triskelion

This thread is a pretty solid indication of why popularly electing the chief minister is a poor idea:

• People posting misunderstandings or incomplete information as absolute facts
• Most people don't know how National Insurance is calculated or used, but think they've got what it takes to competently assess policy
• Endless ranting about minutiae like wigs, or the Bishop
• Believing the government should be doing much more with much less, but will then complain about any cuts in services

Where he talks about investigations on his own time and the taxpayer savings; does anyone know what he’s actually referring to?

On 6/23/2021 at 8:03 AM, Declan said:

I thought Josem was working at the Coop and doing the odd bit of bar work? Is he paid by the Guild of Grumpy Taxpayers?

The Narky Ratepayers Union is worrying to begin with, even if you downplay the fact the U.K. version is a decidedly right wing organisation. Because it has given Josem’s pronouncements a vaneer of authority between the Douglas South election and now. Not just the opinions of a failed politician but the spokesperson for an Alliance  - implying a group of people.

I assumed it was just his Twitter feed, but as an "NGO"

On 6/14/2019 at 8:07 PM, Non-Believer said:

IIRC, @ £600k.

If only: https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/ronaldsway-fence-will-be-built/

Not sure about Watterson's position though. He's a fair backbencher, but not that good. Having said that, he is one of the biggest PR hounds outside of CoMin, verging on political stuntman at times: the alternatve restructuring of government was so much cobblers, and if I remember correctly the Breastfeeding bill appeared to be in large part lifted straight from the Scottish law (fine amounts included) rather than thought through, but both were good at generating copy.

His level of PR houndarey is nowhere Karren and Henderson's. A former employee of the Chief Secretary's office once told me that the process for drafting laws on the Island was:

1. See what the Scottish Government used
   
2. Failing that, see what the UK Government used
   

Then of course CoMin will wave it through.

wish they could figure a way to make it a manx company again.

Then good news; it already is one.

At the same time if politicians were truly sincere about man-made global warming they would legislate for themselves and all public servants to reduce air travel, sell or scrap the state jets, travel in Economy because it creates less CO2 than Business or First Classes, travel second class in trains and not (as in the UK) have second houses in London - but stay in energy efficient hostels.

 

In Europe the EU would close the Strasbourg Parliament building (or use it for something else) to avoid the very high CO2 impact of the Parliment going to and from Brussels with all the MEPs, their staff and all the files for one week every month accompanied by the European media etc etc...

 

Sorry to say, however, that the stupidity and hypocrisy of politicians does not prove that global warming is not happening and that man-made pollutants are contributing to it. It just proves that we are often governed by self-interested charlatans.

Of course, if they truly truly serious about man-made global warming, they would laugh at your petty politically-motivated ideas and actually do something useful, like eliminating coal power stations and ending the destruction of the rainforests.

I have to disagree, I will give cyclists who obey the highway code and rules of the road the respect that they deserve i.e. give them room and be aware of them, its arseholes like that who do give cyclists a bad name and I have no time or respect for.

And the much, much greater proportion of drivers (ie all of them) who fail to follow the highway code and rules of the road? What of them?

Gore's reposte - sure he's spinning, but the data is far far more on his side.

 

TED

My new favourite website.

STORY

 

MIoM was in turn a subsidiary of Steam Packet Group International Holdings Ltd whose beneficial shareholders include Macquarie International Holdings (no2) Ltd, SAS Trustee Corporation, United Super PTY Ltd and POSF Ltd.

 

When Isle of Man Newsapers sought to clarify the current ownership of the Steam Packet last month, the company stated that Macquarie, which has bought the Steam Packet in October 2005 had in December 2006 sold 90 per cent of its shares in the to three Australian pension funds – Cbus, NSW State Super and Nambawan Super.

 

Macquarie retained a 10 per cent share and manages the investment in the company on behalf of all shareholders.

 

Can someone explain that, please?

