Polish Christmas

As we have now a sizeable Polish community in Jersey, I thought it might be interesting to look at Christmas celebrated in Poland. This is from Whitnash Parish Magazine, in 1868, and what is interesting is how little the Christmas customs appear to have changed. Whitnash is a Parish in Leamington Spa, and I came across the magazines, bound, from a second hand bookshop that was closing down.

About a fortnight before, the priests prepare and bless certain white cakes as thin as wafers, and about six inches in diameter. These cakes they send to all the families of their, parishes, and there is not a dwelling, from the palace to the hovel, which does not receive one, making in return a suitable donation to the church in proportion to their means.

Christmas eve is still a day of fast, followed by feasting at the first star, with hay under the table, and the white cakes would appear to be the "Oplatek" described below from a modern description of Polish Christmases, although it doesn't appear that the clergy are now involved in the making of the bread.

The traditional Christmas dish in Poland is 'Oplatek', a piece of bread pressed with a holy picture on the surface. People carry it from house to house and share it with their family members, friends and immediate neighbors and wish them a Merry Christmas. Each person who shares the bread is supposed to forgive everything that may have hurt them in the past year, befriend the person once again and wish the person all the happiness in the coming year.

The unleavened wafers are baked from pure wheat flour and water, are usually rectangular in shape and very thin; they are identical in composition to a round wafer which become the Host after the Consecration during Mass in the Roman Catholic Church. Being only a reminder of the Body of Christ used in private homes, Oplatki lack sanctification by a priest or bishop.

The changeover from the priests preparing and distributing the bread (which is the case in 1868) seems to have come about when Poland lost its independence after the Second World War, although some bread is still taken to the priest to be blessed:

On Christmas Eve, the Poles have a beautiful custom that recalls the Eucharist: Oplatki ("oplatek" in the singular) -- very thin, crisp, large rectangular breads with the consistency of Communion wafers and impressed with religious designs -- are eaten on Christmas Eve (Wigilia) . They are laid at the center of the table this night, on a bed of straw. Just before supper, the father wishes all a holy Christmas and recalls those who've died during the year and brings to memory Christmas Eve suppers past. He takes an oplatek that's been blessed by a priest, and breaks off a piece to give to his wife. He places it in her mouth with a blessing such as, "May the Lord bless and keep you through this next year." The mother reciprocates and then hands a piece to the person next to her and blesses him. That person does the same to the one next to him, and so on, until all have received and given a piece.

So it does appear that some oplatek are blessed by priests, although they no longer appear to be involved in the baking of them, they are involved in the distribution, and it is still supporting church funds. As one writer says in 2009:

In Poland we buy "Oplatek" in our churches. It is accessible in shops too - but our tradition is to get it from church. Nobody is baking it in home

Anyway, here is Whitnash Parish Magazine, 1868 on a Polish Christmas:

Whitnash Parish Magazine 1868

The Christmas festival is one of those which the Polish clergy celebrate with extraordinary solemnity. About a fortnight before, the priests prepare and bless certain white cakes as thin as wafers, and about six inches in diameter. These cakes they send to all the families of their, parishes, and there is not a dwelling, from the palace to the hovel, which does not receive one, making in return a suitable donation to the church in proportion to their means.

Christmas eve is a strict fast-day throughout the country; but no sooner does the first star appear in the heavens (an event impatiently watched for) than the lucky person who is the first to see it has to has to tell the mistress of the -house; who then orders dinner to be served. A little hay has :previously been strewed under the table, in. order to remind the guests that Jesus was born in a-stable. Every one takes his seat, the master of the house at one end of the table and the mistress at the other ; the sacred cakes are brought in, the master and mistress each break off a bit and send the rest round the table, each guest in his turn breaking off a morsel.

A little after midnight the company go to their parish church, .where a solemn hymn announces the birth of the Saviour, and the words "Jesus is born"' are spoken aloud by all present.

In the country; the day is enlivened by parties of people wearing masks going in sledges, accompanied by fiddlers and singers, to surprise their friends. These parties are foolishly meant to represent the three Magi bringing offerings to the Lord. In towns, the poor go about with a box representing a stable and the infant Jesus, Joseph, the ox, and the ass; they sing rude carols, and get some coppers from the bystanders.

In Servia the head of the family goes into the woods on Christmas-eve about nightfall, cuts down a young oak tree, as straight an one as he can find, and brings it home, saying, "Good evening, and a merry Christmas !" The others reply, " God grant it you," and at the same time strew a few grains of corn on his head; the sapling is then laid on the hearth.

On the following day pistol-shots axe heard, and a visitor appears at the door, throws in a handful of corn, and cries, "Christ is born!" Those who have been hit reply, "He is indeed!" The visitor then approaches the fire, where the sapling is still glimmering, strikes it with the tongs, and exclaims, "So many sparks, so many oxen, horses, goats, sheep, pigs, and beehives!" After which the mistress of the house throws a veil over the visitor, and the remains of the oak tree are carried into the garden or orchard.

When dinner is announced, each of the guests approaches with a lighted taper in his hand; prayers are said, after which they all embrace each other, saying, "The peace of God be with you; Christ is truly born, we. adore Him!" Then, in order to represent the intimate union of the members of the family, the master of the house collects all the tapers, ties them in a bundle, and lays them on a dish containing various kinds of grain and a loaf of unleavened bread; which has had a: silver coin put into it while it was being kneaded. This loaf is then broken into pieces, each person takes one, and he to whose lot the silver coin has fallen is reckoned the luckiest member of the family during the year.

The hospitable board is open to all comers for three days, and. until New Year's-day the universal salutation is, "Christ is born ! He is truly born."

Links:
Whitnash Parish Magazine 1868
http://liturgicalcenter.org/?a=liturg&sub=trad&grupa=35
http://genforum.genealogy.com/poland/messages/48835.html

Cold Weather Welfare Deficiencies

A PENSIONER was found stranded on his kitchen floor after falling while trying to keep himself warm in front of his oven. Paramedics discovered the man, in his 80s, in Grands Vaux after he had fallen in front of his cooker.
He had been standing with his knees in front of the open oven door open because he could not afford to heat the rest of his home. (1)

Jersey's citizens advice bureau says people living there less than five years will be hit hardest by the rise in the goods and services tax (GST). Malcolm Ferey, from the bureau, said they may not be able to apply for income support. Jersey politicians voted to keep GST on food and fuel and to increase the tax to 5% from June 2011. Malcolm Ferey said he was disappointed the States did not allow goods and services tax (GST) exemptions. He said there was a portion of the community that falls into the gap and loses out on support. This group includes pensioners and those who have been there for fewer than five years. Mr Ferey said that the increases would also hit the middle earners who have no tax buffer and would mean many could not afford "life's little luxuries". He said: "There are people who fall through the gaps and if someone has been here for four years it is feasible they have contributed to society, they have a family and fall on hard times.

"These are the type of people, it is a social group that do need to be looked at.
"They won't qualify for income support because they have been here for less than five years, there is little or no support for these people."

Mr Ferey said there were no reduced tax thresholds to soften the blow of the increases. It is into these "gaps" that the 80 year old pensioner falls, quite literally, and where income support does not catch the relevant people within its net.(2)

Even within income support, and its cold weather component, there can be problems.

A "Memorandum submitted by National Energy Action" to the UK Parliament noted that:

The time-lag in fuel poverty data means that official statistics are not current. However even on the basis of older data covering a period before the worst effects of energy price increases there was no prospect of meeting the 2010 target and little prospect of meeting the 2016 target for England (4)

The definition of households in fuel poverty commonly used-i.e. those households where more than 10% of income has to be spent on fuel for adequate heating

The reliability of official fuel poverty data is compromised as a result of the time-lag between collation and publication of survey findings.(1)

The figures for "fuel poverty" under these thresholds gives a significant weight towards the elderly single pensioner, which is precisely where the pensioner above falls:

One person aged 60 or over 34%
Couple aged 60 or over 14%

Jersey doesn't use this measure of benchmarking and instead bases its component of income support upon "the aggregate of the amount by which the average daily temperature of each day in that month falls below 15.5 degrees Celsius".

When the JEC had an increase of 25% in its heating bills, the basis for doing this was refined so that the component was first increased, and then fixed to the Retail Price Index.

The Minister decided to amend the Income Support (Special Payments) (Cold Weather Payments) (Jersey) Regulations 2008 to increase the value of the cold weather payment by approximately 20% and to link future cold weather payments to the fuel and light element of the Retail Price Index and accordingly requested the Law Draftsman to prepare the necessary draft legislation.

It is possible for fuel prices to fall as well as rise and the regulation should allow the base value to reduce as well as increase from year to year.

This is a better measure for statistics than the UK, where a time lag of several years occurs, but it is still deficient in giving a three month lag, where the cost of fuel - as we have seen in recent months - can increase extremely rapidly. This means the quarterly heating bill may well be hitting the home at least 15 days before the retail index is published. It is also not clear whether the retail index is the best measure - an index based primarily on fuel costs would probably be better, as it would not be reduced by the averaging and weighting effects of other items in the calculation.

Moreover the current advice on hypothermia, which is more likely to effect the elderly (whose temperature regulation is poorer) is to keep the room temperature warmer. The temperature of 15.5C is the minimum given in the UK NHS guidelines, and this reflects the problem of Jersey in taking what might be fine for younger families, and applying such a criteria across the board, without reflecting the very real dangers to older people.

Even if you keep your temperature between 60°F (15.5C)and 65°F (18.3C) , your home or apartment may not be warm enough to keep you safe. For some people, this temperature can contribute to hypothermia. This is a special problem if you live alone because there is no one else to feel the chilliness of the house or notice if you are having symptoms of hypothermia. Set your thermostat for at least 68°F (20C) to 70°F (21C).

