Odd and Ends

Historical Explanations and Fact

Those who have attained the chief places are led to seek the character of “safe men,”—which is gained by avoiding entering into questions or giving reasons, that they may “not commit themselves;” by evading difficulties neatly; and by speciously turning away from troublesome duties, and letting evil principles work themselves out at the expense of the public, unless forced into notice by clamour,—applying the rule—“Never to act until you are obliged, and then do as little as you can,” …

—Chadwick 1854: 


I noted Kevin Keen’s recent tweet: “Disagree with him often but Ian_Gorst is a good man. I for one want to see less playing the man & more playing the ball in Jersey politics.”

Imputing motivation is fraught with dangers, but whenever history is written, there is a need to consider motivation, either in the absence of a response, or even when a politicians statement might not be taken at face value. Anyone who has watched "Yes Minister" understand this only too well!

But in fact no one has taken the view expressed by Sir Humphrey in the photo. Even Reform have been judicious in accusing Ian Gorst of deliberately lying to the house.

Politicians do, however, engage in avoidance strategies, and just as it would be unprofessional of a historian to ignore that as a possibility for motivation, so too, it would for a commentator on current events.

An example of how to explore options came in my own comment on Ian Gorst’s reply to Mike Higgins that indicators such as average wage or the general economy improving have only a tangential relationship to relative poverty – which is defined by the median wage, and was spotted by Matthew Price recently on BBC Radio Jersey.

In the first part of my comment, I note the factual inaccuracy, and secondly, I explore what is hypothetical – the reasons for the reply. There may, of course be other reasons, but I think it is legitimate both to explore possibilities, but also give possibilities rather than just one explanation for the reply.

“Well done to Matthew Price of BBC Radio Jersey for pointing out that Ian Gorst's measure - average wage - is skewed and therefore misleading. If the gap increases between rich and poor, this would not show with average wage - indeed that indicator could point the opposite way as higher earners getting even more drag it upwards. By contrast, Median Wage is the accepted best statistic for looking at anything to do with wages which is why the UK and Guernsey use Median Wages in any discussions on the economy.”

“Either Ian Gorst shows a lamentable lack of knowledge of statistics, or has been badly informed, or is deliberately choosing a statistic which gives no indication of relative poverty at all.”

Data Protection

Having just attended a 3 hour presentation on the forthcoming new Data Protection Law coming in by May 2018, I was bemused to hear from a friend that a clergyman refused to give the location of a grave on the grounds of Data Protection.

Note to clergy: Information about where a dead person is buried is NOT covered by Data Protection and cannot be refused on those grounds. The Data Protection Law (current and future) only covers rights to protection of data on living individuals..

Green Light for Stargazing

Saw some of Australian Stargazing on BBC – I was interested to see that one presenter had a green astronomy laser like me. It is really good for pointing out stars and planets and constellations and galaxies to others.

Just the smallest amount of water vapour in the night sky is enough to pick up the laser and make it look as if it is a long beam, which can be used to show exactly where a star is. Two things are needed: a bright enough laser, and enough water vapour. Light can only be seen when it strikes objects, which is why the laser in the James Bond film “Goldfinger” is such an obvious fake,

Bailiff’s Veto: A Comment

In response to my recent blog, former Deputy Paul Le Claire made this comment:

“Standing orders should be reviewed and the States of Jersey Law including how they answer the ones that get through the net or in many cases do not answer them. Another thing to look at is the power to give way to respond to the many instances over the years where Ministers have spoken to the detriment of other members without them having an opportunity to be heard in defence of what they said. “

“There were many occasions when propositions and questions were denied me whilst I was in and some were approved by latter Bailiffs. Therefore opinion of the person comes into play in approving them. This should not be allowed and the only option it would seem is to lodge propositions asking the States for the Bailiff to review his decision. All in all a futile time consuming process when at the end of the day the majority could not care less about the people who are trying to represent the electorate.”

“Too many States members have in the past and continue now to act as Directors in putting the States ahead of their constituents. At election time they should make it clear that when elected they will represent the interests of the COM as this is in effect the position now!”