I've said in numerous SP threads that Macquarie do not own the Steam Packet, and that ownership was shared with pension funds.

better to build a bridge to the mainland, so I can get off this awful, smallminded little backwater every weekend .The Island makes small town America look sophisticated.

Yes, if only we were as sophisticated as those across the water in the North-west of England. Towns like Heysham, Blackburn and Blackpool are truly admired throughout the World.

Well its equivalent to about 50% of a year's revenue, compared to less than 10% in the UK.

They also focused a lot on the school run, where parents said their kids couldn't walk because it was too dangerous. It was pointed out that not walking and dying of heart desease was a much larger killer these days.

In children? But yeah, probably in most of our Islands Primary Schools there is scope to introduce some kind of "walk to school scheme."

Roundabouts are crap for pedestrians and cyclists, the only real solution is to put under passes in, but that'll probably not be possible because of the river and the already busted budget.

Cycle lanes can be placed around the outer edge of roundabouts but, especially where lanes cross, drivers need to be more aware.

What happened to all those MHKs with manifestos making this point at the last election? - most have not been heard from since, never mind argued this case.

I was thinking about this over the last few days - so many candidates for the Keys pledge to 'bring Government closer to the people' or 'bring accountability back to Government,' but rarely do they offer any mechanisms through which this might be done. Perhaps one solution would be to bring forward legislation whereby all proposed capital projects requiring more than £1 million must be subject to a public meeting?

You are never going to get full ministerial accountability, because a) They aren't elected and b) Sometimes ministers have to do things that are unpopular, and measures such as petitions of impeachment are only going to discourage political courage and promote inaction.

If, no, when, things get tight - this kind of money could help see us through any recession - never mind us deal with the inevitable problems in 2011 when 25% of the population will be over 65. Gordon Broon is paying the price now for similar fiscal behaviour over the past decade.

 

Instead, money is being frittered away instead of being banked for coming rainy days or for essentials.

Actually: "The market value of the Reserve Fund at 31 December 2007 stood at £387.4 million or 90.8% of the 2008-09 objective of £426.6 million."

One of the problems with government departments (and departments in large corporations) is that they are allocated an annual budget. If they don't spend the budget in a certain year, they don't get the chance to bank it for the next year.

Non-applicable. The DoT is seeking money from the capital budget to finance this project.

So the accident argument is a joke then:

"The Quarterbridge junction has the highest frequency of recorded accidents on the Island. In the past 5 years from 2003 to 2007 there have been 20 accidents at the junction, mainly slight and damage only"

4 minor accidents a year! What? That's hardly anything. Cars do not approach the current junction at speed, so the likelihood of a serious accident is very small.

However, if you were to, say, expand the junction...

StuartT, your fantastical leaps over mountains of logic and great chasms of reasoning are almost inspiring. Cars are here to stay for the foreseeable future, they are just too good are means of transportation, unequalled in their ability, at the very least, to liberate people from insular and constrictive communities.

Far from thinking outside the box, you refuse to acknowledge it even exists and thus your fanciful dreams of an all-Island rail network are so far removed from reality that you may as well construct it out of confectionary.

How buses can be judged to have failed is quite beyond me; perhaps you misjudge to role they fill. Do they not provide a relatively lost cost means of transport to those unable, for numerous reasons, to use private automobiles? The disabled, the elderly, parents, lower-wage earners, children, yound people - all are granted mobility from across the Island thanks to the maintenance of the Isle of Man Bus Company. Sure, the times may not be suitable to all, but the majority are served well enough.

Perhaps you think they failed to prevent congestion? Were they ever designed or intended to? Of course not.

If a car pack were constructed at the Cooil, with a lower daily rate that would paid in Douglas, traffic from the south would reduce, allowing easier access from along Peel road, and those parked at the Cooil could use a Park & Ride bus service. There parking ticket could even serve as their bus ticket as well.

