Ted Vibert

OPPOSERS HAVE BEEN VINDICATED ON ZERO-TEN POLICY

2011-09-21T16:08:00.000+01:00

Letter to Jersey Evening Post 19th September

YOUR EDITORIAL 'Vindication for zero-ten tax policy' (14 September) is remarkable for the extraordinary amount of misinformation contained in it.

You simply failed to explain that the zero-ten policy just approved by the European Union is not the zero-ten policy which they declared was against their Code of Conduct.

It was the original zero-ten plan that I and others claimed over the years would not be accepted by Europe. And we were right.

Back in 2002, Europe told Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man that the zero-ten proposal presented to them did comply with their Corporate Taxation Code of Conduct.

When Europe later declared that it was not happy with the original zero-ten proposals, Jersey authorities made the excuse that 'Europe changed its mind, having first approved it and then disapproved it'. That line was also peddled by the then Bailiff of Jersey, Sir Philip Bailhache, in one of his many forays into the political arena.

Senator Le Sueur later let the cat out of the bag when he admitted that only the bare bones of the proposal was put forward to Europe, it did not include the 'deemed dividend section' and it was only an 'in-principle agreement awaiting further detail'.

When Europe saw the 'deemed dividend section' it considered this and declared that it breached their Code of Conduct and was unfair and discriminatory.

Which is what 1 and others had been saying for several years and been condemned for doing so by the Le Sueur/Ozouf group of politicians who claimed that we did not know what we were talking about.

Having put Jersey's finance industry into a position of great uncertainty for over a year with the subsequent loss of business, the politicians responsible for this fiasco realised that the only way out of their difficulty was to alter the deemed distribution section so that shareholders in Jersey companies would be treated in the same way as foreign-based companies trading in Jersey where shareholders pay no tax on their profIts until they were distributed.

Therefore, to suggest that those who supported zero-ten have been vindicated and that those who opposed it now have 'egg on their face' is totally wrong. We are the ones who were vindicated by the first European decision.

What your editorial also failed to recognise is that this change to zero-ten is now going to create enormous opportunities for tax evasion by local shareholders.

It now means that if an individual in a Jersey company builds up a substantial sum of profits over a number of years and then decides that he no longer wishes to run his business and sells it he gets all his profits tax free because there is no capital gains tax in Jersey.

The Chief Minister has already announced that this new version for zero-ten will lead to a loss of at least £10 million in revenue to add to our fiscal problems. How is this to be recovered? Another rise in GST?

To suggest that anyone involved in this fiasco that has cost Jersey over £10 million in lost revenue deserves any praise or credit is an absolute travesty and another excursion into Cloud Cuckoo-Land.

THE JERSEY FINANCE INDUSTRY IS sooooooOOOOOOOOOOH TRANSPARENT!!!!

2011-09-12T11:53:00.000+01:00

The total myth of the Jersey Finance Industry being a highly respected and transparent industry has been well and truly blown apart by the actions of the Nigerian Government pursuing 20 million pounds of embezzled funds hidden in Jersey bank accounts.

These funds were the proceeds of corrupt deals with motor vehicles carried out by Nigeria’ s late dictator Sani Abacha. In his six year reign Sacha is estimated to have embezzled £2.2 billion of which £200 million is rumoured to still be in Jersey.

The location of this cash was only discovered when a Nigerian bag-man called Raj Bhojwani was jailed for six years for his part in laundering US$43million through his Jersey bank accounts.

Quite obviously the Nigerian Government is very grateful to the Jersey authorities and our Attorney General has stated that it was a pleasure to help a country that had suffered so much through corruption and underlined his department’s commitment to seizing the proceeds of crime and returning them to their rightful country.

All of this, of course, beggars the question: how on earth can the spin masters at Jersey Finance and their acolytes like John Boothman and Geoffrey Grime tell the Jersey people that their largest industry is squeaky clean and totally transparent. If that is so, how come we are accepting money from dodgy businessman acting on behalf of corrupt dictators from poverty- stricken countries? It is shameful , disgusting and totally immoral and besmirches any pride we can have in our island.

We will no doubt be told by those deceitful spin-masters at Jersey Finance that this is a one-off situation and cannot happen again and nothing like that is goes on today.

If you believe that, you must believe in the tooth fairy.

How can we believe that Jersey has a transparent tax regime when what the States does is create legislation written by the finance industry for the benefit of people who don’t live on this island and lets those people who live elsewhere in the world avoid their obligations to the societies where they really live and work.

