Year Of Our Island

[CharlieBrown 277]

8 minutes ago, pongo said:

Start by increasing government revenues.

But they have, year of our island has re-energised the nation, making us all want to do more and explore more, and you can't even shit in the IOM without government taking a slice.

[pongo 2,370]

Just now, CharlieBrown said:

But they have, year of our island has re-energised the nation, making us all want to do more and explore more, and you can't even shit in the IOM without government taking a slice.

Shit needs paying for.

I definitely approve of us all paying more for better services. And those who earn more should want to pay more - especially if the money can be used to fix the health service. How much money does someone actually need?

[Uhtred 5,570]

3 minutes ago, CharlieBrown said:

...you can't even shit in the IOM without government taking a slice.

Never mind a slice, they can have all of mine. In fact, I’m happy to deliver it straight onto Quayle’s desk.

[asitis 3,873]

51 minutes ago, Uhtred said:

Never mind a slice, they can have all of mine. In fact, I’m happy to deliver it straight onto Quayle’s desk.

There is a queue !

[Rushen Spy 202]

1 hour ago, pongo said:

Start by increasing government revenues.

They need to start reducing government expenses before they do anything else.

[Roger Mexico 3,784]

8 hours ago, hissingsid said:

Moorehouse has been asking more questions recently and some sensible ones at that.   As for Chris Thomas he has lost all credibility with his defense of this crackpot scheme.   Sometimes you have to recognise you are wrong and either back down quietly or admit it, this idiot is incapable of doing either.

Actually I feel slightly sorry for Thomas in this particular case.  The whole Year of Our Island fiasco was originally dreamt up by Quayle (who  did nothing about it) who then got Skelly to organise it (who did nothing about it) and the mess got dumped on Thomas at the last minute - as I explained in a comment at the start of last year:

Quote

According to the original press release, issued at the start of December, this is all as apparently "As promised in the Programme for Government".  Which contains the line[1] "Organise a Year celebrating our Island as a special place to live and work in 2018".  This document was issued over a year ago, since when everyone clearly forgot about this pledge until much more recently[2] when the whole thing was clearly dumped on poor Chris Thomas to come up with something to kick the whole thing off. 

There have been four Dark Skies-related events already (which you suspect would have happened anyway, Year or no Year), but the associated Facebook page reports "2018 Year of Our Island does not have any upcoming events".  And the website seems to consist of a single page, the only links from which are that Facebook page and a grant application form.

Now obviously if you are going to organise a Year of anything, you organise the vast majority of it way in advance, announce a lot of the details well before the year starts and then update as you progress.  You don't leave everything till January, pretend that some things that were going to happen anyway were part of it and desperately plead for someone (anyone) to come with with more ideas.  It would be an insult to most amateurs to call this amateurish - the Island is full of organisation and individuals who could do a better job.  For this sort of incompetence you need professionals at it.

It looks as if the whole thing was given to the DED to organise and no doubt they gave it their usual treatment of having lots of meetings with lots of people with 'executive' in their title sat round spouting bullshit at each other, while carefully avoiding doing anything or talking to the people who might actually make anything happen.  The whole thing then appears to have had to have been rescued by the Cabinet Office[3].  The contact on the webpage is Nick Hawkes, who is the most junior member of the ever-expanding External Relations team, which presumably means he gets all the shit jobs.  This is probably the same Nick Hawkes who was asking for help on "a research project for his dissertation [to] reveal why people are disillusioned with Island politics".  Well he kens the noo.

 

[1]  Under the section SUSTAINABLE ISLAND - ACTION BY OUTCOME.  Which if it means anything, implies that everything else they do are meaningless gestures.  Which may be right.

[2]  The website http://www.ourisland.im/ was not registered till 18 August by Freya Buckingham who is the 'Digital Marketing Executive' at the Department of Economic Development (as was).

[3]  The proper action would have been to apologise, cancel or defer the Year, and sack the people who failed to do their jobs, but know that doesn't happen.  Incidentally we know this one can't be blamed on Chris Corlett as he went in December 2016, before the idea of the Year was announced.

 

Some of those links will be superseded or dead, but you get the idea.  I suspect the Cabinet Office had neither the budget nor the will to clear up DED's mess. 

The row about the cancelling of the commemorative coin, as shown in the Keys Hansard, is only noteworthy because it involved the "political board of the Year of Our Island" actually making a sensible decision - ie not wasting more money on this half-cocked Quayle vanity project by producing coins celebrating a complete non-event that even the most fanatical coin collector is not going to want at £17.50 each and which would barely make a profit at that price, even if they sold every one.  For some reason this seems to have upset the Treasury, presumably because they think that wasting money is what IOMG is for.

[Donald Trumps 3,487]

14 hours ago, Rushen Spy said:

They need to start reducing government expenses before they do anything else.

I can guarantee that won't happen

[Uhtred 5,570]

10 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Actually I feel slightly sorry for Thomas in this particular case.  The whole Year of Our Island fiasco was originally dreamt up by Quayle (who  did nothing about it) who then got Skelly to organise it (who did nothing about it) and the mess got dumped on Thomas at the last minute - as I explained in a comment at the start of last year:

 

Some of those links will be superseded or dead, but you get the idea.  I suspect the Cabinet Office had neither the budget nor the will to clear up DED's mess. 

The row about the cancelling of the commemorative coin, as shown in the Keys Hansard, is only noteworthy because it involved the "political board of the Year of Our Island" actually making a sensible decision - ie not wasting more money on this half-cocked Quayle vanity project by producing coins celebrating a complete non-event that even the most fanatical coin collector is not going to want at £17.50 each and which would barely make a profit at that price, even if they sold every one.  For some reason this seems to have upset the Treasury, presumably because they think that wasting money is what IOMG is for.

Each time a government fiasco is revealed, all roads lead to Quayle, don’t they?

[Donald Trumps 3,487]

10 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

Actually I feel slightly sorry for Thomas in this particular case.  The whole Year of Our Island fiasco was originally dreamt up by Quayle (who  did nothing about it) who then got Skelly to organise it (who did nothing about it) and the mess got dumped on Thomas at the last minute - as I explained in a comment at the start of last year:

 

Some of those links will be superseded or dead, but you get the idea.  I suspect the Cabinet Office had neither the budget nor the will to clear up DED's mess. 

The row about the cancelling of the commemorative coin, as shown in the Keys Hansard, is only noteworthy because it involved the "political board of the Year of Our Island" actually making a sensible decision - ie not wasting more money on this half-cocked Quayle vanity project by producing coins celebrating a complete non-event that even the most fanatical coin collector is not going to want at £17.50 each and which would barely make a profit at that price, even if they sold every one.  For some reason this seems to have upset the Treasury, presumably because they think that wasting money is what IOMG is for.

 

The excellent Roger Mexico explains why 'Year of our Island' is a complete load of bollocks

[Uhtred 5,570]

4 hours ago, Donald Trumps said:

 

The excellent Roger Mexico explains why 'Year of our Island' is a complete load of bollocks

It’s a great explanation but I think we all knew that!

Edited Monday at 05:30 PM by Uhtred

[Rushen Spy 202]

12 hours ago, Donald Trumps said:

I can guarantee that won't happen

It might not happen in the preferred order, but eventually our unsustainable economic model is going to collapse and cuts will then be made, even if liquidators have to come in and take over the government.