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As if on cue, a whole video by Charles Guard of interesting sites to ponder, well done to him for being so honest and wake up DTC and IoMG...

Don’t worry with Liverpool Sea Terminal costing in excess of £70m you would think this would have all the latest in passenger comforts, and facilities needed. Sadly the right facilities weren’t spent at the airport, at the detriment of the islands reputation. As the person being interviewed for IOMTV commented, even Airports in Bulgaria have better facilities than IOM Airport. We like to think we are first world with a fantastic reputation but in realty we are third world, with crap facilities, crap management and crap politicos in charge, but we won’t admit it. Even if IOMG invest in a new weatherproofing system to allow landing, you can be guaranteed that the civil servants will screw it up - order the wrong system, pay over the odds for it or make a foreign currency purchase error.

Excellent film - should be required viewing for every MHK and Douglas councillor

Well done Charles Guard.

full marks to Charles for his honesty and attention to detail some of our so called leaders should be ashamed of themselves when you think under their watch ,many millions have been foolishly squandered , on pet schemes and nice to haves , whilst the real beauty and value of the island has been left to rot ,

If anything it's CSPS pensions that should be limited by the capacity of government to pay them, not the miserable state pension

Two pimped up CVs and a third world airfield.

This got good coverage on Gef but not elsewhere sadly and Chris Thomas has done some good work here like the way he also tried to get to grips with the issues associated with the government unified pension scheme. https://gef.im/2022/04/28/what-is-the-purpose-of-the-ni-fund/ During the debate Thomas actually said: ‘Does the Treasury Minister agree with me that the messages are getting a bit mixed because seven years ago we were told that the Fund was running out and now we are told it can be used, to hundreds of millions of pounds’ extent, to support current fluctuations in the economy?’ To which Ashford flustered a reply. There has still been no clear actuarial review published (that the public can see) in the last 5 years and my personal view and belief is this. That they have now set a very dangerous precedent with the Covid schemes (where we basically paid to bail ourselves out from our own NI payments) and before the next general election Ashford will likely be our very own ‘Captain Bob’ who will happily raid the fall back pension fund of many thousands of Manx workers so that he can keep on meeting the spending aspirations of Cabinet Office and the rest of IOM Government. This will be dressed up as ‘unprecedented’ too.

How about Malcolm Couch - 26 year's experience in finance and tax, given the job of running a health service (not to mention his predecessor) . Nick Black, who ( in my experience) had difficulty composing an email, and is now driving buses. Ian Longworth - need I say more. These people are not the problem. The problem is the people who gave them the job - and they are still doing the same kind of thing.

This is where casual ZHC comes back to bite them on the arse. If you want people obliged to come in and work regular hours, you have to contract and pay them properly to do it. ZHC works both ways. The employer can conveniently feck people off if they're "not needed". But the flip side is that the employee can do the same thing.

I'm not sure we could upgrade the landing minima to cope with all fog conditions, but with certainty, getting rid of the gantry made the limits worse ! Again if you put people in charge who know sweet Fenella Adams about the operational requirements of aviation, then don't be surprised that those items were a long way down the wish list ! I hope the new director has oodles of common sense if so they just might be able to improve all matters relating to getting bums on aircraft seats !

Truly shocking, all capital projects should be frozen and properly assessed by someone with project management skills before allowing the DOI to spent another £1. Changing leadership will not stop the ego driven projects that DOI dream up.

Great film from Charles Guard. I've not been back to the island for over ten years and didn't quite realise how bad* things were. There's no point in spending £70 million (if that's all it ends up as!) in Liverpool and another £70 mill or whatever on a new ferry as no-one will want to go there. (Well they might go once but they won't go again!) 500,000 visitors a year is pie in the sky wishful thinking. I live only 20 miles from a fairly run-down seaside "resort" town. I've been there a couple of times in the last two weeks for a pre-op assessment and a hernia repair at the local hospital. It looks 100 times better than Douglas and even had a noticeable number of holiday-makers at this time of year. *eg on the prom walkway they used to have those repeating octagonal(?) red or pink patterns inset into the tarmac surface. Now they seem to have been half dug-up, and the dug-up bit replaced with fresh black tarmac with no attempt to reinstate the pattern? I accept it was no great piece of design or artwork, but I remember it as a distinctive part of the prom. Absolutely hopeless...

Zero hour workers shouldn't be driving public service buses anyway. If I get on a bus full of people I expect a fully trained, accredited and contracted driver, not somebody who's just come off his other shift on the overnight sailing from Heysham.