The paper on "Evaluating welfare state efforts and the model family approach: problems and promises" notes that one of the problems with benefits systems is "The methods used to target assistance at households which need it most". The Income Support Cold Weather payments does target infants under 3, and elderly over the age of 65 years, which are the two most significant areas, but only for those who are "in receipt of income support".

But the paper notes that:

The correlation between social assistance levels and poverty risks is probably rather weak because the model family approach focuses on only one specific dimension of social protection, that is the level of fiscal and social benefits. The adequacy of social protection arrangements however also depends on other factors.

and in particular, because:

Firstly, the eligibility rules can exclude certain categories from income protection. (3)

If this is the case for the pensioner - that he falls into the "gap" where eligibility ceases, but need is still there, then clearly the rules need reconsideration. Part of the problem may be how the family types considered by income support are defined:

Because the impact of social protection measures is necessarily calculated for only a limited number of family types, model family results are far more illustrative than representative. (3)

But what is equally significant is to do with how "pro-active" claimants are. In the days of Parish Welfare, the disadvantage was that the system was not on a universal Island wide statutory level, but the advantage was that Parish officials were employed to proactively seek claimants who - perhaps like the pensioner in question - may have a need but had little or no idea how to go about that. This is a finding of a problem across Europe of pretty well all welfare systems:

Secondly, family models assume that all families claim and receive the benefits for which they are eligible. In other words, family models do not take into account the administrative feasibility of social protection measures and related non-take-up rates. Nevertheless several studies indicate that non-take-up rates for social assistance benefits can amount to 20 % and more

The UK Report on "Winter Fuel Payments and Cold Weather Payments" to the Select Committee noted that the problems with take-up were significantly high to pose a risk to the health of those vulnerable to cold weather, and that a universal fuel payment was probably a better safety-net.

There is understandable ambivalence about the Winter Fuel Payment as a fuel poverty initiative and this is inevitable whilst the payment is based solely on age with no reference to need. However the universal nature of the payment overcomes a number of difficulties including non-take-up of entitlement, which is common amongst pensioner households, and the issue of those who would be marginally excluded from entitlement if the benefit were to be means-tested. (4)

That is, of course, a political decision, but so is the decision not to exempt domestic fuel from GST. Clearly better safety nets need to be organised so that a near tragedy does not turn into a real tragedy, and people like this pensioner are found and given help. This occurrence should act as a warning, flagging up deficiencies that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. For later may turn out to be too late.

First Collector: At this festive time of year, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute.
Ebenezer: Is there no income support?
First Collector: Plenty of income support for those who can access it. Although it barely supplies enough to keep off the cold, and little enough for food.
Ebenezer: Oh, from what you said at first I was afraid that something had happened to stop it in their useful course. I'm very glad to hear it.
First Collector: I don't think you quite understand us, sir. A few of us are endeavoring to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth.
Ebenezer: Why?
First Collector: Because it is at Christmastime that want is most keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. Now what can I put you down for?
Ebenezer: Huh! Nothing!
Second Collector: You wish to be anonymous?
Ebenezer: [firmly, but calmly] I wish to be left alone. Since you ask me what I wish sir, that is my answer. I help to support the establishment I have named; there is income support, and forms to complete, and those those who are badly off must go there.
First Collector: Many can't go there. They are not eligible.
Second Collector: And some don't know that they can, and would die.

Links
(1) http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/12/17/concerns-for-elderly-as-cold-snap-returns/#ixzz18dgm4ujI
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-11968866
(3) http://www.spsw.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/static/Espanet/espanetconference/papers/ppr.16.NVM.pdf
(4) http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmenergy/424/424we28.htm
(5) http://www.gov.je/Government/PlanningPerformance/Pages/MinisterialDecisions.aspx?showreport=yes&docid=cb8c5db95c88c7cb5408c3402808b278_MDs
(6) http://www.nia.nih.gov/healthinformation/publications/hypothermia.htm

Bleak Midwinter

Even in the bleakest, coldest weather, there is still a flame of hope...

Bleak Midwinter

The air is cold, and the snow begins
To fall, softly, as the daylight thins
The blizzard blows with biting wind
Once Winter Solstice underpinned
The seasonal days, the feast of Yule
When for twelve days, Woden's rule
Brings the gods closest to Midgard
The middle world, and the graveyard
Lets loose the restless dead, in strife
Seeking restitution for enmity in life
Shadows seeking to be reconciled
Bound fast as if by ghostly chains
Now vixen howls in hunger pains
And wolves are hunting in the wild
The forest white, the snowdrift piled
Deep in hollows, the gale blowing
Swirling whorls of ice are flowing
In the frosty air, but then comes heat
As the Yule log is lit, mince pies eat
Mulled wine warms away the cold
Lanterns shining, bright and bold.
 
This is the bleak midwinter, but now
Time to celebrate in many ways how
Rebirth of the sun comes once more
As if knocking opens Winter's door
Crackers like Woden's hammer smite
Making sparks, a portent of the light
That shines above in the starry skies
Somewhere below, a new-born cries.

The Case for Citizen Media

Journalism is a porous occupation. There is no licensure, and though there are schools of journalism, they need not be accredited, it is not required that the occupational group sanction them, and it is common for news organizations to hire individuals without journalism degrees. Professional organizations such as the International Federation of Journalists, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Radio and Television News Directors Association, among others, have laid down formal principles of ethical conduct, but such groups lack formal power to sanction members who violate their principles
(Professor Wilson Lowrey, University of Alabama)

In her book "Blogging", Jill Walker Rettberg notes that there are different ways in which blogging overlaps with traditional journalist. Bloggers may report and comment on mainstream media, and bloggers may also "give first-hand reports from ongoing events".(1)

It is in the latter sphere that "Citizen Media", as bloggers are popularly called, have locally found potential conflicts over reporting from meetings where they wanted to video events, as with either Scrutiny meetings, or with the Hustings at Elections.

Journalists, as Wilson Lowrey points out in his article "Mapping the Journalism - Blogger relationship" often want jurisdiction over these kind of domains, and a special privileges to report them:

Conflict is likely to continue because bloggers and journalists stake out much of the same turf. Each claims some jurisdiction over the tasks of selecting events and issues for audience attention, commenting on these issues, and, to a lesser degree, gathering information for reports.(2)

He notes that this has led to attempts to differentiate between the "amateur blogger" and the "professional journalist", but apart from the fact that one is doing it for free, and the other is being paid, it is extremely difficult to find any cast-iron criteria:

To map out areas of vulnerability and confrontation, blogging and journalism must be conceptually differentiated. The search for a fundamental difference reveals a number of possibilities, most of which have been discussed by media observers. For various reasons, none quite hit the mark.

There are, he notes, the "traditional" values of journalism are accuracy, fairness, and objectivity (International Federation of Journalists, 1986; Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2001; McQuail, 2000; Society of Professional Journalists, 1996). But he points out that, far from being "traditional", these evolved as a defense against the challenge to journalists by politicians, corporations, and others.

It was because they served the news organisation, and protected it from criticism, that these values came to be accepted; any consideration of history shows that quite different standards were acceptable in the past. Locally, in the 1948 elections, the Jersey Evening Post abandoned all pretense at impartiality, and gave its readers the names of people whom they urged them to vote for, and this was not differentiated as editorial comment, but incorporated seamlessly into the same pages reporting on the election hustings. Nowadays, that kind of behaviour only occurs in the partisan "Sark News", because the "traditional values" have in fact changed.

A printed paper is also, by itself, not a guarantee of journalism. As the Guardian reports:

In America major newspapers including the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Christian Science Monitor have gone web-only, while in Britain, Maxim and the Ecologist are among the magazines that have followed the trend. (3)

So what about the distinction between payment and non-payment? Lowry observes that, even here, the boundaries are starting to become more blurred, with blogging becoming a means of raising revenue.

Journalists benefit from their organizations' physical capital in the form of pay and benefits. Most bloggers are not paid for their efforts, and they therefore lack this incentive for the grittier, less glamorous aspects of news work, such as tracking down sources, and attending local government meetings. Lack of pay and benefits also prevents bloggers from attending to these efforts on a full-time basis. Thus bloggers are dependent on mainstream news media for original reporting, a situation that strengthens the position of mainstream journalism. This could be changing, as advertising and corporate money gifts in exchange for mentions in postings are becoming more common. (2)

Of course, it is noteworthy in Jersey that some of the bloggers who attend political meetings are not working, because of retirement or infirmity, and can therefore devote their time to the "less glamorous aspect" of attending meetings and recording them.

This brings me neatly to several advantages that bloggers have over journalists. In their study on "Blogs in Campaign Communication", Gracie Lawson-Borders and Rita Kirk note that:

Freed from the economic pressures, bloggers opened doors and created pockets of public opinion that pressured the mainstream into assessing the validity of stories the dominant parties and candidates might be tempted to suppress. (3)

Journalists, as they point out, have commercial pressures which may lead them to avoid certain stories, or leave aside stories that will sell less newspapers. The bottom line is the advertiser and the newspaper buyer, and this leads to more headline grabbing news, which is soon forgotten once it ceases to be "newsworthy" - in other words, no longer something that would cause people to buy papers, and hence advertisers to want to advertise in them. As Lowrey notes:

Though organizational structure offers benefits, there are drawbacks. Being housed in an organization means journalists must compromise professional values so as to move in directions that enable organizational survival or ensure corporate profit. For journalists this may mean adopting a marketing or entertainment orientation at the expense of serving the public through in-depth and meaningful coverage and opinion (Beam, 1990; McManus, 1994).