No ECT In Jersey

Remember that "Call the Midwife" with electroconvulsive therapy used on Sister Cynthia. In a recent blog I highlighted the potentially life changing damage it could (and is known to have caused) to memories.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) was used in Jersey during the 1980s under Dr Fogarty at St Saviour's Hospital, and one of my friends was frequently subjected to it. As a short term fix for depression or schizophrenia, it may work, because it causes at the very least retrograde amnesia for a few weeks, but there is always a danger which is now well documented of long term effects on memory.

Moreover because it effectively wiped the time shortly before the depression kicked in severely, it was effective, but because it did not treat the underlying causes of depression, it needed to be repeated frequently.

I'm glad to find out that the Health and Social Services Department does not provide Electroconvulsive Therapy in Jersey. If a patient required treatment with ECT they would need to travel to an alternative Hospital in the UK.

The FOE response: “There were no patients treated with ECT in 2016. H&SS have not been providing ECT for a number of years.”

And lastly...

I thought of those famous lines by W.H. Auden when I was taking in the impact and the shock of that attack at Westminster recently:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Odds and Ends

Making a Splash on Facebook
 
One of the oddest stories I have read has to be the Taiwanese tourist who was busy checking her Facebook page as she walked along. She was walking along a pier in the Australian city of Melbourne, which was perhaps not the best place to check Facebook, and walked off St Kilda's pier into Port Phillip Bay late on Monday night this week. The rescuers reported this:
 
"She still had her mobile phone in her hand and initially she apologised... she said 'I was checking my Facebook page on the phone and I've fallen in'."
 
Dirty Money and Killer Banknotes
 
The BBC reports that:
 
"Plastic banknotes that can survive a spin in the washing machine are to be brought into circulation by the Bank of England in 2016. The Bank argues that the polymer notes stay cleaner and are more secure than cotton paper notes, which have been used for more than 100 years. The £5 note featuring Winston Churchill will be the first plastic banknote. About 20 countries around the world have adopted polymer banknotes, starting with Australia in 1988."
 
But the Independent reports that:
 
"A study of the survival rates of microbes such as E.coli and the MRSA superbug when placed on seven different currencies has found that they thrived best on money printed on the plastic polymer banknotes earmarked to be introduced in Britain in 2016 following a public consultation."
 
And when Doctor Who gets hold of the notes, of course, expect a return from the Nestenes, those evil colonising aliens who can animate plastic and turn it into lethal weapons.
 
Working Title: The Economy Strikes Back., or Cash Wars.
 
Doctor: Who was he?
Kate Lethbridge Steward: He was the former head of a failing bank, who walked off with a golden handshake. He seems to have been murdered by his own banknotes.
Doctor: He murdered the economy, and now the economy strikes bank. It's a rather sour note.
 
Too Let?
 
Just read this story:
 
"Hill walkers and mountaineers have disputed a claim that a double award-winning loo is the most remote public toilet on the UK mainland. Loo at the Light in Sutherland won two accolades at the 2013 Loo of the Year Awards. People who look after the facility at Stoer Head Lighthouse said it was a great achievement for mainland UK's "remotest public toilet". However, climbers say Corrour Bothy's toilet is more remote. The historic bothy is at the foot of Cairn Toul and the Devil's Point in the Lairig Ghru in the Cairngorms."
 
Fancy having an argument about the most remote loo! A right carry on at their convenience!
 
For those who are interested in the oddities of toilets. An outbuilding at "The Elms" in Jersey has a "double" toilet - two holes for two people to sit at once! And the Minquies rocks have the most southerly toilet in the British Isles.
 
The Spirit of Scrooge
 
The spirit of Scrooge is live and well in Hammersmith and Fulham Council, which has sent out Christmas cards with the seasonal greeting - "Don't overindulge this Christmas. Pay your rent!" - sent out to west London council tenants. The card shows a pound coin fizzing in a glass.
 
