Leaderboard

On the balance of probabilities, the chances of him waking up one day after 4 or 5 years of taking the bus everywhere, deciding to take the car out and thinking, "Wait, I'd better knock up a quick forgery of a tax disc first!", and then getting stopped mere minutes later, must be fairly astronomical.

He must have one of those solar trickle chargers to keep the battery good for 4 years without ever using the car!

He must be the unluckiest man on the planet, being stopped by police on the first and only occasion he had driven his car since 2014. Bloody lucky it even started!

I don't think any politicians, anywhere, have the guts to face the facts, tell people what needs to be done and do what needs to be done. For example, the Manx Radio article talks about "planning for when the Pulrose Power Station is scheduled for decommissioning in 2030." OK, let's talk about that. The power station uses 110 million cubic metres of natural gas per year to generate most of the island's electricity. That makes a sizable contribution towards global warming, and at some point we will have to stop burning natural gas anyway because there is a finite supply of it. The energy generated by the power station (4,000 million megajoules per year) could in theory be generated by 45 8MW wind turbines stationed around the island, similar to the ones you can see on a clear day in Liverpool Bay. If the Pulrose station is to be decommissioned in 11 years, we would need to start building those wind turbines now so they are ready to come online in 2030. So far, we haven't managed to build a single wind turbine, never mind 45 of them, because the NIMBYs don't want to spoil the view. And that's quite apart from the upfront cost, which would probably be much greater than building another gas-fired power station. And it also doesn't take into account the fact that we buy more gas than we need from the UK, turn it into electricity and then sell it back to the UK, although quite how that works as a long term business plan I'm not sure, because you'd have thought that if the UK got wind of what we are doing, it might cut out the middleman and build its own gas turbine... I actually can't see Mr Boot or Tynwald making the necessary difficult decisions and hard choices about any of this.

Maybe he's fishing for actionable comments?

There’s no proof, beyond reasonable doubt, that he used the car on a public road, so requiring tax or insurance, over the past 5 years. You can imply, infer, assume. There isn’t even circumstantial evidence. Im sure you’d expect that basic principles of justice applied to you, even if you don’t think someone else is entitled, if you ended up in court. He was charged with a series of offences taking place on one day, for which there was evidence, and has paid the going rate for those. He can’t be sentenced for offences with which he wasn’t charged and for which there was no evidence. That being said, the fine and disqualification aren’t the end. He’s going to get penalised in other ways. His insurance premium will rocket. Insurers don’t like no insurance convictions. His vehicle will have to go through a test at Ballafletcher, because tax hasn’t been paid for more than three years, there’ll be application costs, and possibly work to be done before it passes.

No duty or insurance for 5 years, even a fiat panda would cost 500 pa to tax and insure so certainly himself a few bob given the fine, and driving without insurance for 5 years only gets you 8 weeks ban, who is he banging?

That disappointing moment on Twitter when you see that 'Howard Quayle' is trending and 'Freak steamroller accident' isn't!

It certainly isn’t what it used to be.

That seems to be basic Management Information that they would have. Not sure how it is Data Protection anyway. Saying there are 300 individuals working at Pokerstars doesn't identify those people.

Politicians cannot be relied upon to take seriously any issue that impacts beyond the next election; see the adjacent Island for an extreme example. Older voters cannot be relied upon to take seriously any issue that will not fully impact until they are long dead; see the adjacent Island for an extreme example. I believe that as a first world country we have a responsibility to lead the way in demonstrating that we can generate electricity without the need to burn hydro-carbons to do so; I appreciate that the building of green energy generators has a significant carbon footprint but this will diminish over time; if green energy is used to build green energy generators then it is greener (apologies for making a clunky point!) We have ample wind, significant tides and a reasonable amount of sunlight. The Isle of Man is the perfect test-bed for demonstrating both progressive politics and an environmentally sustained society. We just have to wait for the quasi-Tory voters and politicians to get the message. All power to the kids who protested at Tynwald.

Well this is it innit, (in kids voice: “if there not doing it, why should we”). It is exactly why we should BE doing it, why can’t the IoM be innovative, forefront in the world because our leaders can’t or are too scared to do it, it’s always chasing whatever other nations have done, which isn’t always right. Why can’t we say in 15years time and say to the world, look at us, fossil fuel free, single plastic free, green energy, passive homes. Then the world will look at us for a change. Unfortunately no one has the vision, the government are always in the ‘now’ and leaning towards the UK. Time for some radical thinking, however there isn’t any.

What about the man with no brain who repeatedly types angry ignorant shit into a public forum?

Nothing to do with data protection. Nothing to do with hiding information. Economic Affairs Division has access to some income tax data, but only for statistical purposes. How do you think it prepares employment data etc.? That's what the Chief Minister stated, correctly.

It's an embarrassing question to be asked because the answer is the government itself is the biggest employer, which is a pretty pathetic state of affairs.

But he works for Government and is a really good bloke!

Seems strange to forge a tax disk when you don't intend to use it

Numpty deserves more. They don't say whether the car had ever been serviced. Probably a few defects worth doing him for, too.

Obfuscation obfuscation. What you ask is code for "I await your proof that this technology is not dangerous" . So again, demanding proof of a negative. What proof do you have from a scientific peer reviewed source that this is dangerous? Quoting senators who probably couldn't put a plug on an iron won't do and neither will trawling the web for nutty professors who have dreamed up a theorem without bothering to do industry recognised tests and analysis in order to derive a hypothesis that can be scrutinised by experts. You have come to the conclusion it's dangerous. Prove it. I have yet to arrived at a conclusion. Caution is fine. Scaremongering without evidence is not.