This has led, over time, to a much less diverse kind of journalism. One has only to look at the journalism of the Victorian era, for example, or even the time before the Second World War, to see how diverse and iconoclastic the reporting could be in newspapers, periodicals, gazettes.

Some, like Hilaire Belloc, or the Chestertons, would begin writing for publications, and then found their own ("The Eye Witness"); others, like W.T. Stead, would pioneer radical new kinds of journalism - the interview (with his ground-breaking interview of General Gordon). It is interesting that some local blogs have been running quite interesting and wide ranging interviews, such as the recent series on faith and politics, and also noteworthy that they have been scrupulously fair in letting the participants get over their point of view, and not using it as a platform for cheap polemic.

For all the history made by newspapers between 1960 and 2000, the profession was also busy contracting, standardizing, and homogenizing. Most cities now have their monopolist daily, their alt weekly or two, their business journal. Journalism is done a certain way, by a certain kind of people. Bloggers are basically oblivious to such traditions, so reading the best of them is like receiving a bracing slap in the face. It's a reminder that America is far more diverse and iconoclastic than its newsrooms. (Welch, 2003)

This too, is the case with Jersey, where local bloggers have appeared with cameras and the politicians are uncertain as to how what is recorded is going to be controlled. There has been a always a criticism that the blogger may "door-stop" a politician, and indeed I remember this happening in the Royal Square, with (if I remember correctly), William Bailhache. And equally, a clip of one of the election candidates who didn't want to be interviewed had a criticism of him that was not there on other candidates.

But that doesn't mean that the accredited media are above "door-stopping". BBC programmes such as "Watchdog" and "Panorama" are plentiful with examples of a far more aggressive interview technique, and no one (apart from the recipient) floods the BBC with complaints. And I also remember Channel Television taking time to door-stop a rather inebriated politician (in fact outside his front door!) on a disappointing Senatorial election night, and broadcasting his words on their website for all and sundry to observe. Objectivity, anyone?

What is clear with the demands to only open up debate to "accredited journalists" (which is in fact a misnomer, as there is no set form of accreditation) is a desire to channel debate and broadcast news into a much more constrained framework. And whereas Channel Television, for example, may only broadcast 2 minutes of a meeting (be it scrutiny or hustings), the blogger has the advantage of widening the amount of material broadcast, and give longer interviews, which can be viewed again - which means politicians, used to the usually ephemeral nature of most reporting, need to be more careful with what they say.

The demands and constraints of routinized production mean journalists must typify some events as news and ignore others. Tuchman (1978) says journalists use a 'news net', which allows small stories through but which catches big ones. (2)

What of the future? Either bloggers need to have a code of conduct to follow to ensure that they indeed follow the values of accuracy and fairness, or they can simply be excluded. But I suspect that if the latter course of action prevails now, there will come a time when change will be forced upon the States, and exclusion is a failure to engage with the emerging culture, and instead is a strategy of taking refuge inside a castle, pulling up the drawbridge, and indulging in a wishful fantasy that matters can remain as they have ever been.

Postscript:
Just in case anyone gets the wrong idea about my blog, I do not regard myself as "citizen media", or any kind of journalist. I am just a commentator, musing on the world.

Links
(1) "Blogging", Jill Walker Rettberg, 2009
(2) "Mapping the Journalism - Blogger relationship", W. Lowrey, Journalism, 2006, Vol 6
(3) http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/16/online-only-newspapers-revenue-fall-taloussanomat
(4) "Blogs in Campaign Communication", Gracie Lawson-Borders and Rita KirkAmerican Behavioral Scientist 2005, vol 49

The Culture of Doublethink

At an Institute of Directors lunch yesterday Senator Terry Le Sueur said: "Sadly, at the present time we have a culture within the States in which nobody wants to make a decision. Doing nothing, or passing the responsibility to a higher authority, means that one cannot get blamed" (1)

Doing nothing: so this is the man who would not hold have any committee of enquiry into the suspension of Graham Power, until his hand was forced by Deputy Bob Hill bringing a proposition. Then he finally took the decision to have Brian Napier compile a report (his preferred option), and then just sat on that report when it came back (citing "possible legal implications"" which never in fact emerged) until his hand was finally forced by Deputy Bob Hill.

Doing nothing: Senator Terry Le Main was told that he would need "training and education" after Senator Le Sueur admitted that the Minister should not have written to the Courts. When did this happen? Has Senator Le Main said that he now understands why he should not have taken that action?

Doing nothing: Senator Le Sueur tells the States that Bill Ogley has been "disciplined" but refuses to say what the nature of the discipline was. Given the "proven track record", it's probably very little. But citing confidentiality ("passing the responsibility to a higher authority") means he doesn't have to say.

Passing the responsibility to a higher authority? Does that mean that signing the contract for the incinerator without looking at hedging against price changes in the Euro is something he will now take responsibility for rather than heaping all the blame for it on the head of States Treasurer Ian Black?

I could go one, but as usual, Senator Le Sueur has a knack of saying one thing, and doing exactly the opposite, and hoping that if he bumbles along, no one will ever notice. And no one will blame him. After all, doing nothing, or passing the responsibility to a higher authority, means that one cannot get blamed.

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. (2)

Links
(1) http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/12/15/states-caught-up-in-a-culture-of-blame-says-chief-minister/#ixzz18C2wjhP5
(2) Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd, London, part 1, chapter 3, pp 32

Order Matters

We don't just remember. We re-enact, eating matzah, the unleavened bread of affliction, tasting maror, the bitter herbs of oppression, and drinking four cups of wine, each a stage in what Nelson Mandela called the long walk to freedom. And it all begins with the question asked by a child: why is this night different? I can still picture in my mind those nights long ago when I was the child. They gave me my first induction into the ideals I've tried to carry with me into adult life, above all a sense of fellow feeling with others who suffer, eating their own bread of affliction. (Jonathan Sacks)

I have always held the opinion that any tax which taxes life's essentials is immoral, unfair and falls disproportionately on the less well-off....The argument that has always been used by successive Ministers for Treasury and Resources in regard to GST is "keep it simple", "it's only 3%". I sign up to keeping things simple, but not to an inequity; it was wrong to tax these items at 3% and to consider taxing food and heating at 5% is indefensible (Andrew Green)

Does order matter?

Freeze GST for 6 months?

Freeze GST for a year?

Keep GST at 3%?

GST rise to 4%

GST to 5%, but with exemptions

GST to 6%, but with exemptions?

GST to 5%

Does the order in which a debate is carried make a difference to the final outcome? Where there are so many amendments on the table to the final option (GST at 5%), I think it could well make a difference, and that the person controlling the order by which the choices are given (the agenda maker) has great control over the outcome. There is a considerable body of literature which has examined this phenomena, starting with Schwartz's groundbreaking study on "Agendas and Control of Political Outcomes".

Understanding amendment rules and voting methods is important for political analysis because it reflects the degree to which outcomes depend on structure rather than votes

After a bill is reported to the floor and amendments are offered, the voting method employed can have significant effects on the final collective choice. The method of choosing between mutually exclusive legislative proposals, and the position of the status quo (i.e., when it comes up in the decision sequence and when it is the default alternative), varies across countries.

The voting agendas in place to decide on the details of the bill vary cross-nationally. The two most studied procedures are the so-called amendment and the sequential-elimination procedures. The first is employed primarily in Great Britain and its former colonies including the U.S., and the latter is mainly used in Continental Europe and Latin America. The two archetypical methods have existed since at least the Roman Empire (Farquharson 1969) (1)

Jersey uses the "amendment procedure" rather than the "sequential-elimination procedure"

Under the amendment procedure, amending votes precede an enacting vote: a draft bill is pitted against amended versions until, at the end, a surviving version is pitted against the status quo. The winner is the alternative chosen in the last vote, after all other alternatives have been voted at least once

Under the sequential elimination method, mutually exclusive alternatives are voted up or down in a given order. If a majority chooses one alternative, it is the outcome; voting on that section stops, and all other mutually exclusive alternatives are considered rejected. (1)

How can this effect outcomes?

In the 1950s Duncan Black first noted that under the amendment procedure the later an alternative enters the voting stage, the greater its chance of adoption. Under sequential elimination agendas, it is the opposite: the sooner and amendment comes up for voting, the greater its chance of winning (Farquharson 1969). (1)

So the order in which matters are presented in Jersey, and the amendment system means that the likehood is that items such as a 4% rise on GST rather than a freeze would have stood a better chance. In fact, Senator Francis Le Gresley tried to boost support for the freeze by withdrawing his own suggestion to raise GST to 4% instead of five. Philip Ozouf then (citing the "mood of the house"!!) withdrew the amendment to GST of 6% but exemptions from the table, so the only choice was over exemptions - against which he could argue a revenue loss, rather than a tax neutral option.

But if the freeze options had come last, before the final 5% with no exemptions, it would have been a straightforward tussle between the two options. With no other options in the pipeline, such as GST at 6% but with exemptions, there was always a chance that those who were convinced of exemptions, such as Andrew Green, Brian Le Marquand, Jacqui Hilton and Ian Gorst, might have voted for a freeze, which might have given time, both for a changed economic outlook, and, of course, a changed political outlook as with even the 6 months option (taking the rise to December 2010), a new house would be sitting.

As it stands, it is a "win win" situation for some politicians who voted against exemptions, such as John le Fondré, because come the next election, they can say they had voted for a delay in GST, and they can even get off Montfort Tadier's "GST Party Win's Again" list, even though they were only voting for a delay, not a cancellation!