The BBC reported that:
 
"Hammersmith and Fulham Council said 46% of its tenants were in rent arrears and the cards were part of a "hard-hitting" campaign. However, tenants branded it as a "disgusting" move disguised as a festive message."
 
And as usual, they have been sent to everyone, including people who pay regularly on time, which is sloppy, lazy and shows a complete lack of thought. I wonder what bright spark thought of this idea. Someone from a PR firm, no doubt, after one two many Christmas cognacs.
 
Links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25426263
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25427663
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/filthy-lucre-bank-of-englands-new-plastic-notes-provide-ideal-environment-for-natures-nastiest-bacteria-8814733.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-25419246
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25428796

Odds and Ends

Tax Matters
philipozouf tweets that "Launch of #ValueJsytoUK is in City at noon today, hence won't be in States Assembly today. DCM will answer Treasury Questions."

This is all about the publication of a new reports which shows the value of Jersey to the UK: http://t.co/wWIo6KugWM

One of the paragraphs that I particularly like is the following:

"There is little hard evidence about the actual scale of offshore tax abuse and almost no assessment whatsoever of the role of Jersey or the other Crown Dependencies. This lack of evidence should be no surprise in itself. Those involved in tax avoidance and, especially, evasion will have little desire to publicise the activity, and every interest in hiding it. Meanwhile, those trying to demonstrate the 'cleanliness' of their jurisdictions find it almost impossible to prove that little or no such activity takes place there because you can't prove an absence of something simply by failing to find it."

What I like about this is not that they are saying there is no tax evasion or avoidance, although they do estimate this later as relatively small, despite high profile cases like Jimmy Carr, but that they acknowledge the methodological problems from the outset. How do you quantify something hidden?

It is something which doesn't seem to both Richard Murphy, who clearly has X-Ray eyes in that regard – maybe borrowed from The Man of Steel. He tweets "Jersey says "don't blame us – we're only little". Is that why there's £383 billion hidden there?"

But if it is hidden, how do we know that it is there? One might term this dilemma Schrodinger's Tax Evader. It is very difficult to quantify how much is "hidden" without opening the box, and if you did it would be known, and not hidden.

Meanwhile, Richard Murphy also blogs that:

"HMRC has also put disclosure facilities in place to allow investors with accounts in the Isle of Man, Guernsey or Jersey to settle their past tax affairs in advance of the information being automatically exchanged. These agreements are expected to raise over £1 billion over the next five years. "

"Now I do not know if £1 billion will be raised or not but have strong reasons for thinking it likely. And that blows a complete whole in what Jersey says, after which all its other claims have to be seen for what they are: an act of pure fanciful thinking."

The report coming on the value of Jersey to the UK takes a different stance, coming to a different estimate:

"Our own calculations, based on cautious assumptions and prior to the adoption of a new FATCA-type reporting regime, suggest that the maximum level of tax evasion plausibly facilitated through Jersey was £150 million per annum in 2011. The actual level was probably much lower"

Now if only the UK HMRC gives details on how much they raise, we will have a good experimental validation of either Richard's methods of calculations, or the Value to Jersey Report's calculations. We can then check if it was £1 billion or less. I am however of the opinion that should it turn out to be less, we can probably expect very little publicity from HMRC over that fact, and the best we could hope for would be a whistleblower giving the information to "Private Eye".

Something New
According to a tweet by Mark Forskitt "Sen Le Gresley: the new 1% is not social security and not tax. It is a new thing."

This is the extra 1% being added onto the ITIS to deal with long term care. It is ring-fenced, and will be split off from other tax revenues. But it is being collected via income tax, it is assessed on income, earned and unearned, and it increases the base ITIS rate from 20% to 21%.

If Bill Clinton was around, he would say that as far as the employee is concerned, it looks like a tax, it is collected like a tax. It waddles like a tax. It quacks like a tax. Despite the best PR in the world by Senator Le Gresley, it is a tax, and the base rate of income tax is 21%, however much the spin doctors pretend otherwise.

