GaryPotter

What I don't get is if they aren't charging kids to get from A to B how can they be regarded as an "operator"? Surely to be an operator you need to be charging some sort of fare to take someone from A to B? So does this mean that anyone in the IOM who owns a minibus needs an "operator" license even if it's their own car and they are basically driving their own kids around in it? It does not make sense. On the costs. As I read it they have to pay the DOI to maintain it so it's keeping their fitters employed doing servicing work that was formerly done by competent local garages. It reads like world domination! What about large people carriers? Does he get those too? How do they define a minibus when if you have something like a Grand Espace you can get about 8 people in it? I'm worried I might have to get my own people carrier car serviced by the DOI because I do the football team run. I don't believe that you are as thick as your post suggests. I am sure you know the difference between your own family being driven by you in your Espace and a minibus carrying other peoples children ( THE PUBLIC) around. Do you have to be so hostile? Is it because you are so thick? Please for everyone's benefit then explain what an "operator" is under this new legislation if there is (as it seems) no requirement for a fare to be charged? I regularly take 8 kids two and from football practice so is there any danger I might be an operator if it is so loosely defined? I can understand the situation if a fare is being charged but these charities and schools are just helping people to get from A to B for free. How the hell can they be operators that require a licence? They are not plying for trade and neither are they charging fares. They are just driving people around, the same as me.

What I don't get is if they aren't charging kids to get from A to B how can they be regarded as an "operator"? Surely to be an operator you need to be charging some sort of fare to take someone from A to B? So does this mean that anyone in the IOM who owns a minibus needs an "operator" license even if it's their own car and they are basically driving their own kids around in it? It does not make sense. On the costs. As I read it they have to pay the DOI to maintain it so it's keeping their fitters employed doing servicing work that was formerly done by competent local garages. It reads like world domination! What about large people carriers? Does he get those too? How do they define a minibus when if you have something like a Grand Espace you can get about 8 people in it? I'm worried I might have to get my own people carrier car serviced by the DOI because I do the football team run.

If I read the thing in the paper right even if they don't hand over their vehicles the schools have to have their vehicle maintained by DOI staff in order to meet safety standards, and also if they want to operate the vehicle themselves they need a specific license and a qualified driver which most won't be able to get. So these changes aren't really changes at all. Effectively whether they like it or not they have to had over everything to the DOI. It seems to only be about keeping people at the DOI employed training drivers, driving, or servicing and repairing school and charity mini buses. Businesses like local garages who are paying tax and trying to make a living in a recession don't seem to get a look in under the new policy because it's been decided that we have to find things for government workers to do even if it's servicing vehicles paid for by the parents of school children so that they vehicles can be used for the purpose for which they were originally bought. It is the most blatant example of pointless empire building ever.

All they will be concerned about is giving the managers who were up at the Sea Terminal more things to manage as most of them seem to be doing bugger all but dreaming up ever more convoluted schemes (£21m promenade plans, massive roundabouts, planters and the like) in order to keep them in employment. They will be able to fiddle the costs to make it look lower and nobody will be able to question it.

Yes, they've turned the whole cherished number thing into a vanity tax. Most of them are now officially between £1,500 and £5,000 when you used to be able to get one for about £150. The only thing that has changed is that the government has now put a minimum value on them which is totally unrealistic. Anyone know how many cretins buy them at the prices they are now? I mean I can understand it across where you can get some eye-catching combinations but here you are limited to mundane dross by comparison. Are some people really paying thousands? I've seen a couple of MANX plates but I don't know whether they were bought or are out as adverts fishing for more. I don't know but I imagine they get purchased a lot less as most people had already bought the combinations they wanted before the new pricing came in. It's hard to believe something that has 2 digits like VMN12 or similar is worth £5,000 to anybody. In the UK you get a choice of letters and number combinations for less. Therefore I would suggest it's a money raising exercise that's probably not raised that much money. It's also letting a lot of people cash in on numbers they had. There's no tax as its a capital gain so nothing raised there either.

Incarnation? What in earth are you talking about?

Are you senile as well? I don't know why you're picking on me just because I said I thought Moulton was a halfwit.

Racist. Did you use the link? It's Big Bus Tycoons not Big Busty Coons

Yes, they've turned the whole cherished number thing into a vanity tax. Most of them are now officially between £1,500 and £5,000 when you used to be able to get one for about £150. The only thing that has changed is that the government has now put a minimum value on them which is totally unrealistic.

Wow - so everyone else on here is a local media figure and they alone are the only ones qualified to take the piss out of local media figures? Thanks for clarifying. Whoosh! Whoosh? Is that the sound of you wetting your pants?

My real name is Gary Chuckle. Me, Barry and Paul are triplets. Why?

Thanks. I'd rather be a tosser than have to listen to Manx Radio daily like you.

