General Election 2011 - Ayre

[VinnieK]

Why would the UK be overly generous in agreeing anything with us? In this thread alone you've had them subsidising us on the RHA & now on a revenue sharing agreement for years.

 

Have you been following theverious RHA or VAT stories and discussions at all? If you go to the Hansards, you will see the senior members of Tynwald themselves talking about how the UK has been interested in renegotiating the RHA for anything up to twenty years, precisely because they knew they were getting the rough end of the deal, and Teare and Brown both more or less stated that the point of contention was that the UK wanted the Island to pay its own way with regards to the deal.

 

It also stands to reason. If under the renegotiated deal we find ourselves having to pay out more, as you state, and if as Terse has pointed out no money changes hands between Westminster and Tynwald (and if I remember correctly, Brown stated that this was what Westminster was hoping for from the new deal), then under the previous deal we were getting something for nothing. In effect, a subsidy.

 

As for the revenue sharing deal, it's clear from the sheer mechanics of the operation that it's open to abuse: inflate GNI by spending, and you claw back some of that spending, writing off some of the expense. Even were that not the case, you can look at it in two possible ways. One way is that the UK have been subsidising us, and that now they're simply taking their fair share. This then leaves us with the conclusion that our government has been building an economy on sand, chancing their arm by grabbing the money and running and using it to swell the civil service and pump into industries like construction which have now grown to such a point that they are largely dependent on government spending.

 

The second way of looking at it is that the nasty old UK are taking much, much more than their fair share. Given everything that's come out, this is unlikely. However, even if we run with it, we end up with a picture of a government that has no idea how to deal with such an unjust pilfering of our purse and is willing to take it lying down.

 

Neither is very complimentary.

 

If true I think it says more about the competance of their government than it does about ours.

 

Actually, it says an awful lot about the competance of our government.

 

Firstly: it calls into considerable doubt the idea, which you've given voice to, that our great government was responsible for the Island's prosperity.

 

Secondly: recent events call into question the wisdom of so rapidly and substantially expanding an economy using methods based in large part on massive government spending; be it via large capital spending projects (I believe in the 2008 budget Allan Bell announced the largest such commitment in the Island's history, and typically government spending a half to three quarters of the construction industry's annual income) or engaging Jersey and Guernsey into a 'race to the bottom' policy on tax (which are subsidies by any other name).

 

Thirdly: it begs the question of why there seems to have never been a plan B in response to the eventuality that the UK turns off the tap.

[Monkey boy]

Again good post, and I can see some of your points which may well be true. I do think you're over simplifying things a bit though. I have never said I think our goverment are great, merely warned against embracing any alternative that comes along & talks a good job.

Armchair politics is the easiest thing in the world to be seccessful in, especially with the benefit of hindsight. I suspect if you actually stood for election you may find the reality somewhat more challenging. I'd be interested to see how popular you were after 5 years in government.

[Tugger]

The real problem some people have with the most recently announced candidate is his COMEOVER status

[VinnieK]

Again good post, and I can see some of your points which may well be true. I do think you're over simplifying things a bit though. I have never said I think our goverment are great, merely warned against embracing any alternative that comes along & talks a good job.

 

I think you've misunderstood my intentions a little. We're talking about Teare: You say he's the best in show, I say otherwise. You raise the RHA and our apparent (and I use that word very deliberately) prosperity as part of the justification for that view, and I've countered it. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Now, I do agree with the latter half of your statement. I think caution should be exercised, and that in general the electorate should be wary of voting for anyone who talks a good game (by the way, this applies equally to Teare as it does anyone else). However, I would say that getting Teare out is more important than getting a specific person in. I believe this because of everything contained in the previous posts, because along with Brown and Bell I believe he forms the kernel of a government that's led us down a blind alley (Quayle, Earnshaw, Craine and Anderson just being nodding dog fodder appointed more for their loyalty than anything else), and because given he's already a member of CoMin, it's likely that if he gets in he will return to a position in the next executive as well (which I don't want for all the reasons mentioned previously).

 

Armchair politics is the easiest thing in the world to be seccessful in, especially with the benefit of hindsight. I suspect if you actually stood for election you may find the reality somewhat more challenging. I'd be interested to see how popular you were after 5 years in government.