Nimble on His Feet
I didn't know Deputy Noel was particularly nimble with ad-libs, answers to oral questions, and thinking with his feet. But Lucy Stephenson tweeted that he was out of the Island today

"States today - slow start with Members voting about if they should excuse Dep Noel or not as he's in the UK attending a dance competition"

It turns out it is his daughter, and he is going along to support her in a dance competition. That's a relief, for a moment, I though States members wanted to emulate Vince Cable and Anne Widecombe. And the next thing you know, the Bailiff will be welcoming members into the States Chamber with a cry of "Nice to see you, to see you nice", although in French, which would sound far more refined and posh – "Il est agréable de vous voir. Pour vous voir, agreeable"

Odds and Ends

Some more comments from Inner Twitterspace, where dwell all kinds of interesting denizens.

Food and Finance
 
James Rondel @JamesRondel was of the opinion that whether we liked it or not, past industries of tourism and agriculture have had their day. He tweeted: "Anybody who thinks that tourism/agriculture can fund the same quality of services that finance provides lives in a fantasy world #BBCph"
 
To this, Mark Forskitt ‏@St_Ouennais replied "No more so than anyone who thinks that without agriculture they can resort to eating money."
 
Jersey's food dependency always reminds me of Trantor, the central administrative planet in Isaac Asimov's science fiction "Foundation series".  Like Jersey, it is dependent upon food supplies coming in from elsewhere – "Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege."
 
Jersey still produces some food locally, and milk locally, but the days of the past when food storage depots stored months of food – tins and frozen – are long gone. Given a spell of very inclement weather, and the supermarket shelves begin to empty very rapidly over the course of a week, some like Marks and Spenser, have virtually no local storage, and empty almost straight away.
 
Recently, the Co-Op Supermarket has hit back over the high costs of food in Jersey compared with mainland UK – the cost of shipping freight to Jersey, and most of the freight containers go back empty – makes the stretch of water to Jersey very expensive. We are very vulnerable to shipping costs, and of course those are mainly fuel costs of transport, and everywhere in the world, the cost oil and diesel is rising.
 
Whether bulk transport of goods from France would fall foul of currency movements or be an improvement does not seem to have been considered or costed. After all, France  is a much shorter journey, and some of the coastline is only 15 miles distant and in plain eye sight. In the meantime, transport of food remains our own "jugular vein", one of the limits to growth, as food security and food prices remain far more at the mercy of the outside world than the UK.
 
One small silver lining in the very grey clouds was tweeted by lyndonfarnham ‏@lyndonfarnham "#bbcph Good and innovative work by Jersey Dairy seeking out new export markets for our excellent products". Jersey dairy is exporting Jersey Ice Cream abroad, which does not just mean sales abroad, it also means container ships not leaving quite empty.
 
Of course it is only one small drop in the ocean, but it is a start. Could more local foodstuffs be frozen and exported, increasing the demand for local production, boosting agriculture, and transforming it into a trans-seasonal small manufacturing industry?
 
Tourism
 
Richard Rondel ‏@RichardRondel tweeted that "We are losing tourism business due to lack of investment! People are prepared to invest but Planning make it difficult!! #BBCph"
 
And John Gallichan: tweeted that  "More direct UK regional flights will boost Jersey's tourism rates" #bbcph (JB)
 
And Alan Maclean comments that  "Jersey should do more to attract more tourists from China." #bbcph (JB)
 
While lyndonfarnham ‏@lyndonfarnham notes "#bbcph The Toursim Budget has almost halved in real terms since the 1990's"
 
Let us be honest. The main problem with tourism, as with the high cost of food, is again the high cost of transport. The big dive in the people coming over here for holidays was when cheap budget airlines began offering low cost package holidays to very sunny climes, like Spain, the Canary Islands, Southern Italy and further afield.
 
The only way Jersey could compete would have been to effectively subsidise flights to the Island, on the assumption that the extra traffic would generate sufficient of a boost to traveller numbers to recoup and sustain that policy, but certainly back in the 1980s, when tourism began to crumble, there was a fixed policy that airlines had to provide a steady level of service all year round, and charter planes were unwelcome here.
 
