Monday, 22nd March 2010

Ben Quérée RSS

A Week in Politics

Cycle licences come up for debate in just over a month – so we get to do it all again

STRANGE as last week in the States was, a stranger thing happened after I got back to the office on Wednesday.

No one has the slightest clue what £50m in cuts to States spending would look like

FROM the outside, to all intents and purposes, the acts of a) reviewing the effects of 10% cuts to the public sector because you want to make them, and b) reviewing the effects of 10% cuts because you don’t want to make them, appear to be exactly the same.

A Week in Politics

THERE are people who knew Christopher Lakeman much better than I did, and who knew him far longer, who are more appropriately placed to offer tribute to him.

↓ Headlines continue ↓

Freelance
Alvin's Hot Stuff PizzaPlace a free advert in the JEP and thisisjersey
Gazette Notices 468

Two islands with financial problems, a common goal on litter, so a deal, right?

THESE are the three great fibs of Jersey politics:
• I can make government more efficient.
•We must keep Jersey special.
•The States must work more closely with Guernsey.

They were outmuppeted by an ensemble performance of self-aggrandising flannel

LAST week’s States sitting was like some awful, twisted version of The X Factor – 53 politicians all striving to make the biggest possible hash of the fairly straightforward tasks in front of them.

A Week in Politics

Imagine, if you will, the leader of the free world rising early in the White House, listening attentively to his morning security briefing, defusing a burgeoning crisis in Mexico during a fraught phone call over coffee, and heading to his first morning appointment.

A Week in Politics

YOU’LL have been glued to your radio all week, no doubt, following the progress of the States. I can’t say I blame you. Whether ministers should get free BlackBerrys, the size of the quorum, the make-up of a panel reviewing the future of Fort Regent – these are big questions that affect every single one [...]

A Week in Politics

AND so, in a year in which the retirement age could rise, taxes could go up and services could be cut, what weighty matters occupy the parliament in their first sitting?

A Week in Politics

IT was a strange coalition that handed ministers an embarrassing defeat over duty hikes in the Budget last week: some came from the left, some came from the right, and some came along because they don’t like the Treasury Minister.

A Week in Politics

IT’S a funny thing, your first States sitting. The first one that I remember doing was a Budget meeting, probably in 2000 or 2001, and being confused about how States spending rose relentlessly without anything significant to show for it. I suppose I still am.