ROYAL weddings. How we love them.

The announcement of Prince William’s forthcoming marriage to Kate Middleton is all the more interesting for two reasons – the prince’s proximity to the throne of England, and his late mother Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles.

Realistically, there are bound to be ongoing comparisons between whatever happens next April and the fairy tale start to the marriage of Charles and Diana. That dress – and the ring which Kate Middleton is brave to wear – remain as memorable as ever.

I will enjoy a public holiday as much as anyone, but it does surprise me a little that our Chief Minister embraced the idea so readily – particularly as this year’s Liberation Day holiday failed to ignite his enthusiasm. Even if the UK holiday does include the City of London, our finance industry’s business interests in the rest of the world will surely continue and, therefore, will require staff to be at their desks as usual.

And although we are still a Crown Dependency, it isn’t as if the British monarchy are that interested in their offshore territories these days – if it weren’t for Durrell, would we see any of the Royal family from one year to the next?

I can’t help feeling that the Island’s Crown allegiance might one day go the way of other largely outmoded alliances – the Empire, for example, which used to feature so frequently in the earliest copies of the Evening Post. Even the Commonwealth, by and large, only features in the consciousness of member states once a year or on sporting occasions.

Some do, of course, regard Jersey’s devotion to the British monarchy as more of a hindrance than a help. Without it, would there be as much pressure on the Island to adhere to the European Union’s Code of Conduct on business taxation, that thorny agreement forged between the EU states over ten years ago and which is now causing our Council of Ministers to squirm with more than a little embarrassment.

The whole matter was, you see, supposed to be done and dusted and in the bag, well before the zero-ten saga was thrust upon us.

I well recall, many moons ago, as a fledgling business reporter, being ushered into the inner sanctums of a top accountancy office by two members of the finance industry who were keen to impart the reasoning behind the zero-ten holy grail.

In minute and painstaking detail they spelt out the difficulties the Island faced, given that the EU’s Code of Conduct was likely to require the erosion of some of our most hallowed tax practices, in particular the International Business Company regime (which enabled many of the larger banks to pay as little as half a per cent tax on their foreign profits) and the Exempt Company regime which applied to non-Island based companies registered here.

If the EU was to define these schemes as ‘harmful’, warned my contacts, some means would have to be found to sustain them in another way, so that the international companies using the Island would feel as little pain as possible. Otherwise, said the sages, the finance industry would quickly find somewhere else to go.

And so zero-ten was born. It was nurtured into being by a think-tank of shrewd and wily practitioners who lobbied – and are still lobbying – behind the scenes to persuade our politicians that this was the only and best option. And so it came to pass that despite the £100 million deficit envisaged to afflict public finances as a result of the loss of tax from non-Island-based companies, and the ten per cent no longer paid by finance companies, our political lords and masters were over a barrel. They agreed to it.

And then they had to find a way to fill the £100 million, so someone came up with VAT/GST.

Only no one thought that the recession was going to be this bad, not even our Treasury Minister. Or even if he did, there was no way he was going to admit it.
So now here we are, this very week, still uncertain – despite reassurances from the same minister – whether the zero-ten regime that was supposed to appease the European Union’s finance ministers is going to fit their criteria after all.
I just hope that someone, somewhere, has thought up some pretty convincing contingency plans.