The aim of QB scheme is to reduce congestion and accidents, which a Park&Ride scheme would do, with out your unnecessary multi-multi-million pound rail scheme, or the DoT's Super-Duper-Wuper roundabout.

Hardly, there is a gas pipeline underneath the Port Erin Line, as well as the Iris Scheme. That doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

Also forward planning, this is precisely why we need a railway network - something independant of the roads which will not get snarled up. It would also allow you to get heavy goods vehicles off the road totally, only a good thing in the IOM - something which a busway would not.

 

Incidentally anyone who has actually looked at public transport in the long term and in the wider world would appreciate that tramways, and light railway are used to a far greater extent by commuters than specialist busways. Of those places which used Busways as an alternative to tramways and light railways, many of them are converting them into tramways as a more viable long term solution, and have chosen not to extend their busways.

 

As for the railway or any other public transport system not paying - possibly not in the current economic climate and with the current line of thinking. That is precisely why we need the carrot and stick approach - to give a suitable competitive long term solution to traffic problems - and a stick of making it prohibitively expensive to use motor cars in order that the system will be paid for in the long term.

 

The place for buses would be in a town which eliminated cars from their streets, and to act as a feeder for the railways. Not as a long distance form of transport on already clogged roads.

 

One of the excuses used to justify not using the railways as a commuter system was the cost of specialist rolling stock built to manx loading gauge and for the 3ft gauge track. In the case of the Ramsey and Peel lines, there is no reason why they could not be relayed to standard gauge and ran using modern 2nd hand stock from the UK. If this was a sucess then the option could be considered for the Port Erin Line too, with the 3ft kept as a 3rd rail for enthusiasts specials.

 

Of course the car bound manx people just keep looking in the short term for any excuse to keep themselves in their cars, rather than come up with a long term future alternative which could last for 100+ years rather than 10.

 

As for the railway being a problem at QB, not necessarily as you could always build an over pass (with a bridge/under the railway), but if you were sucessful in discouraging car use sufficiently then it wouldn't really be a problem. And if it irritates a few more motorists having to wait for trains to come through, then that can only be a good thing as it would make it more inconvenient for them to use their cars.

 

Yes you need the carrot, but it is plain to see from the attitudes of a lot of posters, you also need a stick. Of course most of you appear to be unable to think in terms of anything except the short term and along current lines, rather than outside the box.

Yet again you astonish us all with your detachment from the real world. Somehow you think the solution to 90 minutes of mild congestion a day is to construct near-useless railway lines. You are suffering dangerously high delusions of granduer. Not only would your scheme cost at least tens of millions of pounds, it would be utterly useless.

Firstly, the number of heavy vehicles using Manx roads is tiny, and they do not contribute substantially to congestion. They get in on the Ben either before the morning rush, or after the evening one. To use rail for freight, facilities would have to be constructed for the loading and unloading of containers at Douglas (where the line never reached the linkspan in the first place) and at every other town, at which point they would have to be put on...HGVs. Sending freight by rail may work in Britain where journeys can be 100s of miles and where they actually have a proper rail network, but the Isle of Man only has two tourist lines, which it struggles to keep going as is. Cars cause congestion on the Isle of Man, something buses would reduce.

As someone who has looked at (and experienced) public transport in a number of global locations, I can but agree that trams and light rail have a lot to offer residents - of large cities. To say they are used more than buses even there is absurd. However, in small towns like, say, Warrington, buses are used. They are cheap, operate on existing infrastructure (roads), and provision can be made to give them superior access in certain circumstances. There are no actually long journeys on the Isle of Man that would be better served by light rail. Presumably you forsee people taking the light rail to, say, Port Erin, then getting a bus from there? Why not just get the bus (or the xpress bus) to Port Erin? Maybe have some bike lockers at one of the bus stops.

I'm not even going to comment on your stupid B overpass idea.

