Roger Mexico

Actually that doesn't make much sense in terms of the Manx Museum because it has free entry, so they may stop the other places getting paid visitors, but they won't be getting the cash instead. And they won't be employing any extra staff because there's no extra space being created. This looks like pressure from the DfE, either behind the scenes or through the Trustees. But you're right that no one seems to want this idea except a few civil servants. Certainly bike fans don't seem very impressed - especially if they know the space.

But there hasn't been any removal of silo government at all. All they have done is create another silo called the Cabinet Office which contains an even higher percentage of people who don't do anything useful than all the other Departments. And in response to Lisvane's call to remove the Departmental Member system that gave automatic majorities to everything, all they did was make even more appointments. Another government reorganisation isn't going to do anything other than cost a lot of money and create loads of new posts and promotions.

This is what is so tin-eared from the DHSC about all this. If nothing else it's the sort of petty behaviour that discourages future giving, if past giving is treated so disrespectfully. Typically they are trying to somehow blame MNH for this, but MNH can't keep everything and in any case it is the health service that these plaques are special to.

This is just guesswork, but I wonder if the area is expected to need a lot of structural work, fixing of damp and so on. After all it's the basement of the old hospital and it the displays haven't been touched since the 50s, so there can't have been anything done to that bit of the building around them for at least that long. Add to that, the non-display areas in the basement and so on may also need a lot of fixing. Of course it might also be that MNH were told that they could only get the building fixed if afterwards it displayed the sort of thing that it's 'sponsoring department' (the DfE) wanted to see.

But being easy to alter/amend is what makes Wikipedia work. It's why millions of people can make contributions over the years. You can't have one without the other. In any case Vandalising the Foxdale Wikipedia Article is now an ancient Manx tradition like Hunting the Wren or Hop-tu-Naa or making jokes about Juan on the bus. Actually there's more levels of security available in Wikipedia than most people realise and controversial or important articles can be 'locked' in various ways so only certain levels of Wikipedians can change them. And of course there's a lot of people out there removing vandalism soon after it happened - which was what happened to your edit.

They're presumably still where they we planted and according to the government "practically all are thriving today". Google Earth suggests this might not be the case with quite a lot of bare patches and good growth only in certain areas. But you can go and have a look the next time you are up at the Hospital.

And then probably another grant for chopping them down in five years time. Though, judging by the amount of scraggy saplings sitting, not growing, in regimented, lines around the Island, letting them fall over would be easier. One of the things I noticed when I was trying to get statistics on the number of trees over time was that there is loads of stuff about how many trees are planted, but very little about the number chopped down or even surviving. Still as long as the photo goes in the paper who cares?

Hopefully none, because it won't happen.

But the big difference is that Scotland and Norway, which he mentions, have both been developing renewable energy for some time. Scotland provided 74% of its gross electricity requirements that way last year. Norway manages 98% - and hopes to increase that so it can export even more. We have a trickle of hydro and sometimes nominally a bit from the incinerator (if you ignore the vast amounts of oil needed to keep it running. And no plans to do anything about increasing that because the 'new' (and completely unnecessary) power station has to be paid for. Plus of course all the pensions of those who let Proffitt get away with his follies.

You read it here first: though it fails to add that, to prevent being tarnished by being linked to a reviled and hated political system and its demented leadership, this information has been suppressed by Kim Jong Un. Edited October 11 by Roger Mexico Edited to add: No one ever reads my jokes do they?

His media advisers certainly didn't help, what with calling the mystery press conference, telling them all to hold the front page, keeping them all hanging around for ages and then telling them they couldn't publish anything. But they didn't need to put him forward any more than you have to push a pig to the trough. He was clearly full of himself and convinced he was coming across wonderfully. They could have stopped if they tried - though they obviously were't perceptive enough to try. Regarding the clawing back of VA, much earlier in the thread I posted the statement that Quayle read out on that fateful day, which had originally been issued to the Guardian. The key paragraphs are: Now there are some ambiguities here - it doesn't say that this is VAT relating to aircraft purchase and of course raising VAT claims is different from collecting it. But it looks like an acknowledgement that abuse was taking place and attempts being made to correct it. I think though I did confuse myself when looking at the UK Treasury statement however. I read that the '300 corporate groups and individuals' that HMRC had looked at, related to the aircraft VAT system and HMRC had been auditing on behalf of IOMCE (the numbers would have been similar) and that they had cleared 80% of them. In fact those number relate to UK entities in the Paradise Papers as a whole and relates to the fact that for the 80% "the structures identified have no UK tax consequences or were already known to HMRC". Which isn't quite the same as saying they were legal. Why they tacked this onto a statement about the Isle of Man I have no idea, but it fooled me and it means we have no idea how much IOMCE still has to get back from 220 or so firms they still had to check back in 2017. The report suggests they haven't done all of them.

And about a tenth of 500 years ago Neither of these are true. Tree coverage is about twice what it was in 1919, but that was an historic low because of the amount cut down in WWI[1]. It's now risen to about as high as it was 500 years ago. Deforestation has always been a problem since the Bronze Age. [1] Britain is historically a big importer of wood products - even now it is second only to China. So when these are cut off in wartime, local forestry is hit hard.

Because the point about freedom of information is freedom of information, not cosy little arrangements where only the right people know things. It's rather as if when an MHK asks something in Tynwald they're only ever told "I'll tell you in private". Obviously there are exceptions where the information is particular just to that person and no one is saying those should be published (though nowadays these are more likely to be done in other ways) but I think that it should be for the requester to be able to say whether the response is published, whereas at the moment the decision is the Department's. But generally people ask for information from the government because they want not just know something, but for that to be more widely known.

It's worth reading the Tynwald responses from Skelly in full as a display of his general uselessness[1]. After reading out the statement he's been given all he can do is repeat that the display is "not fit for purpose" and that it is "outdated" and "needs modernising". Apparently he is really disturbed that a museum might be full of old stuff and something must be done about it. Oddest of all is the complaint it is "static". Which rather makes you think that he believes the new TT gallery will be a racetrack. I suppose as with everything else the government does, the only thing that matters is to give money to the right people in the building trade. There was also a lot of babbling about MNH being an arms-length organisation which they suddenly seem to have discovered in the last few weeks when they are doing something unpopular (see also the completely dishonest attempt to blame them for the Laxey flooding). But in reality (as with Manx Radio) when your budget and capital expenditure is set on a yearly basis by the Treasury, it's the old story of who pays the piper. I've actually been very surprised at the response to closure of the Folk Gallery. The petition has got to nearly 3000 signatures and the comments on it suggest that it is regarded with great fondness by many. And no one seems to have much enthusiasm over the idea for a TT gallery - perhaps because the space isn't really suitable. [1] As usual this is only a temporary link to Rolling Hansard and you'll have to look up the latest version for Tuesday and go to page 31.

You've misunderstood this Stu. This isn't about responding to FoI requests - and Manx Radio had very wide exemptions there anyway. It's about the general publication of such responses so anyone can read them. Obviously if such a request is validly refused, there's nothing there to publish. A commercial rival would presumably be not particularly worried about a response not being published - indeed might prefer it that way. And if they did want it published they could do so themselves. So it's the public at large that is being refused the information here.