After recent radio moan-ins and Letters to the Editor, I have some advice for the Council of Ministers: pack up your briefcases, go home and do nothing.

Whatever you do, critics will claim it’s electioneering, or there is a hidden agenda, or you are in some way trying to bring the Island to its knees.

It’s obvious, listening to these people, that you are not just ordinary mortals trying to do what is best for the Island in difficult circumstances. You are obviously up to something, so perhaps you had better do nothing. It’s at times like this that you have to wonder why anyone bothers.

The latest row is not about increasing taxes, it’s actually about trying to cut taxes. Now you would think that even the most blinkered critic would welcome with open arms the proposal to remove GST from food. But no – the timing is sinister, the motives are questionable and no-one wanted GST in the first place.

One of the callers to one of the moan-ins described GST as ‘a monumental error’. Well, if it was an error, it was made democratically by the majority of States members after much debate.

The quality of the argument from these critics is such that one of them even had the audacity to claim that GST had been ‘rushed through’. I nearly fell off my chair.

Then we had a well-known JDA veteran (one of the few) talking about the ‘ruddy useless’ States and bemoaning the fact that agriculture had all but disappeared.

It’s all the States’ fault, of course; it’s got nothing to do with changing markets, a lack of competitiveness and the willingness of many farmers to sell up because there are easier ways of making a living.

The debate about GST exemptions, of course, also gave the Chamber of Commerce yet another opportunity to bang on about the need for the States to cut spending. Chamber members must have had apoplexy when they saw the details of last week’s proposal to increase spending next year by a net £9.7 million and create a further 16 jobs. What they should be doing is losing jobs, according to the Chamber.

The Chamber Council member taking part in one of the radio debates was quite certain that there are a whole host of functions which can be stripped from the States and done better and more cheaply by the private sector. Actually, he didn’t say ‘better’. That may have been an oversight on his part or it might have been recognition that the States are doing a good job. However, his bottom line – as it always is – is that getting rid of all these departments would save money for the taxpayer.

If only that was all the States had to worry about. Among the host of departments and functions he suggested should be privatised, he included nursery facilities. Well, if there are private-sector operators wanting to expand their business, why don’t they? What’s stopping them? Is he seriously suggesting that the States want to be involved in this or any other activity rather than have private businesses doing it?

I’m sure that in the unlikely event that someone came along and said they would like to run the prison or take over the hospital (without charging patients a fortune, of course), the States would jump at the opportunity. But unlike some Chamber members, we live in the real world and this isn’t likely to happen.

So I’m afraid that in the absence of a private-sector fairy godmother prepared to take over various jobs which do not and probably never will make a profit, we have to give the States some money. Chamber members and everyone else will just have to get used to the idea that the monumental error of GST is here to stay and hand over the enormous amount of 3%.

There are some individuals for whom paying a tax of even 3%, is very difficult because they simply can’t afford it. Whatever the critics say, the States have done a lot to try to ease their burden. The problem is that not everyone either deserves or appreciates this support. Luckily, the States take a generous view so that no-one, or at least very few, actually slips through the Social Security safety net.

I don’t know the personal circumstances of the lady on the radio who sounded like she was originally from Donegal. She was quite indignant that the States expected her and her children to live on what Social Security gave her. Perhaps she has a genuine complaint, but it sounded very much like she had got used to the idea of the States being responsible for her and her family.

The States will look after them, of course, but they will probably get into trouble for doing so and spending too much taxpayers’ money. It’s just as well that she doesn’t have to go to the Chamber of Commerce for help.

Having said all that, I do believe, for different reasons, that the Council of Ministers are wrong in proposing to remove GST from food, or anything else at this time. The decision has been recently made by the States and the Council of Ministers won a fairly fierce battle to include food among the taxable items.

Circumstances have changed, but then they always will change, and who knows what is around the corner? If food prices escalate further, what do the Council of Ministers do to help then? Obviously they can’t take any more tax off, so they will have to provide hand-outs. Which is precisely what they should do now to help a carefully targeted group of people if necessary.

GST probably should never have been applied to food in the first place, but the Council of Ministers said that it should be for the sake of simplicity, and they won the argument. To change their mind now may just be a sign that they are really concerned about the less well-off, but it can also be seen as a sign of weakness or a lack of commitment to the original principles they agreed to for GST.

Also, as a former Comptroller of Income Tax put it in a Letter to the Editor, it smacks of ‘gesture politics’.
Whatever the Council of Ministers do will attract criticism from all sides, so they might just as well forget trying to please everyone. Instead of going home and doing nothing, perhaps the advice to the Council of Ministers should be to make up their minds and stand by their decisions.

Peter Body is editor of Business Brief magazine