 

In assessing a candidate, or the performance of a government we must, by necessity attempt to evaluate what they say and do. Now, you may call this 'armchair politics' and suggest how much more complicated it actually is than anyone can really appreciate, but that isn't a useful opinion. It's really just a variation on the 'put up or shut up' argument, and that does nothing: taken to the logical extreme we might as well say "oh, well we can never be 100% certain whether our politicians are doing a good job or not, so we might as well not vote".

 

The electorate have a basic duty to inform themselves and attempt understand as best as they possibly can what's going on in their parliament, and to base their decision on that understanding. I do see what you're getting at, but the possibility that the sitting member for X might be better than we expect doesn't really add anything to that understanding. He or she might be better, but by the same token they might be even worse than we imagine, or exactly as bad as we think they are. So it adds nothing.

 

As such, if you can say how I'm simplifying things and specifically to the unfair detriment of the government, then please say how! If I'm in the wrong, I'd like to know how so I can either contest it or hold my hands up and adjust my view accordingly!

 

Similarly, I take your point regarding hindsight. However, there are two points that should be raised:

 

1. Hindsight is all we really have to go on. So we may as well accept that fact.

 

2. We can actually examine whether or not hindsight is distorting our view. As I say, in the case of the RHA the renegotiation was known to be coming sooner or later for twenty years. More than adequate time to prepare a contingency plan and examine the impact without Bell, Brown and Teare having to bunker down in a 'working group' for a year. With the revenue sharing agreement, it was obvious that the UK could and would renegotiate at some point. Put it this way, if you based a significant portion of your wealth on what ammounted to a loophole in the tax code, wouldn't you make at least a basic attempt to prepare for the eventuality that the government eventually that loophole?

[Tugger]

Is a fair summary of the RHA story that Brown etc knew that there was some implicit cost in the offering of reciprocal health facilities without money changing hands, and told us all that no deal could be done (when in fact one could, as long as we we were prepared to do a cashless deal)?

[VinnieK]

That possibly was raised at the time, and it certainly seems that way. I'd happily be willing to bet money on it.

 

It seems that Bell, Brown and Teare didn't want such a deal from the outset, primarily because of the expenditure (which explains a lot of their hostility towards not just Rodan's attempts to re-enter negotiation, but also alternative proposals which involved the government underwriting various insurance schemes). Which, presumably, is why they were so cagey about releasing any actual details until the very last moment, and even then talked little about the actual negotiations.

[Monkey boy]

The real problem some people have with the most recently announced candidate is his COMEOVER status

Total bollocks

[Monkey boy]

Again good post, and I can see some of your points which may well be true. I do think you're over simplifying things a bit though. I have never said I think our goverment are great, merely warned against embracing any alternative that comes along & talks a good job.

 

I think you've misunderstood my intentions a little. We're talking about Teare: You say he's the best in show, I say otherwise. You raise the RHA and our apparent (and I use that word very deliberately) prosperity as part of the justification for that view, and I've countered it. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Now, I do agree with the latter half of your statement. I think caution should be exercised, and that in general the electorate should be wary of voting for anyone who talks a good game (by the way, this applies equally to Teare as it does anyone else). However, I would say that getting Teare out is more important than getting a specific person in. I believe this because of everything contained in the previous posts, because along with Brown and Bell I believe he forms the kernel of a government that's led us down a blind alley (Quayle, Earnshaw, Craine and Anderson just being nodding dog fodder appointed more for their loyalty than anything else), and because given he's already a member of CoMin, it's likely that if he gets in he will return to a position in the next executive as well (which I don't want for all the reasons mentioned previously).

 

Armchair politics is the easiest thing in the world to be seccessful in, especially with the benefit of hindsight. I suspect if you actually stood for election you may find the reality somewhat more challenging. I'd be interested to see how popular you were after 5 years in government.

