Roger Mexico

To be fair the Museum has been open on Sundays since last April.

It's because the horses are all unionised from their Corpy days. They want time-and-a-half on weekends. (Incidentally didn't even the HORFOH complain about the size of the car park because it took away so much grazing. And from memory it was never even completely used during the construction - they just left most of the vehicles on the road as usual)

A quick google seems to suggests that it was expected to go live in September 2017, with the licence finally being issued some time after that. So only about six years late.

I thought it was actually sold to 'us' (presumably Reynolds) on the grounds that it was already working on an Island - namely Malta. The fact that Malta is rather smaller in area and doesn't have great big hills in the middle of it, seems to have slipped their notice.

To change the subject from Dilli's meltdowns to Charles Guard's, the second part of that interview is even worse isn't it? The way he defends the over-numerous and over-paid management by declaring that they're really underpaid because they get less that Departmental CEOs is wonderful. It just highlights how overpaid the latter are rather than the Manx Radio lot are hard-done-by. He also seems really resentful that Moulton actually gets makes a living in the private sector and that what he does is somehow 'unregulated'. Presumably exactly the same regulations apply to Moulton as Manx Radio, maybe what he really is thinking of is 'uncensored'. And of course the snobbishness about the gardeners, which seems to imply that anyone who works with their hands, no matter how well-qualified or knowledgeable about their job, is somehow inferior to every white-collar worker and so should be paid less. Of course Moulton produces a lot of very good and often investigative content on a much smaller budget than Manx Radio. Often fulfilling the public service requirement far better than those who make such a fuss about it. I also suspects his take-home pay and perks are a bit less than Mr Pugh's.

It does indeed say 37 hours, though mysteriously the Job Description seems to have be removed since I looked at it this morning. It was of course advertised a year ago - though the current incumbent has only been in position since August. Whether there was someone else in the meantime I don't know or whether they kept it open for her when she was still working at the Children's Centre I don't know.

Clearly he is horrified by the idea that they might be employing any. It's another brilliant example of the Manx Establishment at its arrogant finest. Any accusation of wrong-doing is met, not with an attempt to find out what happened or even denial, but with "Who told you that?" and the implication that whoever did ought to be punished. Everything must be personally motivated, as with the accusations against Moulton of bias. They simply can't understand that any criticism might be justified or even needs to be investigated, because they know that anything they do is by definition perfect. Anyone who disagrees must therefore be malicious and driven by personal spite.

Very sensible suggestions, though ones you'd think shouldn't even need to have to be made. Even if there is some worry that some of the evidence might affect future prosecutions, there would be nothing to prevent the recommendations being published because those should be based on what might happen as well as what did and so wouldn't reveal evidence even implicitly. Depending on when Jones finished his report, they should really have been published and implemented before the FoM.

It's even worse than that - Juan Watterson is in his 'ceremonial robes'. (You wonder if he sleeps in them).

I don't think that the civil v criminal burden of proof matters much on this one and in any case there's nothing to say that criminal proceedings couldn't happen after civil ones - as does sometimes happen. But if they were being sued for negligence they would have to disclose the Jones Report to those suing them in any case. You can't hide evidence - particularly when everyone knows about it. But even if that were true there would be nothing to prevent them publishing the full recommendations. You can't refuse to implement safety procedures just because someone might sue you. And the reports in Scotland were published in full.

