Fort rally tonight
Wednesday 24th November 2010, 2:58PM GMT.
Unite spokesman Nick Corbel
A MASS rally will take place at Fort Regent tonight for Islanders to have their say on plans by the Treasury Minister to increase taxes and cut services.
The protest has been organised by Unite, the union which represents hundreds of manual and other workers, and will, among other things, call for Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf to scrap plans to increase GST.
It is open to all Islanders, not just union members, and will feature a number of guest speakers including Deputies Montfort Tadier and Geoff Southern, Unite’s officer for health and local government, Dave Fleming, Marina Mauger of the National Association of Schoolmasters’ Union of Women Teachers, Anne Southern, head of the Jersey branch of the National Union of Teachers, and former Senator Ted Vibert, president of the Jersey Democratic Alliance.
The rally begins at 6 pm.
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Yeh that’ll be a fun night out, remember if standing near the front to take plenty of tissues to wipe the verbal diarrohea from your faces.
What are we supposed to do, ignore Rome burning and carry on as is? we need to face some tough choices and anyone who thinks we can avoid tax increases is kidding themselves. Of course states workers spitting the dummy and insisting on a pay rise when nobody else got one didn’t help.
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They are having a debate in the house on the whole budget not just GST so what relevance is this meeting apart from getting a load of moaning left wingers in a room together? Good luck with this rally, but sorry as a tax payer working in the private sector I want savings and like thousands of voters its a demand which has to be honoured eventually and as for using savings just to keep people in work it just about sums up this groups’ mentality.
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Didn’t we have a protest against GST? And then they ignored it?
Whats the point? The only way they will listen to us is if we leave the Island, then they will listen!
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I hope they listen to you this time,but have my doubts after ignoring the 19,000 who signed the petition to stop the GST last time.
There is only one way to make them sit up and listen—–have an all out strike,nothing less will do.
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What a shame it is Unite and Nic Corbel involved in this. I’d go otherwise.
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I don’t think the union have it right, I disagree with both Southern and Ted Vibert,and do not think borrowing is at all on…however the politicians Do need to feel the pulse and know the public thoroughly P***ed off with their spending and hiring…and that we the public are done picking up the Tab for their lack of responsibility.the numbers in attendance will be interesting.
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Corbel is living in a dream world. Not only does he not want to cut public spending, he doesn’t want to pay the cost for not cutting spending!
What’s GST got to do with Unite anyway? If I were a fee paying Unite member I would be concerned that my representatives are spending too much of their paid time on issues that don’t concern them. Or is this is sheer desperation to buy public popularity so their ‘no public cuts’ mantra is more warmly received?
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Bella #4
What has strike action got to do with GST? If you’re a public sector worker I can understand Unite calling for strike action against cuts. But why would they call strike action for GST? What next, call strike action because your Sky subscription has gone up?
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The public want savings and how else can they be achieved but by getting rid of unneccassary employees in the States? Its time Unite understood the real world.
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Increasing GST and cutting services are two completely separate issues in my view.
Unite are playing a very clever game. Many people don’t want GST to be increased but may be more in favour of cutting services/jobs, but organising a rally where both issues are on the agenda is obviously going to create more interest than if only services were being protested.
I’d say the majority of people attending the rally will be there to protest against the GST increase and not cutting services (if GST wasn’t mentioned i bet a fraction of people would show an interest and turn up.)
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Another totally naive rally with well known critics of the finance industry involved. According to their flyer its 0-10 Corporation Tax to blame for all the Islands’ ills. Nothing about the worst recession in living memory or the fact that our civil service is one of the most expensive in Europe to maintain. Well I won’t be attending this rubbish thats for sure.
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8#
To make them change their minds about raising the GST of course.
IT should be scrubbed altogether off food and services for a start,before they even think of raising it further
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#4: bella:
People lay into the French a lot, but it’s got to be said, when the populace are unhappy, they damned well let their government know about it.
The most extreme we get over here are angry comments on this site (*If* the JEP feel that we’re allowed to comment on a subject), which is why the government walks all over us. It’s all a little embarrassing, really.
Not to mention the pathetic level of voter turnout…
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Corbel was on telly saying the people of Jersey were united behind him. He certainly doesn’t speak for me and when the cameras swung to the oooh… several dozen people in the hall, he clearly doesn’t speak for many others, either!!
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fizzle… pop…
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(1) States members got a substantial payrise, undeservedly!
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“fizzle… pop…”
Give it eighteen months when middle Jersey realises that it is paying for almost everything and getting not a lot in return and the situation will get more than a little warm!
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So, it seems that we need to balance the budget to the tune of £100m a year.
Ozouf et al want to cut a slice from all services and hope to raise a bit more in taxes and hope, as Pip points out, that the 10,000 people that constitute middle Jersey don’t object to paying for everything and getting nothing back.
The loonies want to raid the piggy bank until it is empty and then – well, they haven’t really got a plan after that.
Is there not one person in the States with any vision? Are we destined to be ruled either by bean counters or by those wish to be bean counters but find it a challenge too far?
A giant tub of melted lard, suspended from the ceiling on the States chamber ad dripping randomly upon the voting terminals would provide more direction than the hapless captain and the disgruntled mutineers can manage. It would be cheaper, too.
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I am pleased to see that only about 400 turned up, less than half of what Nick Corbel expected.
Perhaps that is because the vast majority of islanders are well aware that in these recessionary times we need to be trimming the fat. To advocate borrowing to keep all these public workers in their jobs is sheer lunacy, they should try working in the private sector, might be a shock for them.
I regularly observe three refuse collectors sitting on a wall drinking tea and eating pasties whilst they read the paper and laugh, enjoying their unofficial 30-minute tea break at our expense. Yet Nick Corbel thinks we should borrow money to make sure these three darlings carry on laughing at us?