 

In assessing a candidate, or the performance of a government we must, by necessity attempt to evaluate what they say and do. Now, you may call this 'armchair politics' and suggest how much more complicated it actually is than anyone can really appreciate, but that isn't a useful opinion. It's really just a variation on the 'put up or shut up' argument, and that does nothing: taken to the logical extreme we might as well say "oh, well we can never be 100% certain whether our politicians are doing a good job or not, so we might as well not vote".

 

The electorate have a basic duty to inform themselves and attempt understand as best as they possibly can what's going on in their parliament, and to base their decision on that understanding. I do see what you're getting at, but the possibility that the sitting member for X might be better than we expect doesn't really add anything to that understanding. He or she might be better, but by the same token they might be even worse than we imagine, or exactly as bad as we think they are. So it adds nothing.

 

As such, if you can say how I'm simplifying things and specifically to the unfair detriment of the government, then please say how! If I'm in the wrong, I'd like to know how so I can either contest it or hold my hands up and adjust my view accordingly!

 

Similarly, I take your point regarding hindsight. However, there are two points that should be raised:

 

1. Hindsight is all we really have to go on. So we may as well accept that fact.

 

2. We can actually examine whether or not hindsight is distorting our view. As I say, in the case of the RHA the renegotiation was known to be coming sooner or later for twenty years. More than adequate time to prepare a contingency plan and examine the impact without Bell, Brown and Teare having to bunker down in a 'working group' for a year. With the revenue sharing agreement, it was obvious that the UK could and would renegotiate at some point. Put it this way, if you based a significant portion of your wealth on what ammounted to a loophole in the tax code, wouldn't you make at least a basic attempt to prepare for the eventuality that the government eventually that loophole?

I'm not totally against what you say & I think you make some very good points. Obviously I do not share your enthusiasm for getting Teare out and given the opposition he faces, I don't see this would add significantly to the quality of government were that to happen.

In terms of you oversimplifying things I was refering to your opinion that our apparent wealth is due to the revenue sharing agreement, I do not believe it is that simple. I appreciate you were talking in broard terms & that none of us are privy to the details of such things, but I still feel it is a lot more complicated than that & that to a certain extent wealth is wealth.

I do agree that contingency plans could have been made for such eventualities and that represents poor management, but only time will tell how the reaction to these things will work & whether perhaps some form of contingency has been in place all along. I have already stated I think the RHA is worthless & public money should not be wasted on it.

Also if our noble challenger was blessed with such foresight in these matters then why wasn't he beating on his drum 5, 10, 15 or 20 years ago instead of being the opportunist when the damage is done?

I have already stated I am no huge fan of Teare's & that he has his faults. Show me some decent competition & I may even agree he should go, but the way things stand I still believe he's the best candidate in Ayre.

[Lost Login]

So you think we should get rid of the finance sector then?

 

we should never get rid of companys that employ people,

and noboody said anything about getting rid of them.

 

it was to say the finance indusrty was built on the back of the huge sums of cash we got from the vat, which in turn helpped us lower the tax, which brought the companys over in the first place.

 

problem is now, how to fill that deficit we have, with out losing the companys

 

The finance centre and nil corporate tax rate is what has driven our economy over the last 40 years and especially the last 25 years. That was and remains the driver of the economy.

 

Over the years we may have had a good deal from VAT but VAT was only introduced in 1973 and it was only in 1979 that the IoM was seperate from the UK. Prior to that we were basically just treated as a UK VAT district. To say that the surplus from VAT was what the finance industry was built on is nonsence as it did not exist at the time. If you said that the bloated government and salaries and conditions for some in the public sector was built on the VAT share I might agree with you.

 

I also doubt if the split of VAT revenue that was deemed unfair recently was unfair at the time. I expect that it is an anomily that has grown overtime as the IoM economy has grown and changed.

[Lost Login]

Is a fair summary of the RHA story that Brown etc knew that there was some implicit cost in the offering of reciprocal health facilities without money changing hands, and told us all that no deal could be done (when in fact one could, as long as we we were prepared to do a cashless deal)?

 

Either that or they believed they could save money by getting private health care insurance to cover costs that they had either previously or would pick up. Either way they believed they could blame the UK as a cover story and escape any blame so were happy to try save costs.