While there had to be a balance between local needs, and tourism, I think that policy just didn't look for a balance; it was a decision, compounded with putting landing fees on a wholly commercial basis, for protecting local flights all year round. That was a disaster as far as competition goes, and with the major decline in hotels and guest houses since then, it is unlikely that any change in policy could every redress the balance now, but it some changes, some incentives to lower budget flights might help. Otherwise regional flights will be prone to appear and disappear, subject to the vagaries of the market, as in fact we have seen happen over the last five years.
 
Wish Lists and Buzz Words
 
A couple of tweets from Alan Maclean, Minister for Economic Development:
 
"we must focus on attracting new high value businesses, on innovation, creativity and the competitiveness of our economy as a whole #bbcph"
 
"Gov should concentrate on being an enabler for business investment, growth and job creation by ensuring a business friendly environment"
 
Putting flesh on this kind of bone is always more difficult than coming out with the sound-bite. The last Fiscal Stimulus pretty well all went into some kind of construction and building projects (and I include roads in that mixture). That's all well and good, but listening to some of the complaints from small businesses, retail traders in the High Street and just off it, there didn't seem to be any projects that targeted helping them.
 
Instead, what we have is a series of platitudes which could have been culled, let's be honest, from "The Bluffers Guide to Business Innovation".
 
Steve Duncan, an Account Supervisor with DCI, a top marketing agency in the USA comments:.
 
"I'm pretty sure you could transcribe the first 90 seconds of most economic development videos—and the first 10 slides of a PowerPoint—without even seeing the content. It usually starts off with a word about how much 'opportunity' exists in said city, then quickly mentions 'quality of life' as the number one reason to do business there. Some vague reference to 'technology' follows, along with 'business friendly environment' and so on."
 
He notes that these buzz words provide very little value to decision-makers, and tell people watching virtually nothing.  So let's have less buzzwords, and more substance, please!

Quirkies
 
Lord Sugar's popular Apprentice phrases decoded http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-06-20/the-apprentice-decoding-lord-sugar …
 
I particularly like - Res-u-may, which is described as follows:
 
"Lord Sugar's not someone you'd expect to take on tranastlantic jargon – then again, he's probably not much into abbreviations or Latin, which possibly explains why CV or Curriculum Vitae have been given the cold shoulder in favour of res-u-may. Although where that pronounciation comes from is anybody's guess."
 
Richard Coles ‏@RevRichardColes tweets: "If I'd designed top secret GCHQ I wouldn't have made it look like a Flying Saucer about to take off"
 
And Guernsey Donkey ‏@gsyDonkey_com tells us that "Cacao beans (the bean used in making chocolate) where once used as currency, during the time of the South American Incas. In the 16th century Inca Empire 10 cacao beans could buy you the services of a prostitute."
 
But would she brew them up for you to drink afterwards? I think we should be told. Myself, I think I'd prefer hot chocolate, preferably with whipped cream.

Odds and Ends

A few odds and ends based on a perusal of Tweets over the last day or so.
 
Tax Avoidance
 
Montfort Tadier Tweets that "More misreporting again in today's @JEPnews by Jo Hutchinson. I never did talk of 'evasion' to @siobhankennedy4 C4. Even media confuse the two".
 
Jim Perchard: comments in a Tweet "Most of us don't understand why you would wish to criticise Jerseys finance industry to C4 anyway."
 
And Monty replies "How is stating a fact dispassionately being critical?"
 
Now Montfort is right – the JEP said evasion, when he used the term; he did say "avoidance" and not "evasion". He also said that of course tax avoidance went on in Jersey. But he didn't name any cases.
 