(http://mtadier.blogspot.com/2010/12/gst-party-win-again.html )

Francis Le Gresley's vote was surprising, especially as the Citizen's Advice Bureau took a completely different line. Clearly once he had withdrawn his 4% offer, there was nowhere else for him to go but 5%, as he didn't want exemptions.

Jersey's citizens advice bureau says people living there less than five years will be hit hardest by the rise in the goods and services tax (GST). Malcolm Ferey, from the bureau, said they may not be able to apply for income support. Jersey politicians voted to keep GST on food and fuel and to increase the tax to 5% from June 2011. Malcolm Ferey said he was disappointed the States did not allow goods and services tax (GST) exemptions. He said there was a portion of the community that falls into the gap and loses out on support (BBC News)

Here is the voting list - it can be seen that Ian Le Marquand, Jacqui Hilton, Ian Gorst - who have consistently been elected on a mandate of exemptions on GST have continued to honour their commitment. Ministers or Assistant Ministers they may be, but they still show an independent which is to be welcomed, and which derives from thinking ethically rather than managerially about the debate. There is, I think, too little discussion of ethics, and what would constitute a just society, in today's politics, and too much concentration on a "fixit" economics. While we need to have a budget that works, we should also be mindful of the poorer members of society, and not just look for an easy managerial solutions.

Anne Dupre had another change of mind, citing 5% as too high, although less generously minded commentators such as myself think that as she voted against exemptions just after the last elections, she needed to do something to boost her credibility before next year's elections.

The Constables are split by 9 parishes to 3.

POUR: 24 CONTRE: 26 ILL: 3

CONTRE
Senator Terence Augustine Le Sueur
Senator Paul Francis Routier
Senator Philip Francis Cyril Ozouf
Senator Terence John Le Main
Senator Frederick Ellyer Cohen
Senator James Leslie Perchard
Senator Sarah Craig Ferguson
Senator Alan John Henry Maclean
Senator Francis du Heaume Le Gresley, M.B.E.
Connétable John Le Sueur Gallichan
Connétable Daniel Joseph Murphy
Connétable Michael Keith Jackson
Connétable Silvanus Arthur Yates
Connétable Graeme Frank Butcher
Connétable Peter Frederick Maurice Hanning
Connétable Leonard Norman
Connétable John Martin Refault
Connétable Juliette Gallichan
Deputy Robert Charles Duhamel
Deputy John Benjamin Fox
Deputy James Gordon Reed
Deputy John Alexander Nicholas Le Fondré
Deputy Anne Enid Pryke
Deputy Angela Elizabeth Jeune
Deputy Edward James Noel
Deputy Tracey Anne Vallois

POUR
Senator Ben Edward Shenton
Senator Alan Breckon
Senator Bryan Ian Le Marquand
Connétable Kenneth Priaulx Vibert
Connétable Alan Simon Crowcroft
Connétable Deidre Wendy Mezbourian
Deputy Frederick John Hill, B.E.M.
Deputy Roy George Le Hérissier
Deputy Judith Ann Martin
Deputy Geoffrey Peter Southern
Deputy Carolyn Fiona Labey
Deputy Jacqueline Ann Hilton
Deputy Paul Vincent Francis Le Claire
Deputy Shona Pitman
Deputy Kevin Charles Lewis
Deputy Ian Joseph Gorst
Deputy Philip John Rondel
Deputy Montfort Tadier
Deputy Daniel John Arabin Wimberley
Deputy Trevor Mark Pitman
Deputy Anne Teresa Dupre
Deputy Michael Roderick Higgins
Deputy Andrew Kenneth Francis Green M.B.E.
Deputy Jeremy Martin Maçon

ILL
Deputy Collin Hedley Egré
Deputy Sean Power
Deputy Deborah Jane De Sousa

Links:
http://www.eduardoaleman.net/LRAPealeman.pdf

Jewish Dietary Rules and Food Sustainability

I've often wondered about the Jewish dietary rules - is the prohibition on shellfish, for example, something to do with the fact that in a hot middle-eastern climate, shellfish is more likely to go bad, and lead to food poisoning.

But Rabbi David Seidenberg, at the website http://www.neohasid.org/torah/kashroots/ , has come up with a fascinating speculation on how what is "kosher" and what is not, actually has profound ecological implications. He starts with the Noah story - and Jewish identity is bound up with story, which we must be careful not to confuse with history, although at times in the narratives (particularly in the Court History of David), the two may well be very close.
 
I've always believed that keeping kosher was not just a way of creating Jewish identity, but also a way to create a society attuned to the earth. After years of wondering why some animals are kosher and others are not, I found an ecological explanation for these rules.

The Noah story is also the first time the distinction between 'pure' and 'unclean' animals is mentioned (Noah is told to bring seven of the pure (tahor) animals, which are the ones we call kosher.) So even the least universal aspect of kashrut, the "cloven hoof and cud-chewing mouth" requirement, has its roots in one of the Torah's most universal stories. That's a good jumping off point for searching out the universal meaning of these culturally-specific, arguably parochial laws.

Then he considers the parochial nature of the rituals, and I think makes a good point that what is true in Judaism is also true of all societies. As non-Jews, we may think we are not bound by restrictive dietary rules, and yet we have our own taboos. Just imagine the uproar if, for instance, horse meat was available for sale in British supermarkets. Or for that matter, cat or dog, which - as Peter Owen-Jones discovered -are just sacrificed, throats curt and the dead cat or dog flung to one side in African voodoo.

How he draws this into more general ecological principals about sustainability is very interesting, especially as the cost of food is increasing, and it is questionable how much longer the vast quantities of meat that our culture devours can be sustained.

Judaism arose in a particular place within a particular ecosystem. While Jews live everywhere, our rituals are keyed to the seasons and rhythms of the land of Israel. This is not just true of Judaism. Each culture evolved in an ecosystem that shaped not only its diet and cuisine, but also its fertility and rain rituals, its pantheons and ways of worship. The reason why there are different cultures is not primarily political or theological, it's that each society must find a way to teach its generations how to live in harmony with its unique ecosystem.

Before I go more into ecology, it would help to explore a related dimension of kashrut and eating, taught to us by anthropology. One of the primary ways that a culture expresses its values and its sense of belonging in the world is through eating. (Levi-Strauss' The Raw and the Cooked was one of the most important works that established this point.)

In fact, one of the primary ways of "civilizing" ourselves is to separate killing from cooking and eating. For a lion must eat and hunt with one and the same mouth. Only a few species (e.g., primates with hands) can even theoretically make a separation between killing and eating. Humans, in fact, are the only predators who have the capacity to completely separate killing (or capturing) from eating. This truth is embodied by the law given to Noah to not eat "a limb from a living animal" ('ever min hachai).

This civilizing process sounds like something that separates people from Nature. Yet by emphasizing humanity's uniqueness, such rules can also restrain human power and strengthen our empathy with all the other animals.

In Judaism, this drive to elevate our human uniqueness through how we eat is deeply embedded in the powerful rules about how we slaughter animals, the central focus of kashrut. Separating the blood from the flesh is first described in the Noah story, and then in other parts of the Torah, as the way we respect an animal's soul and life in the face of using it for food: ki hadam hu hanefesh 'You will not eat the blood because the blood is the soul'. (Lev. 17 and Deut. 12)

The imperative to not eat the blood, combined with the imperative to not cause an animal suffering, allows for only one way of kosher slaughtering, what we call shechitah. Shechitah is supposed to accomplish both goals (if done properly) by using an extraordinarily sharp knife to cut the carotid arteries, jugular veins and trachea of an animal in one cut. Done correctly, it's supposed to allow the blood to flow out and the heart to continue pumping, while rendering the animal unconscious.

Salting meat to draw out any remaining blood, and most importantly not cooking the flesh produced by an animal's death with the milk that nurtures life (basar v'chalav or milchig and fleishig) are more ways of creating separations between the life of an animal, the death of an animal, and the act of eating. All these rules and rites sanctify the act of incorporating another animal into our own life and body. These laws are uniquely a part of the covenant of the Jewish people, but they are hinted at in the respect for the animal's life and soul expressed in the Noah story.

Just as rules about how we kill and prepare meat distinguish human beings from other animals, rules about the way people harvest plants, which separate farming from foraging, are also a "civilizing" force found in most cultures. In Judaism, laws about pe'ah (not harvesting the field corners), leket (leaving the gleanings), and kilayim (not interspersing species in a certain kinds of fields), not only underline our humanity; they also add a dimension of holiness and restraint to the act of taking from the earth.

All of these ritual laws, even those that begin in some sense as universal principles, create both a separation between humanity and other species, and between Jewish culture and other cultures. Along with this comes a sense felt by many Jews that Jewish culture is somehow more civilized. That sense of election, so to speak, is a strictly anthropological dimension, without any direct ecological benefit. But the other anthropological meanings discussed above, to the extent that they create a heightened sensitivity to the lives and species that we use and eat, as well as an awareness of death and life itself, are universal in scope and have a clear ecological benefit.

Returning to the main point: every religion arises in or is shaped by a place and teaches how to live in that place. Though every ritual has many levels interpretation, e.g. historical, theological and personal, the ecological meaning may be the soil in which all else grows. The depth of this meaning is not in generalities, but in the details.

In the case of kashrut, for example, the rule about not eating blood makes it almost impossible to eat hunted game. In an ecosystem where humans depended on large herds of wild animals like buffalo, as we find in the North American plains, this rule would be almost impossible to follow. But in an ecosystem where wild herds and habitats are less productive, a hunting culture is unsustainable. A culture where humans can carefully control the size of domesticated herds to fit the limits of the ecosystem and the needs of the population is what's called for. That was the ecosystem which shaped the religion of our ancestors.