[Stavros]

I listened to Andrew Newington-Bridges on Talking Heads yesterday and I have to say it sounded like he's got more balls - and more intelligence - than anyone in the Keys at the moment. I wish him well.

He was on Manx Radio this morning. I think he was interesting amd sounded like someone that could get things done. Someone said he sounded like Optimus Prime which gave me great thoughts about Transformers being our politicians and the UK government having the Decepticons needing more VAT to increase their power... Ok, I'll stop there.

[dilligaf]

I listened to Andrew Newington-Bridges on Talking Heads yesterday and I have to say it sounded like he's got more balls - and more intelligence - than anyone in the Keys at the moment. I wish him well.

He was on Manx Radio this morning. I think he was interesting amd sounded like someone that could get things done. Someone said he sounded like Optimus Prime which gave me great thoughts about Transformers being our politicians and the UK government having the Decepticons needing more VAT to increase their power... Ok, I'll stop there.

I also heard him this morning and TBH he sounded condescending. I could not help laughing to myself when he was asked to give just one example of the UK being aggressive and dictating to us ( him having said it was what the UK Gov. did all the time), he was lost for words, then laughed and said he should have been pre warned about that question. Unreal !. I am not really a fan of Eddie Teare, but, he has NO worries so far and would get my vote without question, if I lived in Ayre.

[VinnieK]

I also heard him this morning and TBH he sounded condescending. I could not help laughing to myself when he was asked to give just one example of the UK being aggressive and dictating to us ( him having said it was what the UK Gov. did all the time), he was lost for words, then laughed and said he should have been pre warned about that question. Unreal !. I am not really a fan of Eddie Teare, but, he has NO worries so far and would get my vote without question, if I lived in Ayre.

 

Hm. Hasn't it been the government line for ages that all our woes are down to the UK being vewy mean to us? Certainly, that was the tone regarding the RHA, and the VAT renegotiation, and Bell's only recently come out and blamed 'UK central offices' for why the banks aren't throwing money at first time buyers hand over fist. I'm sure MR itself has followed the 'UK does what it likes' narrative as well (if I remember correctly, that seemed to be the case during the Gimbert interview, when he was suggesting better negotiation with the UK).

 

That's not to say that Newington-Bridges is correct in his assertion, because I don't think he is, but it does sound a little unfair to single him out for trotting out the same line the Government and MR have been for months.

[pongo]

http://www.AndrewNewington-Bridges4MHK.IM/

[Monkey boy]

I listened to Andrew Newington-Bridges on Talking Heads yesterday and I have to say it sounded like he's got more balls - and more intelligence - than anyone in the Keys at the moment. I wish him well.

He was on Manx Radio this morning. I think he was interesting amd sounded like someone that could get things done. Someone said he sounded like Optimus Prime which gave me great thoughts about Transformers being our politicians and the UK government having the Decepticons needing more VAT to increase their power... Ok, I'll stop there.

I also heard him this morning and TBH he sounded condescending. I could not help laughing to myself when he was asked to give just one example of the UK being aggressive and dictating to us ( him having said it was what the UK Gov. did all the time), he was lost for words, then laughed and said he should have been pre warned about that question. Unreal !. I am not really a fan of Eddie Teare, but, he has NO worries so far and would get my vote without question, if I lived in Ayre.

I agree. He volunteered the information that too much legislation is blindly imported from the UK and when asked for an example he laughed and said there were too many to mention as he only had 5 minutes. When pressed for just one example he still failed to be able to mention one.

Now the thing is he may even have a point, I can imagine that legislation is often imported from the UK, but to put himself forward as a superior negotiator to any of our current politicians & then be completely floored by a most basic question on one of his key campaigning points does not back this up.

I've nothing against the guy, he seems quite friendly & affable & laughs a bit unlike some of the candidates which have been interviewed, I'd like to go for a pint with him & listen to what he has to say.

Do I think he's a politician in the making? No. Do I think he's a better alternative to what they've already got in Ayre? No.

I agree in some areas alternative candidates may be preferable as I think there is a real mood for change, however I think the case in Ayre is an example of how voting for one of the alternatives would be a big mistake, especially at this time.

Is there still time for more candidates to come forward?