What is really upsetting is that, as pointed out in the film, this is a failure of successive governments and councils. It's as though they are so puffed up with their own importance that they become blind to sh@thole that we are living in. Is it a lack of ambition or aspiration, and is it a political issue or just once again down to the 'permanent' public servants in the corridors of power? If we can see it, then why can't those, who can actually do something about it? It's a sad reflection on the capabilities of those we elect and the CS in particular! We've seen it for years and it has fallen on deaf ears!

Simple solution here - Get rid of 50% of the Mercedes fleet and 80% of the management and bingo you have a happy bus service again.

we will never go for qualified locals when we can have unqualified foreigners .

I think you've answered your own questions there to a certain extent Phillip. Firstly, politicians themselves have assured us that the Fund is sacred, protected, ring-fenced, including by postings on these boards. The public are therefore led to believe that this is the case and that the Fund is not and should not be used for other purpose. Secondly, there is the perception that any such drawdowns from the Fund are not being done in the name of the "general good" as such, but rather as a way of funding fiscal mismanagement, both present and past and let's be honest about this, no matter how you tart it up, it's happened and is happening. So it's therefore an issue of communication and fiscal responsibility. Both need to be demonstrated more convincingly before this will be accepted by the public.

Tom Corlett you're thinking of. Ex fighter pilot too I think (?). Airport Director in the 1970s when there were far more daily flights in the summer months.

Too frequent you mean. Especially when the buses are near empty most of the time

Sorry I’m not buying in to that argument on the separation being unclear. It is clear and I presume Thomas asked the question because you have to go back to 2014 to find any actuarial projections for what they themselves designate as a national insurance ‘fund’. The actuarial report is summarized here: https://www.gov.im/news/2014/may/09/actuarys-projections-show-ni-fund-empty-in-40-years/ Which states that the Island’s National Insurance Fund is heading for exhaustion sooner than previously projected. The report shows the Fund peaking around 2036/37 then declining steeply to run out completely by 2054/55 – some five years earlier than indicated in the last GAD review based on the period 2002 to 2007. It goes on to say that unless the NI system is changed, spending on the Retirement Pension is projected to increase by more than 500% over the next four decades, rising from £55 million in 2011 to £297 million by 2051. However in relation to the ‘fund’ despite already knowing its going to fall short and payment on pensions is going to rise by 500% over the next 40 year since 2014 we have actually dipped into the fund to the tune of a couple of hundred million to fund the Covid response. And are happily handing out NI holidays to pretty much anyone who wants to move here. Since this date too they have nit published any further actuarial reports in relation to the ‘fund’ making it impossible for anyone to see what the impact of this spending will have on future promises made to us. Ashford has now set a precedent for ‘unprecedented events’ spending and I’d be fairly confident that before this current Tynwald is out in 2026 the fund will be raided again for more unprecedented reasons. I honestly can’t imagine a single situation where many workers and taxpayers would support the stealing of their own pensions to keep other areas of government afloat either.

We returned to the island from Gatwick yesterday on the earlier flight, fortunately no problems. Gatwick is a horrible airport with hardly any seating as it is designed for queuing, queue to check in and queue for security. Security is quite painless now, and once you are in departures it is better provided for seating. On Ronaldsway, no issue with security on the way out and no delays on baggage collection on the return. Clearly, the system needs upgrading to allow flights in poor visibility as that is a frequent occurrence. Perhaps Jezza's new consultancy can assist?

It’s being used in the USA in airports, and is said to work and cut out a lot of time. I have no objection to the purchase of new technologies etc. if money is spent wisely. Unfortunately money isn’t spent wisely or in the taxpayers best interest.

The Isle of Man. 'Where You Can', or 'Freedom to F**k Up' - take your pick.

They are all symptoms of neglect and an inability to manage. That includes the social aspects you mention.

I know what you mean, but thinking back to the late 70s and early 80s, wasn't Ronaldsway run by a local then? And didn't he* do a pretty good job? I doubt he had much experience of running an airport anywhere else outside the island. As I said in another thread, I worked in the civil service for a couple of years after graduating and many of the senior govt. officers of that time seemed to me to be skilled and competent Manx people. I can't believe there aren't still first rate Manx people who'd be miles better than unknown people from the UK. If I was involved in recruiting to senior posts on the IoM I think I'd have very searching questions for anybody from the UK who thought they were any good as to why they would want to work in a backwater (sorry!) like the Isle of Man. Surely it's a death knell for any promising public sector career? I'm sure many non-Manx people have perfectly valid reasons for wanting to build a civil service career on the Isle of Man - but I'm equally certain that not all will. The time to identify the "wrong" people is before you employ them... *I might be completely mistaken, but wasn't the man who ran Ronaldsway at that time the father of the present first deemster, and presumably Manx - or have I got that completely wrong? I was using the airport a lot around that time and it all seemed OK and pretty efficiently run to me.

