joebean

Any person who has 30+ convictions for vehicle offences is displaying a complete contempt for the rules regarding vehicle ownership and driving that everyone else is obliged to follow. The courts should have the power to rescind the driving licence of the offender in such circumstances.

There is no reason to pick her out, particularly. She represents a common theme in Keys candidates. Having no particular views or convictions; no record of achieving anything significant in previous life; a desire to be part of the Tynwald club; being generally unchallenging, these are all traits shared by many of our elected. It’s what the system generates and our political apathy selects and will keep doing so until the Island hits the crisis that demands something different.

It does say something about the current state of the event that the most reassuring and unexpected announcement about it is the merchandise supplier. Apart from that, it’s all the same old.. thank God the visitors mainly want to see exactly what they saw last year.

And you have to ask what exactly they contributed to the Isle of Man. I can think of a few leavers in the last few years who drew big salaries and then big pensions who achieved little in the way of positive outcomes and at least one whose influence had negative impacts on standards in office and senior management culture.

It’s not just about headcount, it’s about not filling natural wastage. Headcount has always been subject to business case increases, which is why the PS has expanded over the years. There should be no increase in the general civil service headcount for a few years. Only increases in essential public services, particularly front-line health service personnel should be considered and funded by savings elsewhere. The public would support that, if only politicians had the courage to demand it.

Many roles within the CS involve no specialist skills, merely the ability to administrate something, therefore many staff are interchangeable and staff can be moved to new tasks, without a great deal of retraining. A lot of savings could be achieved by not filling new vacancies; asking what the implications would be of leaving roles vacated through natural wastage unfilled; examining administrative process to streamline tasks and seek opportunities to double up roles or create part-time positions; regrading; reducing capital expenditure; contracting out; identifying savings in management structures. There are many avenues to explore, short of mass redundancies and there is a huge amount that could be done if the will existed to do the work and achieve expenditure savings. I don’t know how many people are recruited into the general civil service annually but I suspect a two-year moratorium on recruitment to it would have little impact on essential service delivery and would achieve a meaningful reduction in staff numbers. This would, of course place additional demands on public sector managers and administrative staff. That might be considered better than constantly increasing the cost of services to the public, if the public sector and our politicians thought that was important.

The usual prepared waffle, noting more. There will be no measurable set of actions or targets, just words.

I have made the same point on here before.. we have a political system that delivers personality over policy, is not capable of allowing the voter to make democratic choices about policies and that is designed to limit and stifle opposition voices and debate. More often than not, far from encouraging those people on the Island who have conviction, experience of leading and the personal qualities required for the task of leading Government and communicating effectively, it discourages such engagement. Tynwald is uninspiring and its procedures lack relevance to this century. Change will never come from within; it’s a self-perpetuating entity feeding the interests of bureaucrats and the mediocre personalities sucked in and puffed up within its chambers.

I often think that Alf Cannan talks quite well but his messages are contradicted and conflicted by what is actually happening. He attempts to reconnect with the public but ends up alienating people further. This message could have been delivered far more effectively with a bit more thought and positioning. First should have been a promise to examine, as part of this "regrouping" (whatever that means in this context) current financial priorities and a refocussing on the delivery of core services before promising greater financial discipline. That would have got the public onboard and more accepting of tough decisions about service delivery. Instead, he comes up with some buzzwords (otherwise known as drivel) before flagging up further reductions in public services. This, after a tax rise. If this is reconnecting, I wonder what disconnecting would look like. The Cabinet Office, considering the huge salaries being pocketed there, should be better than this clumsy delivery; wise and experienced heads there should be giving the CM decent advice about policy and communications. We are paying handsomely for that but they fall far short of delivering the goods. Instead of professionalism and service to the public, we get what appears to be an amateurish shambles where self-interest and self protection is the priority. If that isn't the case, their communications are even worse than I think. I am struggling to think of one member of COMIN who is an effective and emphatic communicator. We just need more quality, everywhere.

I used to be a landlord, with a property in the UK. I made sure that the house was regulation-compliant, well maintained and if anything went wrong, I had it fixed immediately. I also charged a rent that was at a fair market-rate. The maintenance and management costs ate into the income I received and I paid tax on that income too. The return on my investment, in income terms, ended up being around 3% per annum. Of course, the other factor was property inflation which meant that the asset was appreciating. The UK Government then started to increase the regulatory burden which would result in me having to make a substantial further investment in my property to raise the energy efficiency rating from the level D to C. The house had double glazing and exceeded the roof insulation requirements already. This investment would have wiped out any income I received from the property for around 4 years. In addition, changes to legislation were proposed that would increase the rights of tenants to remain in the property and impede my ability to sell it, when and if I needed to do so to add to my retirement financial planning. Like many other small landlords I decided to sell the property as soon as it became vacant. The house did not re-enter the rental market. I know many have a jaundiced view of landlords but it is not the small landlords that are killing the market for affordable rental properties. Houses are a considerable investment with considerable financial risks but a one-size fits all approach to the rental sector in the UK is driving up rental costs and reducing availability. The lack of imagination in Government here, following UK regulation and policy trends, will further erode the rental market, drive up housing costs and reduce affordability.

I have family ties here. If I didn’t, I would have gone about 8 years ago. I have always advised my sons and daughter to get into professions that can expand their horizons. Having all your eggs in a small basket run by basket-cases is never wise.

Wearing a wig doesn’t necessarily come with the job. Nobody forces him to wear it. He chooses to wear it. Any Speaker worth their salt would decide the wig was a relic of another era and entirely irrelevant to this day and age. The speaker in the Commons does not wear a wig ordinarily.

Ok, but when a Minister has proven himself to be immature and shabby and everybody with any objectivity can see he is an arrogant little man who is unfit for office, another option has to be explored. There are one or two others in the Keys, yet untested, who could do no worse and their appointment would at least demonstrate to the public that we have some standards of conduct in public office. It’s Government, not a Boy’s Club. In any event, we have seen in the past that whenever a matter of concern arises, it’s nothing to do with Hooper. It’s not the most demanding role and even if it was, a shuffle in the ranks would be better than keeping the smirking Hooper on.

One thing that has emerged out of this saga and is crystal clear; Hooper is an arrogant little prick that should be nowhere near any position of influence or authority. Obviously, the CM has not got the standards or guts to sack him. We must all rely on the voters in Ramsey.

That never happened. 100% bull. If we are going to talk about the negative sides of the TT let’s at least not make stuff up.