They are able to do this because Jersey- like all tax havens- have developed a deliberate veil of secrecy which deliberately prevents the tax authorities in the places where they really live and lead their lives from finding out where they have hidden their money.

Of course, these local tax manipulators hide all this behind cleverly worded instruments with names like “tax information exchange agreements” which they sign with various countries to show how co-operative we are when tax authorities from other countries come calling to find out if any of their citizens are using Jersey to hide away their money.

There are two problems with these agreements. First, our authorities do not ask or record the one crucial question that matters—where do you pay tax on your income? The second problem is that we have no experience of operating tax information agreements, as the OECD has pointed out.

As I have said before- and won’t apologise for repeating it- how can Jersey be regarded as being in any way transparent when at least 50% of all personal banks accounts in St. Helier do not disclose the information on income received to their home tax authorities.

How can we say that we have stopped money from sources like the Nigerian money when Jersey totally refuses automatic information exchange under the European Union Savings Directive-the only sure way to stop tax evasion on personal accounts that there is.

How do we know that these illicit funds won’t still be finding their way into Jersey bank accounts when we still cannot find out who owns a Jersey company, who the nominee directors of those companies are really representing and can never see the accounts of a Jersey based company.
It’s about as transparent as a bowl of mud.

The leaders of the Jersey Finance Industry lie through their back teeth to the people of Jersey about how transparent it all is and that they don’t want tax evader’s money. Yet the behaviour of banks does not match this story at all. Remember that BBC flagship programme Panorama last year, when a reporter with a hidden microphone in a briefcase came to Jersey and pretended to be an investor with £4 million to bank. The bank official spent most of the time telling him how he could avoid tax in the UK. Of course, the bank concerned said that this was a “one off” and not the general practice of the bank and the manager had been “reprimanded”. Oh yeah- a one off and a reprimand! The Tooth Fairy again.

How long will it be before we discover that Libya’s dictator Gadaffi hasn’t salted away billions that are deposited in Jersey bank accounts.

Is this all the rantings of a Grosnez bumpkin? May be. But when the head of the UK’s Revenue and Customs tells a Parliamentary C committee that Jersey‘s finance industry is opaque and how difficult it is to break it down, you can rest assured that this Grosnez boy is right.
Of course, that can’t happen because our banking industry is sooooooOOOOOOH transparent.

THIS IS ANOTHER FINE MESS YOU’VE GOT US INTO SENATOR OZOUF

2011-09-04T22:19:00.002+01:00

The trouble with Senator Ozouf is that he thinks he is a clever businessman. The fact is that he has never run a business of his own in his life that hasn’t been a flop - and he lives off the inheritance left to him by of his family.

But because he has such a high opinion of himself, he is a positive danger in the important role he has as the man in charge of our public spending. This high opinion would be bad enough on its own but it is allied to a personality trait called “control freak”. He has to have his finger in every pie because he believes that he is cleverer than anyone else and is the only person who can negotiate a deal.

We have two totally different versions of the police administration cock up for the Lime Grove building in Green Street.

In the blue corner, we have Home Affairs Minister former Magistrate Senator Ian Le Marquand who blames Ozouf for the mess.

In the red corner, we have Ozouf protesting that it wasn’t his fault and that Home Affairs had not briefed the Treasury with the details of the deal until a few weeks before they were due to sign the deal.

So who do we believe? Ozouf is a consistent liar (remember “I give you a categorical assurance that I will not increase GST in the event of a recession”) and “our black hole in our revenue has been caused by the recession (when we all know it was due to the decision to introduce “zero ten”). On the other hand Senator Le Marquand has never been exposed as not telling the truth (not to say that he has always made good decisions, but that’s another matter).

However, consider this. On July 1st this year the JEP carried this story “Jersey could soon have a £20 million new police station. After months of speculation, Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf has announced that he wants to buy a landmark office block that has stood empty for years and turn it into the police’s new administration headquarters. The expected £20 million cost would include the purchase of the site, its complete refurbishment and the move”.

Oh dear Philip - so you weren’t briefed about it. Did you ask any questions about how the negotiations were going back in July?

And then there was an entry on the JEP blog site from “Ali” which read:
“These comments from the Treasury Minister are outrageous and wholly inaccurate. As someone who worked at the Treasury at the time I can say that Property Holdings did brief the Treasury, chief executive and Minister and his assistant throughout the process. The offer that was made to the owners of the building was always subject to the Ministers approval and contract. Mr. Ozouf was completely aware of this and what the offer was as were the Treasury”

This posting ended with this judgement: “Be a man for a change, not a boy, and take responsibility for your cock-up. It only went pear shaped when you and Mr. Izatt decided that you knew best. Look what happened when you get involved beyond your expertise—the public loses out”.