This brings us to that most puzzling of categorical rules: which animals we can and cannot eat. Almost everyone knows the rule: mammals that chew their cud and have split hooves are kosher; all other land animals are not. (Lev. 11 and Deut. 14) What do these two characteristics of hoof and mouth mean? Anthropologically, there are many interpretations, some of which can be found in Mary Douglas' Purity and Danger. But ecologically, there is a specific meaning, which goes far beyond any hygienic or other rationalistic or symbolic interpretation.

That meaning practically speaking is straightforward: any animal that chews its cud can eat grasses and plants that are inedible to human beings, and any animal that has split hooves can walk (and graze) on land that is too rocky to farm with a plow. These characteristics together mean one very clear thing: the only land animals that we can eat according to the laws of kashrut are animals that do not compete with human beings for food.

The rules we still follow in Judaism would in their original context in the ancient Mideast have allowed a civilization to thrive, without destroying the ecosystem it depended upon. In an ecosystem which is in some ways marginal, that is, an ecosystem which depends on intensive human input (agriculture and herding), as well as upon intensive "divine" input (i.e., rain, as it was understood by our ancestors), there was no room for devoting good farming land to livestock.

Embedded in this wisdom about locale is another truth: any culture which allows domesticated herds to compete with humans for food also pits farmers against herders. More importantly, it pits the poor who have no land against owners who control both land and herds.
We can easily see the dynamics of this problem in the modern world, where rising world food prices endanger the poor in many countries. Those prices are driven up in part by the industrial practice of feeding grain to cattle, instead of giving them their natural diet of diverse grasses and other pasture plants, and they are also driven up more recently by the use of grain to make ethanol fuel. Instead of competition between herders and farmers, we have competition between feeding our SUV's and cattle, and feeding other people.

Ecologically, the sacrificial system also had a very specific lesson: the life and soul of the animal, found in the blood, remained holy, even after the animal was slaughtered, and the only suitable use for this lifeblood was as an offering to God.

The kind of industrial meat-production we see in our time would have been impossible, because it would fly in the face of every ecological, humane, and health consideration that underlies kashrut. The sacrificial system also fits into a broader pattern of rituals and rules related to animals and to the land, a pattern that gives us a unique model for how to create a sustainable civilization.

My hypothesis for why animals must have cloven hoofs and chew their cud is just that: a hypothesis. It fits into a broader understanding of how the Jewish relationship to food is structured by the Torah, with its emphasis on equity and the sanctity of both human life and all life. If this theory could be proven wrong, kashrut would still have its other meanings. But in a time when all of the world's religions need to help us steer towards sustainability, it is worth so much to know that Judaism, from its earliest time and earliest stories, has an ecological underpinning that we can all listen to and search for.

The Fire Makers

I was walking past La Cotte, and musing on the Paleolithic inhabitants, and their use of fire...

The Fire Makers

Outside the cave, the land is bleak and cold
But the winds cease here, upon the threshold
And here the wood lies ready, mighty trunks
To smallest kindling, all broken into chunks
And ready for the fire maker of this tiny tribe
Who speaks the knowledge to his son, no scribe
But only oral tradition, passed down by mouth
With learning of the stars, of north and south.
 
Now the fire maker holds firm within his hand
Flint and stone, for these are on the borderland
Of magic lore, and suddenly he strikes the flint
Again and again, sparks fly, then there is a glint
Amidst the kindling, the dry leaves, and the ash
And he cries out, a wailing sound, as the flash
Takes, a glow begins, first small then brighter
As the fire takes hold, the darkness ever lighter.

The 1987 Trial and its Aftermath

On 18th August 1986, at 8.00 am in the morning, there was a simultaneous dawn raid on the houses of three Jersey policemen. They had been suspended since 1st October 1985, pending an enquiry concerning the conviction of a burglar for theft from local book maker B.J. O'Connor, and were probably imagining that the investigation into their alleged misconduct, in fabricating evidence in their pocketbooks, would proceed upon more formal lines. Instead, they faced a rude awakening, as their properties were searched, and confidential papers seized.
 
By the start of August 1987, a sixth month trial was nearing its end. In the dock were the three accused - Detective Chief Inspector Charles Quinn, Detective Sergeant Barry Follain, and Police Inspector Barry Blenkinsop.. The charge was conspiring to pervert the course of justice. As the Jersey Evening Post reported, the Attorney General, Philip Bailhache, in his summing up the case for the prosecution, "had accepted the burden of proving every material in the particular beyond all reasonable doubt." . He was convinced that he had done so.
 
At the time, as a young and confident 41 year old Attorney-General, this was one of the highest profile cases that Philip Bailhache had ever prosecuted. Appointed to the role in 1986, he had been working hard preparing this case, even working long hours over weekends. The Jersey Evening Post reported that a report collating all the matters and documents relating to the investigation ran to over 6,000 pages.
 
There had been serious problems - Detective Chief Inspector Martyn Le Brocq (head of the CID) had been caught out for tampering with pages in his own notebook, but the expectation was of a successful conviction. One of the documents seized in the raid had also highlighted a rift between Charles Quinn and the Chief of Police David Parkinson, and an accusation was made that part of the motivation behind the case was vindictiveness on his part. But these matters aside, the case seemed to be proceeding smoothly. After all, in early August, the defense had suddenly withdrawn 6 witnesses, without any apparent explanation.
 
But on the 6th August 1987, matters went seriously wrong. After over eight hours of deliberation, the jury returned an unexpected verdict of not guilty. There was an audible gasp throughout the Court. It was not a unanimous verdict, and perhaps in an attempt to put them more on the spot, each juror was required to individually give his or her verdict. But the result was clear - the case had collapsed, and Charles Quinn was exonerated. The same result was repeated with Barry Follain, while Barry Blenkinsop was cleared unanimously.
 
The defense applied for costs, and the Royal Court awarded taxed costs (described as "substantial") to all three police officers who had been acquitted by the Assize jury.
 
The case had been so demanding, and taken so long - over six months - that the jury were given an exemption from jury service for ten years by the Bailiff, Sir Peter Crill.
 
In an unprecedented statement, the States of Jersey Police Associated pledged full support for their Chief Officer, Mr David Parkinson, and divorced themselves from any comments made about his integrity during the trial.
 
Inspector Blenkinsop returned to duty, but Charles Quinn and Barry Follain remained suspended on other matters.
 
Senator Ralph Vibert was concerned that this seemed an unusual action to take, as he had serious doubts as "to the motivation to which the timing of these charges must give rise.". In the States, on the 18th August 1987, he asked:
 
"Noting that the charges now made number 37 against Chief Inspector Quinn and 12 against Detective Sergeant Follain, that most of them relate to matters not concerned with the recent Assize case and that some of the charges relate to events which took place as long ago as 1981, can the President explain why charges were not brought at the relevant times, but are now brought after the conclusion of the unsuccessful prosecution?"
 
John Ellis replied that "no charges, Criminal or Disciplinary, have yet been made against the two officers concerned. They have merely been informed of the allegations made against them."
 
He also added that: "My Committee has had little idea of the progress of the investigations and, at one stage, because I was being asked by many Members of the States and the public what was going on, due to the long delay in the investigation, I met the Attorney General and expressed my disquiet over the delays. The outcome was that the Attorney General kindly wrote in strong terms to the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset and things moved from then on."
 
Senator Ellis also told members that "The total costs of outside officers incurred by officers from the Avon and Somerset Constabulary for the period 29th August, 1985, up to and including 31st March, 1987, amounted to £55,225.91 (in the region of £150,000 today)."
 
But by 25 August 1987, Senator Ellis had decided that his position was untenable, due to the trial revealing had passed documents to one of the accused officers, Charles Quinn, whom he had known for 25 years, and he evidently felt conflicted in the matter. He resigned. Proposed by Ralph Vibert, Senator Dick Shenton took over as President of Defense.

In fact, the documents had nothing to do with the case in question. It related to complaints about the Chief Officer allegedly made by the Connétable of St. John (John Le Sueur) to Inspector Marks over the States police and the honorary police. The Chief Officer had sent a letter and a report by Inspector Marks to Senator Ellis; he had sent this to the Connétable, and obtained a reply, and then forwarded a copy of the correspondence and report to Inspector Quinn, including  "a note saying words to the effect that this sort of thing was not in the best interests of good co-operation."
 
But what were the long term effects of the case on prosecutions by the Attorney-General, or indeed future Attorney-Generals, such as Philip's brother William, who must have watched with dismay as the case for the prosecution collapsed? While there may have been no deliberate and conscious decision taken regarding the degree of evidence needed for a successful prosecution, the fact remains that William would have seen his brother Philip present a case that he would have deemed to be "beyond reasonable doubt", but after six months had failed abysmally, despite what seemed to be cast-iron evidence. Other Jersey lawyers would also have taken note of the case. So what would count now (in the minds of those witnessing this) as a realistic prospect of conviction? Of course, this is a matter of conjecture, but it could be seen that the threshold had been too low. This was, in all likelihood, not a matter of conscious policy, but an unconscious effect, like a mental shock to the system.
 
