Roger Mexico

To be honest, when you look at all the projects that have completely out of control over the last few years while the Treasury simply ignored what was happening, unpaid parking fines are the least of it.

Yes that'll be why Douglas (pop 26,677) has 20 employees on over £50K while Onchan (pop 9,039) has only 1 rather than 7. Even on a smaller level, when Arbory and Rushen merged, rather than sharing the same Clerk, they suddenly discovered they needed a Deputy Clerk as well. Yet the same people endlessly repeat that bigger must automatically be more efficient, no matter how many times counter-examples are pointed out to them

Well there were seven for two places in 2021 and ten for four in 2020 (though Crookall later withdrew). So it seems likely.

But a lot of people who stand don't get elected first time (or the first many if you happen to be Quirkio) it doesn't stop being the voter's choice eventually. As for Cretney, he got his extra 4 years or whatever, without election. But he probably would have been re-elected in 2016 if he wanted to stand (he was still way ahead of Beacroft in 2011 by 1749 votes to 1191). And people can't complain about Maltby getting in on her father's coat-tails and say that he couldn't have got elected himself five years before. No saying he would have deserved to get in mind, but he was popular.

I don't really. Arguably someone who has put themselves forward for election, even if they failed, has more authority than someone who has never bothered and so never had the contact with the public. Some electoral systems recognise this by awarding the political party proportional seats to the 'best losers'. You can't just get into parliament by knowing the right people to put you on the party list, you have to fight a constituency. Josem was bitching about Paul Craine having been runner-up in Middle twice[1], but that's more of a democratic franchise than say Diane Kelsey who was elected the same time and was mainly know for having be the Governor's right-hand woman. Of course what we should all be demanding is proper elections to LegCo by the people, ideally on an all-Island basis. [1] For what it's worth I reckon he would have been elected there this time if he had stood, as he got more votes in 2016 than Stu Peters did in 2021.

It's surprising how few people realise this. The CAA 2022 figures won't be out for a couple of weeks yet, but if you look at the November figures for example, easyJet carried 570,516 of the 1,240,449 domestic pax carried (46%).

A bit exaggerated. There were some FoI requests last year and I reckon there were 89 people in the AG's Department then (end March). Most were on high fairly high salaries, but the FoI reply was deliberately unhelpful and requires cross-referencing to other documents and there were special adjustments to give them more money. I doubt any will be over £250k but we do know both Attorney General and Solicitor General were on £178,228 each. For comparison the Lord Advocate, the AG's Scottish equivalent is on £127,765. I suppose Scotland is a much smaller country.

And of course the building of Mount Murray ended up being effectively paid for by the taxpayer. The flurry about this site followed Tynwald deciding to give £10 million to property developers who aren't very good at developing property. And if all the properties are for rental, how many of them will be allocated to key workers, whose rents are paid or subsidised by the government?

Well Cllr Stephen Pitts lives on Westminster Drive according to the DBC website, so parking on Hawarden Avenue may be less of a personal concern. Even if it was, having parking outside your house being exempt from any disc zone would mean that anyone can park there, which would be a disadvantage. It you've spent the last few months complaining that flats need weekly collections, it seems a bit odd to now complain that they're getting them. I am unaware of Cllr Horning's domestic arrangement and am not going to hang about at the top of Bucks Road to find out, but it's possible that rubbish from the property is put in a large commercial bin and I think commercial collections are still weekly.

Don't be ridiculous! You can't have a respectable lawyer dressing up in wigs and gowns.

Have you ever though of looking up words on one of those new-fangled computers: Wikipedia also have a balanced article on the word, though as usual it skews heavily to US usage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Macauley_Publishers#Controversy Googling produces lots of interesting information.

But those Go Cards take £5 a time for IOM Transport - think of the money they're making from it. Admittedly they cost £10 each to make[1] but it's a bit late to start setting costs against earnings now. (The cards also only apply to the railways anyway, people still have to pay 30p a journey[2] on the bus) [1] Or at least replacement Go Cards of any sort are charged at £10 each. [2] They can manage fare-capping for some things.

You may be overestimating their foresight. I think it was more "Let's throw something together that looks as if were doing something without actually doing anything much". Hence the way they forgot to do anything about the Go Cards till it was pointed out to them. Forgetting to announce what was happening to the scheme would be typical as well. Though it's possible that are wrangling with Treasury for more money, even then they should say something.

Anyway Kelsey's already put he nominations in: https://www.tynwald.org.im/about-us/legislative-council/legco-election-2023 (Tynwald admin have decided to completely rejig their whole website this week, so old links won't work and even google will mainly throw up 404s for a while. As with most redesigns it seems to be entirely about looking more fashionable[1] rather than being more functional. Indeed some stuff (eg Tynwald data) seems to have vanished entirely. [1] I bet someone is very proud of the way that the photos of the Tynwald members turn from black and white to colour when the cursor hovers over them. Though you can't help feeling that putting them is some sort of order might be more helpful)