I regularly see drug addicts getting free gear from the hospital. I regularly see alcoholics vomiting into the kids playground after a day of drinking on the parade at our expense (probably vomiting up their free sandwiches from the hospital or their free soup from well-meaning yet naive people).
It also Bothers me to see chavs on benefits sitting in the pub then going home to watch Sky or the latest blu-ray release on their large-screen televisions, doing considerably more than just ‘surviving’ on our governments handouts.
Part of me is glad that we are in a recession because it’s high time we started making cuts. We’ve been a soft touch for far too long and have developed into a lazy, workshy culture. No wonder the immigrants get all the jobs when there are so many slackers milking the system.
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Can’t wait for the headlines: “Audience plumments as stuck record loses its novelty”.
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Tobias
‘I am pleased to see that only about 400 turned up, less than half of what Nick Corbel expected.’
What was on the new digital telly, football?
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wrong time,wrong venue.
next saturday in royal square,a rally,is now arranged,as long as the weather is ok.
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Bella,12,
Ozouf must have read your comment,it was mentioned on Sat.JEP that he is thinking of removing GST on food and increasing GST by 1% on everything else,not his wurst idea as next to mortgage or rent most income is spent on food.
It was too much to expect him to do this with no strings attached.
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Tobias: Well said. Someone has to make decisions, and you and I ae the one’s to do it!
That is the sort of attitude we need around this place (though the comment about having a recession being a good thing… slightly concerning HOWEVER it has helped with the mortgage repayments, shoudl all be done and dusted in two years as a result!).
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Got to get elected before you start changing public policy and you will not be offering yourself to the electorate before 2014 and they could turn you down!
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Pip – well that is obvious, however it is possible to influence public policy from the sidelines (have done so in past twelve months). No, I am not going to give you the specific details, as then you will know who I am…
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Sorry, but unless you are a completely different individual when you are in real life I just cannot imagine any of our politicians taking advice from you.
The conservative group in the States needs to carry the centre with it to keep power and you would be like a fart in a lift to them.
I know quite a few States members and associated hangers on and none of them even remotely fit your claimed job description and lifestyle.
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Well Pip we shall see.
However you as usual make a huge assumption – that I gave a States member advice. Firstly you clearly have no understanding how to lobby.
It involved dealing with two States members, discussing alternatives to themselves as candidates should they fail to support a particular direction, and then lobbying a particular States department to suggest idea’s on public policy to the present to a States member.
You really should get out more, but then again you are real ‘busy’….
Hey Pip, your envy speaks so loud, it is difficult to understand what you type…
The politics of envy is not an attractive quality
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Bella has made me chuckle. At the Senatorial by-election, the JDA were trounced because they clearly advocated a policy which the majority of people in Jersey just don’t agree with – we really do want cuts in Public Spending. But the JDA imploded because, they said, their hands-on leader, Geoff Southern wasn’t the man who should have stood. Point over there, JDA over there. And then we had the farce of a rally where a few hundred people turned up to continue to support the minority view, but oh, that was because it was the “wrong time, wrong venue”. Wrong policy more like. And then, and I really love this, the masses will gather, passions raging, to show their “to the death” opposition to the current Ministers in the face of such dreadful economic management and appalling policies – “as long as the weather is OK” !!! Joke, party, joke policies, joke full stop.
PS Anyone catch the ITV girl at Fort Regent, talking to camera with a near-empty hall behind her, announcing that “people are now flooding in”. I wonder if her Editor is happy with her observational skills.
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The trouble with the vocal minority is that they are just that, vocal. Pip Clement, Truthseeker and Adrian think because they shout the loudest that they hold sway. They do not. It is the silent majority, represented on this forum by the likes of Real Truthseeker, Donald Pond, joker and others who give the informed and rational arguments and responses which hold more credibility. There have been awful spending errors by the States, but the majority of us think that Ozouf, TLS and the COM are doing their best in difficult international circumstances. We are in a far healthier financial position than almost ANY jurisdiction in the world, bar none. Most countries are desperately trying to fund or reduce their borrowings. We have none, thanks to good financial management over the years, which will only improve when we vote in Real Truthseeker for Senator! And please, don’t someone suggest I am he, it’s simply that I honestly agree with every word he has put on this forum…
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It is sad to say but everyone interested in politics in Jersey is in a very small minority indeed, even a large number of States members are determinedly apolitical.
The chance of Phillip Ozouf hanging on to his seat in 2014 will be low because of the planned reduction in Senators.
There will be six sitting members but only four seats up for grabs so it will be close for the sitting members who start with a large advantage so unless Real Truthseeker is an Ian le Marquand type figure getting in will be very hard indeed. Terry le Sueur will almost certainly be gone by then as will quite a few other older members.
My Deputy and Constable are both going in 2011 so there will be new men or women there.
The fact is that they have had enough. A few years ago it was easy, there was plenty of money and we funded everything.
I predict that almost all the good old boys and girls will drop out as the tax rises and cuts take place and the public moan more and more.
It will be interesting to see who takes their places!
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On any honest assessment of the political situation in Jersey the majority do not care at all. Their attitude is best summed up as a plague on all your houses; right, left and centre.
The turn out is probably less than in any other Western democracy.
Simply put the Council of Ministers is seen as a failure but the fact is that there is not a credible alternative so most of them will continue to govern.
However some will be kicked out like Guy de Faye and Mike Vibert last time who paid the price for the failures of their departments.
I can see Jim Perchard, Terry le Main and Freddie Cohen being given their cards by the electorate if they stand again!
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I care Pip
I wish my deputy would go… long walk, short pier etc.etc. Some just do, others just talk.
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