I find this problematic. It reminds me of a paragraph in a book by the science fiction writer Philip K Dick called "The World Jones Made". In the book, the State enforces Hoff's Relativism, which is a political philosophy which came about after so much distrust of absolutes, of people proclaiming they had the truth. Here's the paragraph in question:
 
"Jones can disagree with us. Jones can believe anything he wants; he can believe the Earth is flat, that God is an onion, that babies are born in cellophane bags. He can have any opinion he wants; but once he starts peddling it as Absolute Truth -"
 "Then you put him in prison," Nina said tightly.
 "No," Cussick corrected. "Then we put out our hand; we say simply: Put up or shut up. Prove what you're saying. If you want to say the Jews are the root of all evil - prove it. You can say it - if you can back it up. Otherwise, into the work camp."
 
Now I've no wish for a repressive relativism like that, or for Deputy Tadier to be carted off to a work camp! But it shows the basic difference between opinion and fact. Opinion is something I may believe to be true. Fact is something I can prove to be true. So if Deputy Tadier is "stating a fact" when he is talking about tax avoidance in Jersey, I have no problem with that – providing he can back it up, and name names. I'd like to see him disclose details of tax avoidance happening now, not historical incidents like Jimmy Carr and K2. 
 
Can Facebook bring bullies to book?
 
Kevin Pamplin tweets on an alarming trend:
 
"A recent rise in sexual shaming pages on #Facebook has left teenagers "hysterical" also in #JerseyCI read more here http://bbc.co.uk/newsbeat"
 
The report in question is on "BBC Newsbeat":
 
Newsbeat's spoken to one 22-year-old victim. We've changed her name to Nadia. She said three pages dedicated to her ruined her life.  "They managed to get photos off my actual Facebook page," she said. "It was saying I was a slag, a tart, a home wrecker. Really degrading stuff, to be quite honest.  "I still don't know why anyone would ever do it. "I was a very confident person before and now I've become a very quiet, timid person."
 
These pages have been called "slut shaming pages" and claim to expose the sexual behaviour of young people. They are not, of course – they are a new form of cyber-bullying, in which fictions masquerade and it seems to be something of a trend, mainly targeted at women.
 
Megan Tyler, Lecturer in Sociology at Victoria University has looked at this on her blog, and says "It is perhaps most accurate to see slut shaming as the electronic equivalent of street harassment. When women are wolf whistled, or propositioned, or called sluts by (usually male) passers by, they're targeted because they are women. These pages do not singly aim to embarrass or harass women seen as publicly promiscuous. They just aim to demean women."
 
Facebook have said they were closing the pages as quickly as they could. It is an improvement, as around 2012, they showed a certain reluctance to act. But what effort can be made to prevent this? At the moment, anyone can create a bogus "identity" on Facebook, and use it to create groups like these. 
 
There's a disconnect between identity in the virtual world, and identity in the real world, and while that remains the case, there will always be a cloak of anonymity behind which these malicious individuals can hide.
 
Science Matters
 
The Guardian tweet mentions that "Mars had an oxygen-rich atmosphere four billion years ago" http://gu.com/p/3gyad/tf
 
The paper itself reports that:
 
"An examination of meteorites and rocks on the planet suggests that oxygen was affecting the Martian surface four billion years ago. On Earth, oxygen did not build up to appreciable quantities in the atmosphere for at least another 1.5bn years"
 
Curiously it seems to support the old belief, based on Laplace's Nebular Hypothesis, that Mars was a more ancient world, a dying planet because of its longevity compared with earth. But it seems that if life did exist, its foothold was precarious in the extreme, and it did not evolve into the complexity of life which we have on earth.
 
Quirky Tweets
 
Adam Hess: "The song 'Rock Around the Clock' has only ever been played at events that have finished before 11."
 
States of Jsy Police: "Battle of Jersey re-enactment between 6pm & 8pm this evening in the Royal Square. Musket fire , pyrotechnics and a film crew". Reading this tweet makes it sound as if  there was a film crew when Major Peirson was fighting against Baron de Rullecourt in the Royal Square, along with the Musket fire! And why aren't they shown in the famous Copley painting "The Death of Peirson"?
 
