Budget today

[Anyone]

You missed  nothing . In the meantime Quayle paid tribute to Kate Costain. Sometimes I wish politicians would be honest. No hope I guess. Irrespective of what you think of Kate he treated her poorly. And he was a disaster when he was in charge of the hospital. But not according to him so he’ll get a big gong.  Can’t we stop this back slapping , pension giving , I’m great nonsense just because someone is in politics. Some do a great job but many more don’t .

[Mr Newbie]

1 hour ago, Anyone said:

In the meantime Quayle paid tribute to Kate Costain. Sometimes I wish politicians would be honest. No hope I guess. Irrespective of what you think of Kate he treated her poorly. And he was a disaster when he was in charge of the hospital. But not according to him so he’ll get a big gong.  Can’t we stop this back slapping , pension giving , I’m great nonsense just because someone is in politics. Some do a great job but many more don’t .

You can’t argue though that across the board, politics aside, the likes of Quayle has done ok. I was reminded today listening to Tony Brown drone on to Andy Wint on the radio what a useless load of piss poor old yessir chancers we’ve had as Chief or Senior Ministers over the years who have contributed little of value to the IOM. At least when the chips have been well and truly down Quayle, Ashford, Cannan, and the likes of Allinson in particular have been there making decisions that they never signed up for. Yes you can point to past mistakes and maybe a degree of arrogance, and not all has been perfectly executed, but when the shit hit the fan they’ve earned their money and whatever future recognition they might get. The main failure as always has been certain departments of government and the law enforcement agencies who saw an opportunity under emergency laws and went for it. 

[Anyone]

I got bored after the first few words of that. Yawn.

 

[gettafa]

8 minutes ago, Mr Newbie said:

You can’t argue though that across the board, politics aside, the likes of Quayle has done ok. I was reminded today listening to Tony Brown drone on to Andy Wint on the radio what a useless load of piss poor old yessir chancers we’ve had as Chief or Senior Ministers over the years who have contributed little of value to the IOM. At least when the chips have been well and truly down Quayle, Ashford, Cannan, and the likes of Allinson in particular have been there making decisions that they never signed up for. Yes you can point to past mistakes and maybe a degree of arrogance, and not all has been perfectly executed, but when the shit hit the fan they’ve earned their money and whatever future recognition they might get. The main failure as always has been certain departments of government and the law enforcement agencies who saw an opportunity under emergency laws and went for it. 

You were one of the people clapping them on Tynwald Day as they returned from the hill weren't you.

(there weren't actually that many doing so, but there were some)

[Non-Believer]

8 hours ago, Banker said:

Strange update, no cuts to department budgets so carry on spending! Another 750k for promenade and £7m for health.nothing extra for DESC so teachers will not be getting the 9% they want.

According to BBC News online (sorry, can't link), it's actually £4M which is being allocated to "accelerate" Douglas Promenade, plus a (presumably current?) £750k overspend is to be patched with funds that were to be allocated to heritage railways.

[gettafa]

1 hour ago, the stinking enigma said:

I missed this, didn't even know it was on today. One question. Have they toned the incessant background coughing down post covid?

A lot of that stopped when Corkish left Tynwald. Although funnily enough when he was in the House of Keys you heard very little from him.

I think their exposure to the joys of Zoom or equivalent has shown them how exposed they are to the mics. Maybe they have installed mute buttons?

[Mr Newbie]

9 minutes ago, gettafa said:

You were one of the people clapping them on Tynwald Day as they returned from the hill weren't you.

(there weren't actually that many doing so, but there were some)

No I’d buy any of them a pint individually but there is no way I would stand there like some serf and clap government the way some parts of government have behaved. I totally stayed away from Tynwald for that very reason. All that was uncalled for. But you can’t ignore that some have individually done ok when their predecessors got away with being responsible for nothing for whole terms. 

[the stinking enigma]

I dont really see what would have been done differently by the previous government. 

[the stinking enigma]

Apart from Bell may have mastered the pronunciation of statistics before the end of 3 month lockdown.

[Non-Believer]

1 minute ago, the stinking enigma said:

I dont really see what would have been done differently by the previous government. 

I would have liked (or maybe not) to have seen what Allan Bell and Eddie Teare might have done. Then again it would probably be commercially confidential.

[Anyone]

27 minutes ago, the stinking enigma said:

I dont really see what would have been done differently by the previous government. 

Totally correct , just more ineptitude. It makes us feel comfortable.

[joebean]

It would be very illuminating to analyse everything Skelly had ever said to the media or in Tynwald and identify anything of substance in between the waffle, posturing and bullshit. I had the opportunity once of listening to him talk to a successful business person and it was just patronising and embarrassing. I would rate his value to the Isle of Man as hovering around zero. The fact that he has remained in office for as long as he has says something profound about the quality of politicians on the Island. Something more profound, in fact, than anything he has ever uttered.

[Non-Believer]

I was at school thereabouts yearwise with Laurence. Nothing has changed from those days except perhaps for his time in America having put advertising gloss on his waffle and instilled greater belief in his own bull. Walter Mitty sense of reality. But his time with DED/DFE can be no greater proof of that.

[finlo]

16 minutes ago, Non-Believer said:

I was at school thereabouts yearwise with Laurence. Nothing has changed from those days except perhaps for his time in America having put advertising gloss on his waffle and instilled greater belief in his own bull. Walter Mitty sense of reality. But his time with DED/DFE can be no greater proof of that.

 

Me too, his parents ran the Prince of Wales back then.

[Derek Flint]

10 hours ago, Mr Newbie said:

You can’t argue though that across the board, politics aside, the likes of Quayle has done ok. I was reminded today listening to Tony Brown drone on to Andy Wint on the radio what a useless load of piss poor old yessir chancers we’ve had as Chief or Senior Ministers over the years who have contributed little of value to the IOM. At least when the chips have been well and truly down Quayle, Ashford, Cannan, and the likes of Allinson in particular have been there making decisions that they never signed up for. Yes you can point to past mistakes and maybe a degree of arrogance, and not all has been perfectly executed, but when the shit hit the fan they’ve earned their money and whatever future recognition they might get. The main failure as always has been certain departments of government and the law enforcement agencies who saw an opportunity under emergency laws and went for it. 

It was actually several weeks before they got into their stride. Although the only major glitch was waiting too long to close the borders, let’s not forget there were others along the way - Comis/repatriation, and Alex reluctant to close the schools because of the ‘massive economic impact’. The superstar throughout all this has been David Ashford, and I think that is where the plaudits must lie. Remember though, once the borders were closed the process of chasing  the virus down to zero was pretty inevitable, and a lot of that was down to the excellent response and overall conformity  of the public to the guidelines and rules set.

I’ve said before that it is now the really hard work starts, in rebuilding the economy and actually drilling down precisely where the Isle of Man, as a jurisdiction actually sits in the new world order. Without clarity on that position, we are really going to find the going tough. The current strategy, as far as I can see, is to try and borrow our way out of the problem, and hope that someone on this new Recovery Group comes up with the golden egg. People don’t need to ‘be here’ - the fact that Kate Magson has managed to run the Dept of Health on Zoom from the UK is perhaps the best exemplar of that. So how do we create on island jobs, in physically present industries where everyone benefits?

The Covid response was really good, but it was a very short ticket to dine out on. We cannot simply return to where we were, and I’m personally not convinced that was a plan that was working in any case. There needs to be monumental work done right now, because kicking it down the road to the door of the next administration will mean we lose any potential advantage we have. The risk is, that with the election in sight, our politicians will largely go into survival mode to protect their seat.