I accept that postings on blogs can easily be manipulated. But when you put all the evidence together and when you have had as many dealings with him as I have had, I have no doubt that the blame for the shambles rest fairly on the shoulders of Senator Ozouf.

WATCH OUT – THE OZOUF POLITICAL PARTY IS WORKING OVERTIME

2011-09-02T21:46:00.006+01:00

SO YOU THOUGHT that here were no political parties in Jersey. Well think again. The Jersey establishment has always derided party politics and says that party politics are not acceptable to the people in Jersey. However, behind the scenes at election time, Philip Ozouf and his cohorts are all working overtime, nominating candidates and giving them moral and financial support, to bolster their numbers in the States.

Make no mistake - if any of the following are successful, Senator Philip Ozouf will be Jersey’s next Chief Minister.

All of the following are Ozouf supporters:

Kristina Moore (St. Peter) - Philip Ozouf is godfather to their children.

Mary O’ Keefe Burger (St. Helier no 1) is being proposed by former Senator Pierre Horsefall, a great fan and mentor of Philip Ozouf.

Ray Shead (no 3 St. Helier) recent former chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and a big fan of Ozouf’s, who fully supported huge cuts in public services when he supported a group of businessmen called the Small Society (he didn’t feel that the cuts went far enough). Supported the increase in GST to 5%% and felt that taking GST off food would cost businesses money and would inconvenience them. The Small Society were reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority for misleading advertising.

James Baker (St. Helier no 1) son of former Constable of St. Helier, Peter Baker and his brother owned Noel and Porter and Frederick Baker. They sold Noel and :Porter to BHS who demolished the historic shop and replaced it with the present monument to ugliness. Lives in St. Martin.

Heidi Green (St. Saviour no 1). Close friend of James Baker, member of the Institute of Directors and also a clear establishment nomination.

Andrew Lewis (St. John), a great supporter of Ozouf. As Home Affairs Minister in the previous States, he was responsible for the sacking of police chief Graham Power, in a manner that was totally unsatisfactory, which is likely to cost the island dearly because of these irregularities. He owns a public relations company and has spent the last three years spinning for various banks and government departments. Is known to be writing speeches for many of Ozouf’ candidates and training them in speech-making. No prize for guessing who he would like to see as Chief Minister!!

And finally we have that lout Terry Le Main claiming that he wants to go back to his roots, and become a deputy in St. Helier number 2. If ever a man betrayed his supporters it has been Terry Le Main. His list of wrong doings goes on and on, from breaches of Data Protection laws to allegations, still not yet resolved, of corruption in conjunction with a land developer His ignorance and lack of intellect are a constant embarrassment to States members. He is he only States member to be recorded in Hansard for snoring during a debate. He was dismissed as Housing Minister for attempting to interfere with a prosecution of the man who printed all his electoral material and a close personal friend. He believes that Ozouf is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The Jones boy in Grouville. A lawyer and manager of a hedge fund which didn't do very well by all accounts. One of the Jones family which owns the Jersey Pottery and who recently sold their site at Gorey to Dandara which should be the kiss of death to his chances. I can't believe that Grouville would prefer him to Carolyn Labey who has done so much for the parish and supported the ordinary people of Jersey over such issues as taking GST off food and against GST altogether as well as her work in protecting the island's heritage sites and her work on education. This should be no contest as the Jones boy is a strong Ozouf man and has been promised the education portfolio by our arrogant Treasurer whereas Carolyn has always opposed his form of closed and secret government.

So be warned when deciding who to vote for think this thought - will this candidate help to put Senator Ozouf in as our Chief Minister

Then make your judgement.

NO MORAL CASE FOR TAX HAVENS

2011-08-30T13:23:00.000+01:00

A BBC economics expert remarked only last week that "the world is closing down for tax evaders. Soon there will be no place for them to hide their secret wealth"

He was commenting on the recent decision of the Swiss authorities that will allow UK tax inspectors access to secret bank accounts held in Switzerland and will enable them to recoup up to £6 billion a year

I have been warning about how vulnerable the Jersey economy is for some years now. I have argued that our whole economy is built on a foundation of sand which is shifting and eroding and we are very vulnerable to any change in tax laws in various countries who find themselves adversely affected by our activities

Countries are now no longer prepared to stand by and watch their tax laws evaded and slowly but surely the noose is tightening around tax havens like Jersey. Nicholas Shaxson, the author, has written a devastating book "Treasure Island" in which he lays bare the whole disgraceful industry of tax evasion and tax avoidance which has become an international best seller

It has also opened the eyes of serious financial journalists and politicians and more and more newspaper articles are appearing in the international media about dubious and dodgy practices of "international finance centres" The latest appeared in yesterday's Sunday Independent which I am happy to reprint in full

Headed "THERE IS NO MORAL CASE FOR TAX HAVENS and a sub-heading of "They are the epitome of unfairness and injustice, leaving ordinary citizens to foot the bill for multi-national corporations". .