If we now look at June the 3rd 2009 the then Attorney General, William Bailhache released a Press Statement after deciding not to prosecute some alleged Child Abusers. In this, he noted:
 
"A prosecution most prove its case beyond all reasonable doubt, and if there is any doubt, an accused person is entitled to be found not guilty. Before bringing a criminal prosecution, there must be sufficient evidence such that there is a realistic prospect of conviction. A decision not to bring criminal proceedings does not necessarily mean that those who have made complaints are not believed, nor does it necessarily mean that any account given by a suspect has been believed. A decision not to prosecute means only that the Attorney General, having fully considered all of the available evidence and other information, has decided that an acquittal is more likely than a conviction."
 
But what is the threshold at which a decision is made that an acquittal is more likely than a conviction? The evidential test means that "It means that a jury or a bench of magistrates, properly directed in accordance with the law, will be more likely than not to convict the defendant of the charge alleged." It looks at weaknesses in the evidence, and contradictions which the defense could exploit.
 
"To compromise the test to allow evidentially weak cases to proceed is not an exercise of the objective approach which is demanded of prosecutors by the Code on the Decision to Prosecute. It is not fair to anyone - the complainants, the accused, the witnesses or the public - to do otherwise than apply the evidential test professionally and objectively."
 
This standard permits a prosecution to be commenced or continued only if the Crown prosecutor has sufficient evidence to believe that a reasonable jury, properly instructed, is more likely than not to convict the accused of the charge(s) alleged.
 
But despite this being described as "objective", the standard contains both a subjective and objective element, because the nature of the "evidence" may well be testimony. In this context, the term "objectivity" has a special legal meaning; it is not scientific objectivity, which can be testable and repeatable. It requires the lawyer to be "dispassionate", but a scientist's feelings are irrelevant with regard to scientific experimentation. The "evidential rule" is certainly better than "gut instinct", as it does require the prosecutor to review the evidence, but it is not objective in a scientific sense.  So what does "objective" mean - as a legal term?
 
The Crown has to look at contradictions in the evidence, weaknesses, see if there is sufficient corroborating evidence, and - as happened in the child abuse case - several other local lawyers were involved to see if they agreed on the Prosecution's decision. In Jersey, of course, unlike the UK, the threshold in making any decision would also be higher because the UK abolished the mandatory corroboration warning, and Jersey refused to do so in 2008 (during the police investigation into child abuse), thus weakening the testimony of any witnesses. Remember the test includes considering how a jury would react "properly directed in accordance with the law", which would obviously include the warning in Jersey.
 
But at the end of the day, there must also be a subjective element - a matter of belief. The Crown prosecutor must believe that a conviction is likely and that belief must be reasonable in the circumstances.
 
Despite looking clearly at the case the defense might bring, and highlighting weaknesses in the prosecution, the final judgement must be a subjective one as to whether a prosecution would succeed, whether the evidence is good enough. That must be based in part on past experience and consideration of other cases, otherwise there is no basis for a judgment. Is it not at least probable that the 1987 case, would have raised the threshold at which local lawyers and the Attorney General would rule thereafter that there could be a case "beyond reasonable doubt"?

Note: All names mentioned herewith are in the public records, reported in the JEP and in online States Minutes.

Spycatcher and Hindsight Bias

"Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards." (Soren Kierkegaard)

After the essay on Spycatcher, here is a review from me on that book, again from the Mensa Magazine of 1987. When books of this nature come out, it is important to note that they are enfolded in an interpretation of events, a narrative which both gives out information, and cites it as evidence to show a point. There is nothing wrong with coming to conclusions in hindsight, but there can be a danger of reading them back into past events.

In Mr Wright's book, an example of this is when he tells a story about Peter Ustinov's father, and tells us that it gave him a lesson - in how retired spies are mistreated - that he never forgot. And yet he also tells how he was surprised that the "gentleman's agreement" on his pension was not to be honoured. Clearly, the lesson he learned is in fact a later one, which he projects back and imputes to his earlier self, a lesson that is in fact learned in hindsight.

So with any leaks that come with a "framing narrative", we have to be careful about seeing what that narrative says, whether it is an individual, or a journalist, because it could reflect later concerns, rather than present ones. That's not to say the author is deliberately misleading the reader - they may not even be aware of that - or that the concerns are not valid, but in constructing a history, we have to be aware of that kind of bias when we put matters into a chronology. It is what is called "hindsight bias".

As David G. Meyers in "Exploring Social Psychology" says:

In everyday life we often do not expect something to happen until it does. We then suddenly see clearly the forces that brought it to be and feel unsurprised. After Ronald Reagan's presidential victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980, commentators -- forgetting that the election had been "too close to call" until the campaign's final few days -- found the Reagan landslide unsurprising and easily understandable. (1)

Baruch Fischhoff, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University, notes that this is something that politicians are very good at doing, rewriting their histories. His research shows that " people can fight the hindsight bias only when they honestly and systematically try to explain how different outcomes are possible. Such self-doubt is the exact opposite of how modern politics works: In the age of the blogosphere, certitude is king."

At its core, in other words, the hindsight bias is a form of overconfidence. Clearly acknowledging how you might be wrong is the only weapon against the error, Fischhoff said, but that is one thing politicians hate to do.(2)

With the recent news story breaking that zero-ten is unacceptable, it will be interesting to see how many politicians - those who didn't publically say so beforehand (so not Ted Vibert) - will now exhibit "hindsight bias", and say they knew there were significant problems with the strategy all along, but they didn't want to "talk down the economy" until the EU Code of Conduct report had come out, in case they could be resolved.

Unfortunately there is little "wriggle room" for Senator Philip Ozouf, who has publically nailed his position to the mast that it was just one aspect of zero-ten that needed amending, but it will still be interesting to see what he says on that a year later, when a new Chief Minister needs to be chosen.

"Spycatcher" by Peter Wright
A Review

This is a very readable book, detailing a certain amount of the fascinating story of a life spent in the Intelligence Service, although Mr Wright has been careful to omit any information that would impair the present Service.

However, the reader should be warned; it is written in the personal style of the modern autobiography. A short passage from the book amply illustrates this: it occurs when Mr Wright visited Klop Ustinov (the father of actor Peter Ustinov) who had worked for the Government in the Second World War:

As the vodka took hold, we began to talk of old times. Tears began to wet his cheeks as he told me the story of what be had done for the country. Finally his reserve broke.

"I do these things, Peter, and they leave me here. My wife and I... penniless. "
"But what about your pension?' I asked,
"Pension? I have no pension," he flashed back bitterly. "When you work for them you never think about the future, about old age. You do it for love. And when it comes time to die, they abandon you."
I sat silent. It seemed scarcely credible to me that such a man could be left to such circumstances, forced almost to beg."

As this passage shows, this reads as if it were an exact rendering of events. The reader should be cautious in this respect, because this is where the modern autobiography parts company from history. It describes events as taking place, and makes no allowance for the fact that Mr Wright's Judgements may have changed over the years, even if his "facts remain the same. We are told of Mr Ustinov': bitterness over getting no pension, or Mr Wright'; condemnation of this. But how much has the story been coloured in the telling by the fact that M Wright himself lost most of his pension, and partly: wrote the book as a means of living?

In the book, Mr Wright mentions that. he left the Navy to move to the intelligence Services on the proviso that he would not lose the fourteen years of his Admiralty pension as he had no private income to fall back on. He later discovered that the "gentleman's agreement" was not going to be kept and was, himself, somewhat bitter about this. The problem arises as to how much this has coloured his perspective on the past. For instance, in connection with Klop Ustinov, he concludes that I learned a lesson I never forgot: that MI5 expects its officers to remain loyal unto the grave, without necessarily offering loyalty in return.. Was that really a lesson learned in 1956, or rather a modern comment on past events?

This must surely also be a problem with any assessment of Mr Wright's claim that the Head of MI5, Roger Hollis, was a Russian spy. Mr Wright's recollection of events on his investigation of Roger Hollis point to the inevitable conclusion that Hollis was a spy. But how impartial has that recollection been? How selective has Mr Wright been in his choosing facts to fit his theory, and how often might memory of judgements made been reinterpreted to fit that theory? Mr Wright also mentions that all his documents were destroyed prior to his departure, so memory is the only guide. This is the real problem facing any reader who digs beneath the surface of this book: how much is truth, and how much is mimetic fiction?

Links
(1) http://csml.som.ohio-state.edu/Music829C/hindsight.bias.html
(2) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/01/AR2006100100784.html

The Ethics of Leaks: A Matter of Principle?

With the present controversy over Wikileaks, and the whole matter of whether it is justifiable to put confidential information in the public domain, I trawled though my archive this week to an article I wrote for the Channel Island's Mensa Magazine, "Thinks!" in 1987, under the pseudonym Una Nancy Owen (fans of Agatha Christie will spot the reference from her book "And Then There Were None").

I'm not wholly convinced by Wikileaks arguments for transparent government by leaks. I can understand the need of leaks of cases of torture and illegal killings, of the kind that would prompt action by Amnesty International, where there has been a serious breakdown of the rule of law - although one of the problem with Wikileaks is its selectivity - despite the mass of information, it comes from one or two sources, and we don't always know if cases of torture were concealed and deliberately ignored, or whether severe disciplinary actions took place.

Also other parts of the leaks - I was reading a cable about a chat with Van Rompey over Copenhagen, are more to do with expressions of opinion than fact - this is gossip, rather than cutting edge material, and sometimes may have been expressed more freely than would have been the case had it been public. But is that any more than the way in which we may express ourselves in private, where we may use, on occasion, what would be defamatory words against politicians ? Where we may say in private what we could not say in public without being sued? And isn't it because that can function as a form of shorthand between friends, who pick up on what is also not said, and don't need nuances? Where they "fill in the gaps" and don't misinterpret?

