumedly) a populus of less than 100,000 is not only paid more than Civil servants who are in charge of a country of 62,500,000, (source Worldbank) but also have absolutely no accountability for what they do?
Why is it that the New government, which we are told in the Rag is not working, consistently behaves in a manner setting out to preserve its own image and places this before the real interests of the society it represents? Is it because there is too close a link at the top end of the "house"?
Why has it taken six months to repair the recently repaired Victoria avenue when in France they can repair a kilometre of motorway in a day at half the cost?
We have to ask ourselves that in a recession, is it right that teachers should strike without declaring beforehand who will be available or not to man schools, Les Quennevais for example is closing on Thursday because they do not know who will be present and who will not. These people are already fairly paid, if they do not think so, they should find another vocation, I'm sure if they do, most will go back to teaching.
Why do we have so much violence on our streets? St Helier used to be a place which was fun to go out in during the weekend, now, things are different.
Fritz is right that there is no poverty here, there may well be selective indolence by people who have decided through whatever unfortunate reasons to drop out of society, but there is no poverty. No-one on this Island can claim that they cannot afford food and clothing, unless of course they have consistently run against society and cannot get gainful employment. If someone said to me "I'm a thug but I can't get a Job because of it", I'd say so what?
A friend of mine once told me not to look at the people in a Police car driving past, I asked why not, he said it was because they would think I'm suspicious and will stop me. I told him that I will look at who and what I want in life, he said that if I was stopped it would go on my "record"! Wow I thought, we have a record now for living! How sad is that. This was eight years ago, before the Andrew Lewis Fiasco and before Mr Bean took control. Heaven help us all!
We have the Insanerator, which whilst it is being built on expensive landfill ( it could well have been sunk in the ground and used to fill the hole it covers), which was signed off by an outgoing minister of Transport whose only self declaration of interests was that he didn't drive because he preferred to be in the pub. He signed as an authority responsible for this expensive project when the economic warning signs were already indicating an alarming colour of red. What did the COM do? Nothing.
Why is it that we find ourselves in this position? Well, looking back it doesn't take a rocket scientist to clearly finger those responsible, I'm not going to enter the sad abuse debate as it has been fantastically managed by Rico, the problem is that Jersey has become too big for its boots from the top downward. The CM wants to be seen in ermine, the COM want to rule the estate as opposed to manage it, by employing outsiders at ludicrous salaries.
The real problem is how do we get this express train back on track and working properly? Certainly not by voting for anyone who has either a chip on their shoulder, who "bends" the rules to suit themselves, who has had a go in the past and produced nothing ( except perhaps a contribution to the negative state we are in now), or someone whose sole experience is fashioning a country garden.
Who does that leave?