Look, your ideas are crazy-expensive, unsuitable and do not even provide a clearly superior alternative. In your world, Manx roads are similar to the M25, but really traffic is not that serious a problem.

It is nearly unbelievable that in a thread that questions the value for money in a £4million junction scheme produces a response like this that would cost 10s if not 100s of millions of pounds, yet provide few obvious benefits, and still not be more convienant than a private automobile. Next.

I know, spend the 4 million relocating the government departments that don't need to be in douglas, out of douglas, reducing conjestion and parking problems considerably.

This is kind of a myth really. Those departments that deal directly with the public (ie. benefits, student grants, tax people, etc) are best placed in Douglas because the public transport and road networks understandably converge there. Most Government staff do not work administrative roles in Douglas. The Department of Home Affairs, for example, has somewhere in the region of 530 (full-time equivalent) employees, but only 18 of them work in administration in Douglas. Its a similar story with all the other departments really.

As for re-installing a Douglas-Peel train line, that would constitute a major capital project. Given the small returns likely, it would be a very poor investment and would probably take relatively few cars off the road. Ultimately, it just isn't well placed to serve commuters, as the line is often too far from homes, which are understandably built near the roads. If those with practical access to buses used (ie. most of the people living on or near Peel road - wait, which gets most congested in the mornings?) them, we would have a much stronger solution. Buses are much cheaper to run, don't require huge capital investment and can operate on our current infrastructure. They are more environmentally friendly too.

As WTF, points out, Douglas ultimately isn't a car-friendly town. In fact, this is the case with the centres of most towns in the World, and as a result a lot of them are now banning private vehicles from gaining access.

That aside, the obvious flaws in this proposal (not least that traffic along Peel road will still be obstructed, which was the problem all along) have been described in this thread with admirable clarity. I urge all of you to get in touch with you M'aitch Kays.

Fair enough

Argh, they can't add to fuel duty because it is harmonised under the Common Purse Agreement. It would be a complete waste of time for the DoT/Treasury to consider it.

Mr Peters: Could you not declare one of them 'off the road?'

The proper carrot would be to have a decent island-wide transport system to encourage prople away from cars. However the eco-nauts decide that they'd rather use the stick and penalise car owners without putting a proper alternative in place first. As feckin usual.

The Island does have a decent transport system. What are you comparing it to? Earlier you said the buses are at 'silly times' but I don't really understand that. You would have to get the 7:22 in order to get into Douglas for 8:35, which hardly seems unreasonable.

How about finding ways to cut the numebr of cars using that area...some suggestions

 

Congestion Charging

Hiking up road tax

Developing park and ride facilities in the Cooil roundabout area

De-Douglasify (!) businesses

 

Sometime taking Mohammed to the mountain is the overlooked option!!

Whilst I agree that we would be better cutting the numbers of cars, but:

Congestion Charging: Would probably be deeply unpopular, as most stealth taxes are. Furthermore, people don't drive because it is the cheap option, and this alone is unlikely to dissaude those that drive from doing so.

Hiking up road tax: The problem isn't with people owning cars, but with too many trying to use Douglas at the same time.

Park and Ride: This could work, but would probably require a reduction in private parking within Douglas itself.

Diversifying Businesses: Whilst we would all like to see more businesses in the smaller towns, I don't think this should necessarily be at the expense of Douglas's economy.

Hmmm, I need to learn more road names.

Apparently they are taking out the roundabout at the bus depot, AND changing the light timing during peak times on Quines Corner to deter people cutting through that way, so if you thought it was hell getting out of tescos after a long days work before, you will love this.

 

That will make the problem at QB even worse. All they need to do at allow right turns at the railway and that problem will go away. Cost? virtually nil.

How will this make the problem at the QB worse? Surely the intention is encourage people to go out past Kewaigue, which they will now have to do unless they want to go over the swing bridge.

Albert: Source? And vehicle ownership = more driving?

Even if you are right, surely that makes this project an even bigger waste of time?

New petition?