Boo Gay'n

Rudderless organisations make the good staff despair and give up, and encourage the bad ones to plot and take over. That is the current situation in the DHSC, and I have been told that by several people who work for it.

My understanding of the influence of ministers on their departmental staff is that it extends only to the chief executive. The boy vampire lost one (MF members have a range of opinions on how well he was doing), put in place his second choice (rumoured) who is now universally disliked and damaging more than is being fixed, and hasn't announced the two year limited replacement despite having interviews last month (I have been told). I have listened to the Manx Radio clip, and Ashford did only marginally better than Mr Jelly's normal random platitude generator style. It seemed when he first appeared that he was a cut above our usual politicians, but it's now clear that he is from exactly the same stock.

Perhaps they read him the charge sheet (like "The Gaffer")?

Don't you (OP) contradict yourself in the first few lines of your post? The mental health service may be run in practice by pisspoor nurses, but as the doctors are pisspoor too, how can they be called on for leadership?

So what exactly was the whizzy wheeze?

I think that the wind speed/force is an issue, but its direction is critical and the sea state more than anything else determines whether the master can sail legally (or ought to sail for safety reasons). For example, the Manannan's licence as a ferry requires that she cannot sail if the sea state exceeds a 3m swell.

“The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.” Denis Healey

I think that the probability of a Hamilton House civil servant taking a bullet for Two Planks is fat zero. They loath him from what I have heard. I agree with your final paragraph btw, although to be fair, I think that the great man from education is actually on a family holiday this time.

Poor old Hooper has been given the foaming cup of poison while Two Planks takes a trip for a full month to the Antipodes. https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/if-all-of-you-come-to-the-table-with-the-same-position-well-talk/ I wonder how much it will take for Toad of Toad Hall to give him the heave-ho?

Sorry to be a nerd (it's part of my job), but Lord Diplock's comments in the Burmah Oil tax case - referring back to CIR v Ramsay - still give the clear warning of what may happen. "It would be disingenuous to suggest, and dangerous on the part of those who advise on elaborate tax-avoidance schemes to assume, that Ramsay's case did not mark a significant change in the approach adopted by this House in its judicial role to a pre-ordained series of transaction (whether or not they include the achievement of a legitimate commercial end) into which there are inserted steps that have no commercial purpose apart from the avoidance of a liability to tax that, in the absence of those particular steps, would have been payable." Applying the 'man/woman on the Clapham Omnibus test', why would anyone in their right mind want to receive loans from an offshore trust (or similar structure) in lieu of salary???

I disagree with you fundamentally. People may have been conned, but they were both greedy and credulous - not innocent. It was always pull rather than push - ie asked for by the client, despite the marketing to certain sectors. So much tax planning works like this, and everyone involved is tainted.

Well said RM

If our island has done well, is doing well and will do well - it is based on virtually no contribution from the idiots in Tynwald.

But that's exactly what everyone was saying during each of those administrations, jaundiced or not.

So what is happening on the cannabis front? Alex Allinson, our only liberal from what I can see, had the following motion at the July Tynwald - "That Tynwald notes the results of the recent consultation regarding medicinal cannabis; and is of the opinion that the Minister for Health and Social Care should lay regulations at or before the November 2019 sitting of Tynwald enabling the licensed cultivation of cannabis for medicinal use and export." Perfectly reasonable and potentially fantastic for the economy. The boy vampire then squashed it completely and put his amendment, which was accepted - "That Tynwald notes the update provided by the Minister for Health and Social Care, and further notes: that regulations for the production and cultivation of industrial hemp are already active and extend to the Island; that the Department will seek to use the same application process and forms as that provided within the United Kingdom in relation to industrial hemp; that regulations and legislation for the cultivation and export of medicinal cannabis are active and extend to the Island; that the Department is currently assessing how an appropriate regulatory regime in relation to the cultivation and export of medicinal cannabis can be introduced, and the costs associated with such a regime; that the Minister for Health and Social Care will provide an update by way of a statement to the October 2019 sitting of Tynwald Court; and that the Department is currently consulting with relevant medical practitioners on the results of the consultation in relation to the way forward in relation to the prescribing of medicinal cannabis." The tumbleweed must have rolled through the chamber. I have been to so many business presentations where a government wallah (politician or civil servant) trots out the "we have a fleet of foot government which can get things done quickly". That's just bollocks, isn't it? Jersey or Guernsey will beat us in this area and get all the benefits.