What has happened with Wikileaks is that a private mode of discourse has been opened to a wider world, but without being interpreted as such, or due weight given to the lack of nuance and shorthand, and this can be very misleading. Semioticists, please note!

Anyhow, in 1987, Peter Wright published "Spycatcher" which caused a furore with the British Government, and raised all kinds of issues with free speech. The book was banned in the UK, but copies were available in Scotland - and, of course, in Jersey - for tourists and locals alike. Here is my comment on the situation:

A Matter of Principle?
Contributed by Una N Owen

The furore generated in these pages by the publication of Spycatcher seems to be concerned with the following argument: it is wrong for someone to take an oath to keep secrets, and later to break it; conversely, it is right and proper for the British Government to seek to stop Mr Wright publishing, as a matter of principle, and example to others.

This seems, at first sight, to be a fairly good argument. However, there are several factors not mentioned which should be also be considered, and show that the situation is more complicated than it appears.

First, the British Government seems to argue that the breaking of an official oath is wrong; yet in an Australian Court, Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, managed to mislead the Court by bending the truth, or as he himself so quaintly phrased it - "being economical with the truth". This was despite the fact that he was under oath to tell the truth. Does "principle" work only one way?

The Government has also argued that details about the business of spying should be kept in secret. However, the Government is quite happy to leak on an almost official basis to an author like Chapman Pincher; as the Australian Judge pointed out, a sizeable proportion of the ground covered by Spycatcher has already seen publication with the approval of the Government!

But quite apart from the matter of principle, the question I sought to consider was whether or not the
British Government should seek to restrict the dissemination of the book in England, when it had already failed to stop publication in the rest of the world. This I regarded, and still regard, as an infringement of free speech.. Now to the British Government, obsessed as they seem to be with secrecy, such a matter as free speech is often treated as frivolous and contemptible.

However, I would ask those who are dismissive of free speech to consider the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States: Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. This principle was considered sufficiently important to lead to a change in the Constitution, and the Americans still think it most important. Moreover, the absence of free speech and a free press is a charge frequently levied by Western Governments (including Britain) against the oppressive practice of the Soviet Block. Again, this seems to be applied inconsistently: it is fine for the British Government to demand the right to a free press of the Russians, but wrong for British citizens to ask it of the British Government!

Finally, what of the accusation that Mr Wright is lacking in principle. Part of his position seems, in my opinion, to be the modest one of wanting the truth to be found about whether or not Roger Hollis, once Head of MI5, was a Spy. Mr Wright argues that the truth has been evaded in a convenient cover up. As he comments, in 1981, Mrs Thatcher informed the House of Commons that Lord Trend "had concluded that Hollis was not an agent of the Russian Intelligence Service. He had faith in a man's innocence, as I had faith in his treachery; as another man might have faith in God.. One man's view, as I now realize, is in the end worthless. Only facts will ever clear up the mystery." Is this arrogance, or the plea for a proper investigation rather than what appears to be a Government whitewashing?

The Curious Omission of Richard Walter in the Judgment on Stuart Syvret

With Wikileaks making news headlines, and our own leaker of private information, Stuart Syvret, I've been reviewing the judgment reported on another blog in the case of Stuart Syvret:

On Mr Syvret's blog is the following statement, not by him, but as part of a leaked document about Nurse X:

Mr. Richard Walter is a US Forensic Psychologist based at the Michigan State Prison. He has considerable experience in the field of offender profiling and visited Jersey to attend the International Police Surgeons Conference. Whilst in Jersey, I took the opportunity to relay the facts of this case to him. He confirmed my suspicions that X possessed the hallmarks of a serial killer and that he was an extremely dangerous man. (1)

Just a few of Mr Walter's significant successes are as follows:

In 1989, Walter provided the psychological profile for mass murderer John List, who had been in hiding for 18 years. Using Walter's profile, forensic sculptor Frank Bender was able to appropriately age the suspect in a bust displayed on America's Most Wanted; List was captured the next day.

In Lubbock, Texas in 1999, City Police solved the murder of Scott Dunn with Walter's aid. This is a rare case where a conviction was garnered in the absence of a body.

In 2005, the Hudson, Wisconsin Police Department consulted with the Vidocq Society on the cold case double homicide of Dan O'Connell and James Ellison. With the help of Walter, the Hudson police solved the case. The murderer was a priest who was trying to keep child molestation allegations from surfacing. (2)

You might think that would provide a degree of support for the public interest defense, especially as Mr Walter is a also a founding member of the Vidocq society, which has now been instrumental in solving hundreds of crimes, and a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Science.

Walter began his career as a criminal psychologist at the LA County medical examiner's office in the 1970s, and since then has profiled the perpetrators of some of world's most infamous crimes - including the serial killer Colin Ireland, who terrorised the gay community in London in the 1990s. He is recognised as one of the creators of modern criminal profiling. One would have thought his judgment - that the Nurse in question was "an extremely dangerous man" would have carried some weight. The Jersey police must have been over the moon that he was available, by chance, to bring in to look at this case.

But in fact, the summing up by Assistant Magistrate Mrs B. Shaw gave the impression that Senator Syvret was a lone (and aberrant) voice in deciding, on his own personal judgement, that the Nurse was "an extremely dangerous psychopath" - Mr Richard Walter's professional opinion is simply ignored.

The defendant describes X to the Police in his e-mail sent shortly after the blog was published as "plainly and unambiguously an extremely dangerous psychopath.. This is how he represented X on the blog. The comments together with the report give a seriously misleading picture of an unchallenged and very dangerous man.(3)

Isn't that a misleading picture?

Links:
(1) Stuart Syvret blog
(2) Wikipedia
(3) HDGL Farce Blog

Will no one rid me of this turbulent policeman?

You are the Archbishop who was made by the King; whom he set in your place to carry out his command. You are his servant, his tool, and his jack, You wore his favours on your back, You had your honours all from his hand; from him you had the power, the seal and the ring. (Murder in the Cathedral, TS Eliot)

In a recent Hansard, Paul Le Claire reported the following exchange:

Not long after Deputy Andrew Lewis took over as the Minister for Home Affairs I walked through the Chamber to the top of the stairs and in his company was the former Chief Minister, Mr. Frank Walker. They were discussing the former Deputy Chief of Police, Mr. Lenny Harper. The Chief Minister at the time said: "Why did you not get rid of him?" I found that a little strange at the time for that to be expressed but I entered into the conversation by standing with them and partook in the conversation. The response - which I think is the important thing, the key thing - from the Minister was: "We were going to get rid of him but he only had a week to go so we thought it best just to let him go."

The exact date I am afraid I did not record. It was shortly after, if not the day, that the announcement was made that Deputy Lewis had taken over as the Minister.

Now this has been seen as evidence of a conspiracy to get rid of the Deputy Chief Office, Lenny Harper, particularly as Deputy Hill has noted that the only one able to remove the Deputy was in fact the Chief Officer, not the Minister for Home Affairs. So in order to remove Lenny Harper, it would be necessary to remove his Deputy. But if the only way to get rid of Lenny Harper was to suspend Graham Power - which would allow someone else to take over as Acting Chief, and suspend him - then why was Graham Power suspended after Lenny Harper had left? And who was the someone else? David Warcup didn't get sworn in as Deputy Chief until the day after Lenny Harper had left, so he wasn't in a position at the time to take over as Acting Chief Officer. The logic of this conspiracy simply doesn't work out properly.

Senator Ian Le Marquand commented on this, and I don't know if his words carried a sarcastic tone, but they are certainly there in the transcript (which I think is unduly unfair to Deputy Le Claire's honesty):

Of course we all waited today with baited breath to see what Deputy Le Claire would add to the situation. What would his evidence be? Would that change things? With great diffidence he told us that what he had overheard was a conversation between 2 States Members, he says, the Chief Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs at the time, in relation to why action had not been taken against the Deputy Chief Officer. Frankly, this is no evidence whatsoever in relation to conspiracy. There is no evidence of the sort of conspiracy alleged. What there is evidence of is that there were concerns some time before and those concerns had been transmitted from the Acting Chief Officer via the Chief Executive to the Minister for Home Affairs of the time.

In fact at that time, David Warcup was not Acting Chief Officer - until the suspension, he was only Deputy Chief Officer. According to the Le Marquand narrative, then, there was no conspiracy but only "concerns" - but Deputy Le Claire saw no evidence of what I would call "concerns" - "Why did you not get rid of him?" doesn't sound much like a concern to me, but rather a discussion of definite action which might be taken. I don't think simple "concerns" were on the table; the Le Marquand narrative simply ignores the personal equation and downplays it, and that just doesn't hold up either.

It is also clear that Mr Walker was involved in the discussions about the suspension of Graham Power as well. As Napier comments:

There was a meeting on 3 November, attended by Mr Ogley, Mr Walker and Mr Crich. At that meeting there was discussion of the possibility of suspension [of Mr Power] when he was on holiday.

And it is also clear from Napier that relations between Mr Power and his Deputy had deteriorated, and Mr Walker and Mr Ogley were already critical of Mr Power:

It is clear to me, in the light of the investigations I have carried out, that the criticisms of Mr Power, made by implication in the Interim Report and, separately, in the report of Mr Warcup, found a receptive audience when they came to the attention of Mr Walker and Mr Ogley. That is, however, a very different matter from accepting that they (with or without the knowing participation of Mr Warcup) were plotting to find a way to have Mr Power removed from office, and were using suspension as the first stage in achieving their objective.

So why was Mr Power removed? What advantages were there to doing this after Lenny Harper had left?