Making things up (or at least informed guessing) is all we can do, when we're not being told anything. And we do have a right to know what goes on, the fact the roads are closed makes those responsible no less free from public scrutiny than they would be normally. There seems to be some sort of belief that anything associated with the TT is somehow exempt from all the normal rules, but that simply isn't true, either legally or morally. The BBC piece was quite interesting in showing how rare even the most elementary standards of journalism have become on the Island. We're actually shocked that someone contacts those involved to get more on the story or does some research[1]. But there are some confusing aspects to it. In particular it states that "Mr Jones, [...] previously investigated three deaths at a rally in the Scottish Borders in 2014", which may be the case, but as he was the Chief Executive of the Motorsports Association at the time, which licensed that 2014 rally, it would only be an internal one. In fact the link in the BBC piece leads to a news report from November 2017[2] of a different investigation in Scotland - a Determination under the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths Act by a Sheriff which covered those three deaths plus another at a rally in 2013. Jones is only quoted in passing. That report and its recommendations are obviously public, but they have nothing to do with Jones, except as a witness. The Determination followed on from a Motor Sport Safety Review which the Scottish Government set up after the deaths on 31 May 2014 and which reported and made recommendations the following January, after some interim reports. Again these are all in public and you can't see why the same thing can't happen in the Isle of Man. Jones took early retirement from the MSA at the end of May 2018, and indeed there seems to have been a general clear-out of the organisation (whether related to the Scottish report the previous November I don't know). He was asked to carry out his investigation (on behalf of ACU events) in mid-June, and I would have expected him to have carried it out fairly quickly, so it's very possible that ACU have had it for some months. I'm not sure why the BBC decided to chase up on it now - possibly they picked up on comments on here on the Steve England thread or maybe there are those within the TT community worried that recommendations will be ignored. Which they can be very easily if they are not published. [1] To be fair I get the impression that IOM Newspapers have got a little better in recent times (presumably because not even Tindle are as mean with resources as Johnson Press were) and Manx Radio do now seem to be doing some longer online pieces, though that could be that they are pasting in even more of the Government press releases. We may never know as they are now frequently not publishing them (a secret press release is a bit of an oxymoron, but they've managed to do it) and the Cabinet Office is fighting an FoI asking what the policy is on their publication. [2] I did wonder if the Department of Enterprise had decided to be more rigorous about safety after these reports and that fed into the cancellation of the Rally this year, but they don't seem to have used it even as an excuse.

This is exactly the issue and maybe get Manx Radio run with a little bit more financial acumen and not posting a loss every year. Manx Radio should be lobbying for this and quite frankly I don't understand why they aren't. The BBC taking over or paying for Manx Radio, just isn't going to happen. The last new BBC Local Radio station was set up in 1993 (and that didn't last long). If they haven't provided a new one since, they're hardly going to start one for 85,000 people who have two local commercial alternatives. And they're certainly not going to start paying for something that someone else runs. In fact when the UK Government made the BBC start paying for services once paid for by the Govt, such as BBC Monitoring, they just cut it back so much that, according to Private Eye, the UK has had to start providing its own at much greater expense and with less expertise. The main structural problem with Manx Radio is that it is massively over-managed and administered and those doing those jobs are over-paid and unwilling to do anything differently from how they have been doing them for the last 30 years. The commercial side seems mainly to exist to fund itself, if rumours are correct (even by Manx standards the accounts lack transparency). None of these problems will be fixed by the Government intervening because they are just the fame faults the IOM Government has itself, but in miniature.

No form of contraception is 100% effective and that applies particularly to the types used in less permanent relationships such as condoms. But even if every one of the say 20,000 fertile woman on the Island was on a contraception that was 99% effective, that would mean 200 unwanted pregnancies a year. In reality things will never be that near effective, but even if it was there would still be a need for abortion. To try to blame a lack of responsibility (as some do, though I realise you're not) ignores this, though I've always wondered why a lack of responsibility should somehow oblige people to parenthood. And while contraception is theoretically available in most countries, it's not always easily accessible, reliable or affordable for everyone. And that does make a big difference - look at the way the Irish fertility rate dropped from the early 70s on when contraception gradually became legal and available. There are still many countries where religious prejudice and the poor status of women means that obtaining reliable contraception is not easy. It's true that 'abortion as contraception' has tended to exist in some countries - often during Communist periods, though capitalism can have its effects as well. The Pill used to be banned in Japan due to pressure from condom manufactures and abortion doctors (and is still not that available), leading to high abortion rates there. But women will opt for contraception if easily available - it just isn't always.

Oh you'd hope so, but there's no real power there except of persuasion. Especially given that Quayle will normally back the civil service over the politicians (as we saw with Beecroft), there's not much you can do in that position if you're not getting cooperation - except quit as Robertshaw did.

Good spot - that suggests she's retiring and that they've actually organised to have an overlap. Or alternatively they haven't updated the website and she's already vanished with an enormous payout. I should say that as well as being responsible for the rather routine business of electoral registration, five members members of the Crown and Election Team are also responsible for Crown Services, though I think the people who actually process the passports etc are different and they just do the policy.