Independent Sunday, 28 August 2011

There is a building in the Cayman Islands that is home to 12,000 corporations. It must be a very big building. Or a very big tax scam. Tax havens are in the spotlight since the Chancellor, George Osborne, did a deal the other day with the Swiss authorities to slap a levy on secret bank accounts held there by British citizens. Opinions are divided on the move, which could net the Treasury £5bn, but which tacitly legitimises bank accounts kept secret from the Inland Revenue. It is a de facto amnesty for those guilty of tax evasion crimes. And they will pay less than they would if they declared their income to the British taxman.
Are there any legitimate reasons why anyone would want to have a secret bank account – and pay a premium to maintain their anonymity – or move their money to one of the pink dots on the map which are the final remnants of the British empire: the Caymans, Bermuda, the Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands?
The moral case against is clear enough. Tax havens epitomise unfairness, cheating and injustice. They replace the old morality embodied in the Golden Rule of reciprocity – that we should do as we would be done by – with a new version that insists that those who have the gold make the rules.
The old view, the neocon American Christopher Caldwell wrote recently, subscribes to a religious understanding of money that was universal in the Christian world before the rise of Protestantism, which acknowledges that people are alive but money is not, making it wrong for the latter to take precedence over the former – a notion as outdated as usury, he suggested tartly.
But what is the moral case for tax havens? We can dispense with the argument advanced by their administrators that if they didn't take the money it would simply move to more distant locations; that is the self-serving logic of a man who sells torture equipment to an oppressive regime. Apologists insist that tax havens protect individual liberty. They promote the accumulation of capital, fair competition between nations and better tax law elsewhere in the world. They also foster economic growth. So much so, the Institute of Directors has said, that Britain should not curb tax havens but emulate them, promoting the growth of more hedge funds in the UK.
Yet even if all that were true – and it is not – does it outweigh the ethical harm they do? The numbered bank accounts of tax havens are notoriously sanctuaries for the spoils of theft, fraud, bribery, terrorism, drug-dealing, illegal betting, money-laundering and plunder by Arab despots such as Gaddafi, Mubarak and Ben Ali, all of whom had Swiss accounts frozen.
The corruption spreads contagion, as the financial writer Nicholas Shaxson showed in Treasure Islands, his book about offshore finance which exposed secrecy, corruption and intimidation in places as seemingly innocent as that land of milk and money, such as Jersey in the Channel Islands.
But the moral bankruptcy of the tax haven runs deeper. Indeed it is intrinsic to its purpose. The British Virgin Islands is the global capital for the incorporation of offshore companies. Though it has a population of just 22,000, it has 823,502 registered companies which make vast amounts of money through the wonder of transfer pricing. It works like this. Suppose I manufacture a product in Africa and sell it in the UK. If I am a canny businessman I set up an intermediate company in a tax haven. It need do nothing except exist on paper. But through it I can buy all the products I make in Africa, dirt cheap, and then sell them, at a much higher cost, to my UK subsidiary. The African and British companies do not, thus, make much profit, so I have little or no tax to pay. All the money stays offshore, where taxes are low or non-existent. This is perfectly legal. But it distorts the world economy and means I pay no tax. I can also borrow where rates are lowest and keep my costs where they are most tax deductible.
That is why General Electric paid no taxes in 2010, despite $14.2bn profits. It's why Barclays, with 181 subsidiaries registered in the Caymans, paid relatively little UK tax on its worldwide profits. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, with 152 subsidiaries in tax havens according to the US government, paid no net UK corporation tax between 1988 and 1999.
Half the world's trade flows through tax havens. Every multinational uses them routinely. So do banks. Almost 70 per cent of international trade now happens within, rather than between, multinationals. Christian Aid reckons that tax dodging costs developing countries at least $160bn a year – far more than they receive in aid. The US research centre Integrity estimated that more than $1.2trn drained out of poor countries illicitly in 2008 alone.
Tax injustice is systemic to the tax haven. Barack Obama once understood that. During his election campaign he promised to crack down on corporate loopholes and tax havens. But he and other world leaders have not delivered on bursting open the seedy secret underworld of tax havens that nurtured the hedge funds, derivative trading and off-balance sheet lending that fuelled the 2008 global financial crash.
Their malign influence continues, with hedge funds accounting for at least 30 per cent, and perhaps as much as 60 per cent, of current trading on the London and New York exchanges. There, they have quintupled short-selling. They have turned credit default swaps, designed as a protective insurance, into a way of betting on the failure of a company. The Caymans (population 50,000) is home to 70 per cent of hedge-fund registrations worldwide.
And, as rich people waive their taxes, poor people wave goodbye to their jobs. "The rich are different from you and me," Scott Fitzgerald famously said. "Yes," wisecracked Ernest Hemingway in response, "they have more money." Today the difference is that they pay less in taxes.
The real shame of Osborne's half-baked deal with Switzerland is that it has undermined the revised EU savings tax directive. That would have required an automatic exchange of information on income in bank accounts throughout the EU and in Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Britain's tax havens. All the EU member states, but two, had approved it. It would have dealt not just with individuals but also with companies, trusts, foundations and other complex structures.
Some say an attack on tax havens is an attack on wealth creation. It is no such thing. It is a demand for the good functioning of capitalism, balancing the demands of efficiency and of justice, and placing a value on social harmony.
The billionaire investor Warren Buffett recognised that in The New York Times when he scathingly asserted the US Congress is in thrall to the super-rich. Thanks to his clever investment managers he pays only 17.4 per cent in tax – half what his office workers pay. That does not just boost inequality. It undermines faith in the fairness and integrity of the international financial system. And that is a political time bomb.