How many employees an employer has is none of Howard (or Moorehen's) business and its quite right they shouldn't know. Employers file tax records for their employees so the tax office will know this information - however it wasn't provided to them for Seagull's pointless questions and it is quite right that Howard has no access either.

Wind, solar and tidal power, electric cars, all have an environmental cost though. We could probably reduce the islands gas emissions more by making veganism compulsory and making it a requirement that all new buildings are passive in regard to carbon and energy. But that might upset two of the vested interests here though. The basic problem is too many people using too many resources and no politician is going to do anything other than grandstand about it all

He was. Then got “moved” to CRHS after an incident.

No, no, no, no, not at all That was Bruce Wayne

These news stories seem to get hidden away in the Sports section on MR, but worthy of note. IoM sent 17 athletes to the Special Olympics and 3 of them have won Gold Medals so far. Simply outstanding. https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-sport/another-gold-at-special-olympics/

Well they certainly run what should be private businesses ie radio stations, steam railways, swimming pools etc, never mind cafes, shops, and entertainment venues. They are the biggest 'what should be private' employer.

I have heard similar from one employed in there. Vetting procedures tightened up, less of the jobs-for-mates-syndrome.

don't have SORN on island

Applications are invited to tender for the 2020 TT broadcasting rights. Applicants should quote, within their bid, how much they would like Government to pay them. Although I lost faith a long time ago, I am completely at a loss to see how the hell this works? Is there another major sporting legend where a broadcaster gets paid to lay on the gig? the next thing will be that the TV rights holder gets paid to do it.

I have noticed today that there are loads of uk government adds on to about travel post Brexit. I reckon uk is out next Friday with no eu deal.

Name and reputation lost? For this? Not really. It's just gone up in my estimation -- taxation is theft and should be resisted and avoided any way possible. This is certainly a creative effort.

Stupid and sad. Good name & reputation lost - and for what? I suppose we should be thankful that he didn't injure anyone in a crash whilst uninsured.

I’m not even sure it’s a GDPR issue. It’s not personal data. It’s just an excuse to say nothing.

Your point is misconceived. Last paying for a licence and proving it had been used on public roads without a licence are very different. Its not an offence to not licence your car.

Dangermouse?! Does he normally drive? I thought it was Penfold that chauffeurs him?

Apologies, my pc playing up hadn't loaded the clip, I wrongly assumed he was referring to govt employees. 0/10 for moi eta picked the clip up on my laptop

when iomg bailed out the sefton group they said it was the islands largest employer...... so they must know the data.....

The ridiculous debts of the MEA are holding us back, everyone involved in that bullshit is a cunt. Here we are on an Island, a mini country, where it is always windy. Total wind turbines zero. Pathetic. We are somewhere where the total amount of driving a normal person is likely to do in a day is less than 100 miles, so there should be many more electric cars. Hopefully as the technology becomes theoretically becomes cheaper we'll see more. We shouldn't be too hung up on the co2 thing, because as b4mbi points out in the grand scheme of things it is nothing. We should be looking for ways to stop fagging the world up with crap though, and burning it is probably not the right answer.

I wish there was some perspective in this debate - CO2 emissions aren't the whole story of the man-made element of climate change of course but it's likely a major contributory factor to warming. According to this report, (admittedly from 2011, but can't imagine it's changed significantly since then) Isle of Man CO2 emissions were 47,000t. Of course we should seek to minimise this in whatever way we can. Say we managed a 50% reduction, 23,500t. Nice info graphic here on coal fired power stations - figures for ONE coal fired power station in UK - Drax Power Station UK - 2,700,000t CO2 emissions. China spending $36Bn on coal fired power - here Our emissions are not even a drop in the ocean if this site claiming global emissions in 2018 of CO2 are 37.15 Billion tonnes or 37,150,000,000t So the Isle of Man currently contributes 0.00013% of global CO2 emissions....a 50% reduction in our emissions (at cost£££??) would take us down to 0.000065% Listened to the new Green party leader last night on the radio, and I think most people would agree with their point that we should look to sustainable energy generation in the future. Gizo, I agree with your point, we should be radical and a shining example of how to run a country sustainably in terms of energy/agriculture/plastics etc. But the big question is how to do it? It will need paying for, and renewable sources are not on-demand, so you also need some form of energy capture/storage. The gas in our waters is the only way Govt can get sufficient funding required to invest in renewables (tidal/wind) whilst managing our own energy requirements during the transition phase.

The island could be a perfect model in tidal power.... if we hadn't saddled ourselves with debt on other means of power generation. The answer to the bigger problem lies not with politicians.

This is a bit like the when there was no information forthcoming about the new customs and excise agreement and someone went and got exactly the same thing with a FoI request from the UK. We live in a regime of secrecy for secrecy's sake. It's nuts. I think anyone in business here could hazard a guess at the top 10 employers and not be too far out.

A skeet at what? Their catalogue! What a swizz, nothing to browse. Anyway, I took one of their catalogues, take that you buggers now you'll have to print another one and I didn't buy anything!!! Only problem is, along with the WDS/Nesbitts cat. the print is so small I can't read the bloody things!!!

Nostalgia! What a curse!!!

That’s really inappropriate - so why do my sides hurt from laughing?

When we all know Vinny's got that covered.

Yay! The Dyslexic's won a glod and the Turettes team got a feckin silver.

You should blog that on Supertour.im.

Oh no! Not more blue paint Derek? Move on, it's over.

Is this a variation on the Head Road kitchen voyeurism? “On Your Doorstep”.

The Govt ( comin and the CS ) set their selves the task of coming up with the ideas, sometimes ignoring Backbenchers ideas. What is wrong with MHKs asking the question and the Govt providing the solution? This idea that the questioner should have a solution is just a means to shut the person up.