Its a pity Charles disabled the comments on this ,The Marine Drive railings and others could be painted now and again and are worth saving.The railings that are only 20 years old are typical of materials specified, that are not fitfor purpose ,common then and now, ive seen (across) the same problems,facing bricks as steps, oh dear,outdoor fences,decks never maintained.Near Arbroath harbour there are the same railings circa 15 years old, as The blue Douglas ones,they too are rotten/ broken, Along from them , stainless, hollow 30mm dia tubes round the harbour were all bent in a few weeks , (saw that coming) Soft red sandstone in busy public walkways, is too soft. A bit of maintenance a goes a long way.

Well quite, perhaps the due diligence wasn't great for either appointment.

annies track record should never have seen her employed either unless you wanted to end up with a failure, oh, we did.

The whole bus vannin shitshow needs an overhaul. Is there any need for the number of buses out and about. 3 every hour to Onchan, same with Willaston, Pulrose, Anagh Coar and Ramsey If this was a private business it would be run a lot more efficiently than it is now

This place is adding nicely to the air of general dereliction and terminal decline.

It's failure of the employment structures put in place by current management. They relied so heavily on casual staff who now have better things to do. So the blame lies soley at the feet of senior management. I tried using the bus a couple of times last week when I had business in town but as the service is now so unpredictable and unreliable I'll drive in and pay the extortionate DBC parking charges

Interesting observations PD. Our old age pensions are feeble compared to the rest of Europe. At about 12k pa barely enough to live on. Maybe, if the fund is to be used up early consideration should be give to increasing it for current pensioners.

If there's any surplus at all in the NI Fund it must be used to pay living pensions, not 'judiciously' balance the Cannan CoMin budget

Radar does not do anything for approach and landing in low or zero visibility. It requires a completely separate system, at the airport. The aircraft, the operator and the Flight crew need to be approved. The flight crew also need to be current. The system being CATT III, CAT IIIA. I am sure. Our flight crew members can expand further if this is economically viable for IOM.

That story possibly underlines a need for someone who is possibly subject to eviction to have someone on his side appointed by DBC at their cost, to help him understand what was going on and represent his best interests. A guardian ad litem type person.

I would guess that Thomas knows the sort of people he’s dealing with as he did a lot of work on the GUS scheme which by merging similarly raided the pension pots of key workers to pool funds which could then be used pay out huge sums to those who were retiring from very senior admin positions who had basically paid in next to nothing.

What exactly did we get for the one hundred million squandered down there?

i'm sure they could and probably will........................

Sadly a real nice guy who used to be a Scoutmaster at 1st Douglas worked on the walkway when it was last relaid. Old school and such a hard worker and worked for Oates Asphalt on the South Quay. Maybe early 90's or earlier even. Sadly passed away this last week. Wonder what he made of the tar laying and the mess it is now. RIP Johnny Corlett

Both really, written and spoken. I often see the word ‘off’ written instead of ‘of’ But I know that should of and could of etc are wrong and they drive me mad. Especially when my kids use them. That’s nothing to do with incorrect pronunciation or affectation. That’s just plain ignorance. As a person from the south of England I confess I pronounce of as ‘ov’. I am also guilty of the other aberrations in pronunciation you mention, such as the way I say look, book, bus etc. I of course would argue that I speak the Queen’s English. 😇

My guess is that the Tynwald order paper and papers are also provided to members electronically.

Someone I know is young & single & very happy to be doing loads of overtime due to shortages as probably many others with financial commitments are!! they do seem to cancel mostly quiet route eg niarbyl or where there are frequent services as lots of buses still going around with minimal passengers. perhaps they need to look at schedules & reduce in line with staff numbers. Also several drivers will be using Covid to get full pay for a few days off

The planet zog ? or maybe a figment of his own imagination !

Not a fogbuster, that's for sure.

That is the first time you have expressed the view that a female MP might be treated more harshly. Strangely it came after my own post saying that is exactly what would happen. The only other views you have expressed are; 1. That some women also like porn 2. Ermm... that's pretty much it. You are still a tory apologist.

I can't comment on any individual cases for obvious reasons but I think it's quite clear even to anyone unfamiliar with the very complex and lengthy process that comes before an eviction is even considered, that your post is wildly inaccurate.

There are numerous reasons. Security, data protection, everything on work machines being public record and subject to SAR/FOI, etc. They are work tools. You don't have to buy your own PC at work do you? The few quid they spend on iPads is peanuts compared to the expenditure elsewhere within government that we should really focus on cutting down.

You were engaging in whataboutery and being a typical tory apologist. It is all really rather sad and pathetic.

Never happened, or the farting. But let's not spoil a perfectly good work of fiction...