Are you the radio Stu Peters? I don't think Manx Radio would survive at all without the £1m we give it. Most of it is rubbish. I was in a shop the other day and the radio was on with Alex Brindley playing 60s hits (who under 70 wants to hear the Zombies at 10am in the morning?). It's only old folk who want to listen to that. What station thinks it's good programming to make a man in his 30s play 50 year old music at that time of day? It's just appealing to the most middle of the road, middle of the road audience you could possibly find. It's awful. Nobody would tune in to that voluntarily. It's called "community radio" and enjoyed by a lot more people than you would like to believe. There is something for everyone on Manx Radio, unlike the other two, which ironically sound like radio Caroline or worse. You are either taking the piss, or you are another Ron Berry clone. It's care in the community radio if you ask me. No I'm not Ron Berry. What is this obsession with assuming people are in the media on here? It's completely pants radio. I can't imagine it would survive without the money we are made to chuck into it. I don't know how they fiddle their listening figures but if more than 5 care homes and 20 shops tune in daily I'd be surprised.

I was thinking that. It's really taking the mickey.

Are you the radio Stu Peters? I don't think Manx Radio would survive at all without the £1m we give it. Most of it is rubbish. I was in a shop the other day and the radio was on with Alex Brindley playing 60s hits (who under 70 wants to hear the Zombies at 10am in the morning?). It's only old folk who want to listen to that. What station thinks it's good programming to make a man in his 30s play 50 year old music at that time of day? It's just appealing to the most middle of the road, middle of the road audience you could possibly find. It's awful. Nobody would tune in to that voluntarily.

Wow - so everyone else on here is a local media figure and they alone are the only ones qualified to take the piss out of local media figures? Thanks for clarifying.

Maria Sharapova has a lovely arse. Apparently her sponsorship deals are worth about £70m. Not bad for a girl with a lovely arse who can play a bit of tennis.

Do I have to work in the media before I can say that I think someone is a half wit Bobbie?

That would be two local half wits then?

It's no longer the road to Foxdale. It's Jimmy Cubbons 10 mile drive which starts at the Cooil Road roundabout.

Surprise surprise yet another opportunity to do something simple missed and replaced with a grandiose scheme that the public did not support because it was completely stupid. If they had suggested laying tarmac and replacing the road as it is it would have been done by now. As it stands it will go back out for consultation and maybe get done some time in the next 10 years. In the meantime the road is a complete disgrace. It's woeful. It's depressing. It's the Isle of Man.

Most peoples' objections seem to be different to that. Naturally people object to seeing some of the very people who they regard as being responsible for a huge load of bad decisions when they were inside government re-inventing themselves as private sector entrepreneurs when they have never had an entrepreneurial thought in their entire lives - as evidenced by the 20 year plus trail of wreckage they left behind them when they were in government. It's very easy to be entrepreneurial with other peoples' money which is all that seems to be happening here. In fact it's even easier to pretend that you're an entrepreneur when you're getting paid £100,000 a year to do a different version of your old job (which you weren't that successful at anyway) working with the same people and the same taxpayer funded budget. No wonder all these vacancies for 'no risk' entrepreneurs are well over subscribed. Who are you referring to ? I was responding to the opening poster if that helps. Oh I see now. But they are not involved now though. Oh right, I'll get the hang of this eventually. I was just reading the first post and responding.

Most peoples' objections seem to be different to that. Naturally people object to seeing some of the very people who they regard as being responsible for a huge load of bad decisions when they were inside government re-inventing themselves as private sector entrepreneurs when they have never had an entrepreneurial thought in their entire lives - as evidenced by the 20 year plus trail of wreckage they left behind them when they were in government. It's very easy to be entrepreneurial with other peoples' money which is all that seems to be happening here. In fact it's even easier to pretend that you're an entrepreneur when you're getting paid £100,000 a year to do a different version of your old job (which you weren't that successful at anyway) working with the same people and the same taxpayer funded budget. No wonder all these vacancies for 'no risk' entrepreneurs are well over subscribed. Who are you referring to ? I was responding to the opening poster if that helps.

You can only assume that when he admitted it he wouldn't have thought in his wildest dreams that it would turn into some Kafkaesque incident that would cost him eight hundred quid.

Most peoples' objections seem to be different to that. Naturally people object to seeing some of the very people who they regard as being responsible for a huge load of bad decisions when they were inside government re-inventing themselves as private sector entrepreneurs when they have never had an entrepreneurial thought in their entire lives - as evidenced by the 20 year plus trail of wreckage they left behind them when they were in government. It's very easy to be entrepreneurial with other peoples' money which is all that seems to be happening here. In fact it's even easier to pretend that you're an entrepreneur when you're getting paid £100,000 a year to do a different version of your old job (which you weren't that successful at anyway) working with the same people and the same taxpayer funded budget. No wonder all these vacancies for 'no risk' entrepreneurs are well over subscribed.