As the Naked Rambler goes to prison again, Jennifer Bridge ‏tweets: "Is there a village out there willing to let the Naked Rambler ramble freely? Maybe Jersey could invite him to wander the coastal paths?" I remember when there was a serious proposal that Beauport Bay should be a nudist beach!
 
Lucy Stephenson Tweets that: "The hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge will give birth has a wine list so you can toast new arrivals!" #randomfact
 
On the matter of edibles, Richard Coles ‏tweets that "Driving back from assembly I discover the unwonted sun has oven baked my on-board wine gums to a sweet sour sludge."
 
And Eamonn Clarke (a doctor at a UK hospital) tweets: "I have (no joke) just received an email from Aslan asking if I can do a GP locum. The Lion, the Witch and the Ward Round?"

 
 
 

Odds and Ends

The Politics Hour
 
This was last Sunday, and Deputy Sean Power was the politician being interviewed. The subject was Jersey Charities, and Deputy Power made a number of good points on Twitter:
 
"Charities can run some services more efficiently than the States could"
"Tax payers would face a bill for millions to replace the work of volunteers in Jersey"
"Regulation of charities needs to be done with a soft touch"
"Former opponents of men's shelter in St Aubin are now volunteer helpers there"
"Chief Ministers Department looking into States relationship with voluntary sector"
 
The latter is certainly important. A number of charities receive monies from the public purse, either from the States or from the Parishes. Those help sustain the charities, but in terms of the benefits of that funding, it invariably far outweighs the input given, principally because of the volunteers who help with the charity, and the fact that charities are always aware of the need to keep costs down. That is something which went terribly wrong with David Cameron's idea of a "Big Society", because not only did he imagine that communities and charities would take the place of the State, he also thought that could go hand in hand with cuts in funding to charities.
 
As Richard Rondel also tweeted: "The voluntary sector is hugely important in Jersey and must be recognised as so - The cost to the taxpayer would otherwise be enormous!" He also notes that "People like League of Friends that run the coffee shop at the hospital without even admin costs contribute significantly to the hospital!"
 
There's an old maxim from the Bible:  "Cast Your Bread upon the Water and it shall return to Thee" which certainly applies to the States supporting charities.
 
 
Smoking Kills
 
Deputy Power has been busy tweeting about smoking:
 
"Andrew Mitchell, cardiologist at Jersey says that Jersey should become the 1st jurisdiction in the world to become free of tobacco. I agree."
 
"Smoking serves absolutely no function whatsoever. It causes ill health and raises millions in taxes for Treasury. Let's end its use here."
 
I don't agree with that. This time Deputy Power has got it wrong. I do accept that smoking is not good for health, but total bans never work well; they drive matters underground. The United States tried to ban alcohol, and the end result was smuggling, illicit trading, and the rise of a gangster culture which took advantage of the market opportunity.
 
I think that ending indoor smoking in public places is positive; I like the fact that I can go into a pub with clean air, and not come out with clothes reeking of tobacco. I can understand warnings on packets, banns on advertising, and the use of price as incentives to reduce the amount of tobacco smoked. But an outright ban strikes me as wrong, especially if it is not universal. It will criminalise people coming from the UK, Guernsey or elsewhere if they happen to accidentally bring over tobacco with them. Let's restrict tobacco by all means, but not by a total ban.

The Tasmanian Times notes:
 
"Control over smoking is working. Most young people do not begin: this is revealed in the statistics on the numbers of people who have never smoked. Nationally, an extraordinary 57.8% (52.8% in Tasmania) have never used tobacco; another 24.1% (28.7% in Tasmania) have managed to kick the habit. Prohibition would destroy this extraordinarily successful strategy by placing tobacco use outside of the range of regulation and control, and into the far more dangerous limbo of underground criminal supply."
 
"It is a fantasy to say that this ban will result in a smoke-free generation. It won't. It will lead instead to the criminalisation of an entire generation of law-abiding people. It will spawn a powerful and dangerous new pack of organised criminals, and the consequent corruption of police and officials. And it will mean, eventually, an end to our chances of genuine and effective tobacco control."
 