For David Warcup, the advantages of Graham Power's suspension would that he would have a free hand to conduct the investigation and court cases in the way he deemed necessary, without fighting a continual battle with his Chief on how it should be done. There must have been (as seems to come through in Napier), a considerable degree of frustration, especially as Lenny Harper had clearly had much more control over the media strategy, while Graham Power was happy for him to do so. Now David Warcup wanted to shift the media strategy in a different direction, and Graham Power was resisting this change. So the benefits to David Warcup was not that he would get the Chief Officer's job (which he would anyway on Graham Power's retirement), but that he could conduct the investigation along the lines which he thought were better.

But what of Senator Walker, and the reported conversation. As Napier reports, the situation between Graham Power and Senator Walker had deteriorated to the point of hostility. While there was no conspiracy as such, there must have been considerable frustration at meetings with a Chief of Police which were confrontational, and he would have known that both he and Mr Ogley were on the same wavelength as David Warcup and relations would be immeasurable smoother if Mr Warcup was in charge. The general media strategy had gone astray, with fiasco after fiasco, from Newsnight, the Parish Hall Press Conference gate-crashed and ruined by Senator Syvret, the Liberation Day speeches badly received by the public, and criticisms of the Jersey establishment and judiciary by Lenny Harper, as well as the continual sniping by Senator Stuart Syvret, which with unsuppressed feeling, he termed "the vile blog".

It would not have been unreasonable to suppose he must have surely felt a degree of anger and resentment, rather like Henry II on Thomas Becket. He had brought in this Chief of Police, and now couldn't work with him. Henry is supposed to have exclaimed, in the presence of four knights, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?", but how the Latin account actually translates is perhaps far more appropriate:

"What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?"

Henry didn't actually conspire to remove Becket, but the expression of his attitude certainly pushed events in a particular direction when others (also sympathetic) were aware of it, and took it upon themselves to do something about that.

Snowflakes

I grumble at the snow, and it causes chaos. But there is also a beauty and magic there...

Snowflakes

Winter wonderland, a pattern
Of white flakes falling softly
And in the night, a lantern
Gleaming flame so warmly
 
I dance in the white dust
Beneath the silver moon
As, sparkling in each gust,
Flakes settle forming dune
 
The brittle air is so sharp
Frost lays a lightest hand
A sound of winter's harp
Soft snow upon the land
 
Snow memory, snow flakes
Silence thought, all it takes.

 

An Education Minister of Very Little Brain

"I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words bother me."(AA Milne, Winnie the Pooh)

Education minister questions need for school closure

Jersey's education minister has questioned why schools had to close in the wintry weather. Deputy James Reed said it was ironic the government was deciding on a transport policy at the same time schools were shutting early. He urged the transport minister to look into why more provision is not available for school transport. The minister said it was a poor indictment of Jersey if everything closes every time it snows.(1)

The Education minister may not understand this, but if the bus company, Connex, decides conditions are too hazardous for buses on roads, they will not run the school bus service. As quite a significant proportion of children now catch the bus - the St Lawrence bus often has pupils standing on its journey - if the buses don't run, the only way children can get home, especially to outlying districts, is if either parents pick them up - more cars on the road - or they walk home. Now the reason why they catch the bus in the first place, and don't walk, is that they don't actually live that close to the school, a fact which may have escaped the Minister.

If we lived in Canada, for example, where there is thick snow, and it remains thick, cars and buses would be using snow chains. But these - for buses - are heavy, take time to put on, and damage the road surface if the snow melts. In Canada, snow stays, so they get around in it. Here, it comes and goes. That goes for snow chains on other vehicles as well:

Theoretically snow chains on summer tyres can be used as an alternative to winter tyres where the entire road is heavily covered with snow and no damage to the road is caused by the snow chain. (2)

The AA site -which covers European driving in snow - also notes that "snow chains may not be used in slushy/icy conditions" - in other words, like those prevailing for part of yesterday in Jersey. It also notes that:

In any country snow chains may only be used where there's sufficient snow covering to avoid any possibility of damage to the road surface. A fine may be imposed if damage is caused. (3)

and the eHow site also notes:

You may only fit your vehicle with snow chains if the road is snowed under, regardless of the time of the year. It may sound like a statement of the obvious, but remember that it means you must remove the chains once you reach a road whose surface has been cleared. The reason is that snow chains damage the asphalt.

But of course, this doesn't stop the Daily mail from asking "Why we are the laughing stock of the world", and noting that:

"Each October in Switzerland, everyone replaces summer tyres with thick-tread winter ones or covers them in chains."

And every year, some one - with cotton wool for brains - will still be asking: why do the schools close so early.

"If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear."
(A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh)

Links
(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-11886162
(2) http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/overseas/snow-chains-winter-tyres.html
(3) http://www.ehow.com/list_6763396_snow-chain-laws-france.html
(4) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1334892/David-Jones-Why-laughing-stock-rest-world.html#ixzz16vyxsjqj

Southern Spin and Chamber Conceits

Southern Spin

Geoff Southern, on the JDA website noted that

"Whilst wages are frozen, GST costs for the average family will go up by over £900" . (1)

I'm not exactly sure how this was calculated.

By my reckoning,

If you spent £46,000 that was subject to GST in a year
The net figure would be £46,000/1.03 = £44,660
The GST at 3% on that would be £44,660 * 3% = £1,340
(as a check, note that £1,340+£44,660 = £46,000)
5% GST on £44,660 would be £2,233
The difference between £2,233 and £1,340 would be £893.

In other words, to get GST to go up by over £900, you must be earning (and spending on GST - which excludes medical bills and dentists bills and other items like the TV licence) - over £46,000!

So according to Deputy Southern, the average family income is just over £46,000. Somehow, I think he's got his figures a teeny bit wrong. Evidently mathematics was not his strong point as a teacher.

I think he means go up to £900 not go up by £900, which means a spend on GST related goods and services of £18,000. That is closer to low income wages, and means that on £18,000 (before GST is added) the 3% currently on that is £540, making an increase of £360 per annum.

Now I'm not saying that is not substantial to a family on a small income of around £18,000-£20,000 - it could mean, on a stretched budget, that people leave off dental check-ups, or try to keep from going to the doctor when perhaps they should (and end up off work taking sickness for a longer period).

If rents go up as well, and rents never seem to feel the recessionary pinch, then the family budget could be stretched even more, and may need more income support, thereby drawing more money from the State, and promoting a dependency culture.

But it does mean that Geoff Southern is indulging in a certain amount of spin, and I don't think that kind of argument is any good; it is easily demolished, and in doing so, the case for exemptions may also suffer by association with a discredited approach. If the JDA wants to provide arguments for exemptions, they need better ones that that. Senator Ferguson has already indicated that she thinks Geoff Southern's figures are suspect - let's hope he doesn't repeat the argument in the States.

Chamber Conceits

I also heard a spokesman for the Chamber of Commerce (on BBC Radio Jersey this morning) trotting out the argument that exemptions would make administration for his members much more difficult. This conjures up the image of a Victorian shopkeeper, whose handwritten ledgers are full of calligraphic beauty, and who has to go through endless painstaking checks on each item sold. It is an absolute nonsense.

What is more - he persisted in saying "most members" whereas the recent survey which included an opinion on the GST rise had only a response rate of approximately 17% of the membership, and it is very conceited to assume that this was somehow representative of the missing respondents. The survey, in fact, only asked "Do agree or disagree with the Budget proposal to increase GST to 5%?" and no question arose about exemptions. How does he know, then, what the bulk of the members think? And how representative is the Chamber of Commerce of all Island retailers who would be involved in any changes?

It is true that - with exemptions - there would be an initial cost of adjusting rates on various items, and adjusting till systems, but we do live in the age of the computer, and that is one area where computer programs speed up this kind of process. It is also true that there will be an additional burden to compliance (as I noted in an earlier post), but we are not adopting complex systems like the UK, where there is GST at 0%, 5% and 17 /1/2%, and a wider range of items at 0%. All the local proposition relates to is food (which can follow the UK list, which should therefore be easier for large retailers) and domestic fuel.

Regarding till receipts, UK systems are not necessarily more complicated:

Receipts to general public don't have to show VAT at all - however; if you inform M&S you need a VAT receipt and provide them with your VAT number they are obliged to provide you with a proper VAT receipt - usually retailers invoices would show sufficient info to avoid people doing this and causing large queues (2)

Waitrose (as an example) clearly indicate on each receipt the breakdown of VAT and Zero Rated goods and give a running total. The only way to identify VAT rated items on an M&S standard food till receipt is by an * against the item. And yes, that is clear enough too. (2)

All that is needed, is the VAT registration number, and some means of flagging items, and the UK EPOS systems have had plenty of time to do this, so it is not as if Jersey has to re-invent the wheel. Indeed the UK tax department already has plenty of guidelines which we just need to adopt - far easier for the States than producing masses of local pen-pushing:

A good system will print the VAT code, or similarly meaningful indicator, on the till receipt (3)

Most modern accountancy software allows stock, for example, to be clustered by category, and for a global change in VAT rates to be applied to selected items all at once. Perhaps the very smallest shop keeper may not have a computerised till system, but let's not forget there is a turnover limit before firms have to register for GST, and the smallest shop keeper would certainly not be registered.

And remember, GST at 5% would be the "tipping point" - Senator Ozouf has made it clear that if it goes above 5% at any time in the future, there will probably have to be exemptions, and associated costs. Has the Chamber of Commerce considered that?

Links
(1) http://jdajersey.co.uk/Geoff%20Southern.htm
(2) http://www.taxationweb.co.uk/forum/m-s-till-receipts-i-m-confused-t32011.html
(3) http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_ShowContent&id=HMCE_CL_001540&propertyType=document