Tax Transparency UK
 
Richard Murphy ‏, the critic of tax havens, is sounding off about a jurisdiction which has the "largest company register in Europe, and not a single one of the 3 million companies on it need disclose its beneficial ownership to anyone."
 
Is this a sounding off on tax havens? No, it's a criticism of the UK itself. As Murphy notes:
 
"Not a word about reform of Companies House and how the law is to be upheld as it stands, let alone how the UK will ensure that beneficial ownership will be disclosed in future, has been delivered by the UK as part of the G8 process."
 
And on Twitter, he adds: "Cameron's got to get transparency right in the UK before he starts lecturing the world and he's failing miserably"
 
That explains a lot about why letters have been sent Crown Dependencies about tax avoidance and transparency; it is a classic diversionary tactic. It's nice to see Richard Murphy noticing that and being as critical about the UK as about tax havens.
 
Official Denial?
 
BBC Jersey tweets that "Home Affairs Minister refuses to say whether there's an investigation into allegations concerning the Chief and Dep Chief of Police".
 
He should have listened to "Yes Prime Minister", where the one rule of politics is never to believe anything until it has been officially denied. Either there is an investigation or there is not. As Home Affairs Minister, Senator Le Marquand should know about it. Refusing to say suggests that something must be happening; it's very close to an official denial!
 
Guernsey Bus Strike
 
Twitter has been full of the bus driver's strike
 
"Bus drivers are on strike in Guernsey. A total of 30 drivers met last night and voted unanimously to walk out."
"Bus workers in Guernsey are walking out today after the union voted for strike action late last night" "CT Plus Guernsey says all school services are running this morning despite strike by Unite union members."
"CT Plus Guernsey says all school services are running this morning despite strike by Unite union members."
 
There was a note that the States committee responsible thought that continued disruption would mean they have to 'consider the potential implications for the bus contract'. The advent of CT Plus in Guernsey has been troubled from its inception.
 
Late news was that Guernsey's bus service will resume on Tuesday after "productive" talks between drivers and their employer CT Plus. Bus drivers on the island have been in talks with CT Plus following a strike over pay and conditions on Monday.
 
It shows, I think, a certain intransigence on the part of CT Plus that it had to come to actual strike action before the bus company would talk to the drivers.
 
Meanwhile, in Jersey, spokesman for Unite the Union says Jersey bus drivers will vote on strike action as soon as a ballot can be organised. Wouldn't it be better if CT Plus started engaging with the drivers before that happens?
 
Of course, CT Plus in Jersey have recently being trying to be classed by TTS as an essential service, making the notice given for strike action longer, but that is hardly likely to solve the problems; it seems the worst way to do so. Shouldn't TTS intervene as a broker between Union and Drivers to empower a conversation between them? Or does it need a politician like the late Dick Shenton to intervene? (As he did with a Jersey Bus strike)
 
Quirky
 
gsyDonkey tweets the following statistic: " 6,900 languages have been defined on our planet, most of which are spoken by groups of 1,000 people (or fewer)."  I wonder where Jerriais fits into that?
 
Reverend Richard Coles, always one for eccentric saints, tweets on Monday: "It is the Feast of Saint Landry of Paris. He was famed in life and thereafter with the gift of healing. After his died one of his teeth... was preserved and found to be very efficacious in the treatment of splinters. The monks would simply wave it over affected body parts......and the splinter would jump out of its own accord." It's like something from The Blackadder!
 
And historian Tom Holland tweets: "Can never decide whether to think better or worse of Horace for the fact that he had mirrors installed on the walls & ceiling of his bedroom"
 
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC 8 BC), usually known by the abbreviated name "Horace", was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. Quintillian said of his writing "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."
 
I've always thought of him as a very educated man – he spent some time in Athens – and his father spent a small fortune on his education. Horace was high in the ranks of the Roman army. And yet he had these mirrors on the walls and ceilings of his bedroom, according to Suetonius! Naughty Horace!