As has been reported in the media, I have decided not to stand in the Senatorial elections but I will be contesting a seat in the Deputy election in number 3 district in St. Helier, where I now live. I have explained fully my reasons for this below.

2011-08-25T15:39:00.000+01:00

I have pulled out of the Senatorial election because I believe it will descend into a “personality circus” and the real issues facing the people of Jersey "will be by-passed and get submerged in a welter of personal vendettas.”

I am also conflicted by the fact that I have consistently campaigned for the Clothier proposals to be instituted and his proposals should be put to a referendum so that the public can have their say. In support of this, I have always argued that the island- wide mandate actually counts for nothing. A Senator elected with 14,000 votes has no more influence or power than a Deputy with 270 votes or a Constable with no votes.

This is shown clearly by the fact that of the ten ministers, who make up the Council of Ministers, four are deputies and 2 are constables. They are responsible for housing, health, social security, planning and environment, transport and technical services and education. Senators are responsible for the chief minister, treasury, home affairs and economic development. That means that there are 8 Senators with no ministerial responsibilities. So why be a Senator?

I agree with the public’s analysis carried out by the JEP that the October elections should be about the performance of States members over the last three years and whether or not they had failed to tackle immigration, fairer taxation levels, public service salaries, the use of consultants, government secrecy, human rights legislation covering discrimination in all its forms, accountability, freedom of information, transparency, control of public expenditure, unemployment and diversification of the economy

I believe I can serve my constituents in number 3/4 and around the island more effectively from the deputy benches.

I have been asked what my election manifesto is and I can only answer that it is what I have been talking about, making speeches about, getting petitions signed on. That is what I pledge to do.

Unlike Ozouf, I keep my election promises. I am simply asking people if they are happy with the things that have happened in the last six years, they should vote the “old guard “back in. But if the public want change they need to choose people who are pushing for change—not the Ozouf “plants” about which I will be writing later.

So I ask the following question

ARE YOU HAPPY WITH THESE RESULTS?

Failing to hedge the euro value of a massive contract for the Incinerator (the biggest in the island’s history) which has cost the island over 4 million pounds.Failing to take action over the massive increase in population, when all the warnings were given by concerned people and organisations that this was taking place.
Wasting the opportunity to provide the island with a magnificent waterfront development and, instead, given us a conglomeration of monstrous ugliness.
Allowing the top public servants to increase their salaries to astronomical proportions, engage consultants at enormous cost - instead of doing the job themselves - and to continue with their gold plated pension schemes.
Failing to diversify the economy thereby allowing the island to become hostage to the finance industry, which is built on the shifting and dodgy sands of tax avoidance?
Ignoring advice that the zero-ten tax regime would fall foul of the European Code of Conduct and would have to be scrapped.
Causing the tax burden to shift savagely from the corporate sector on to the shoulders of the public (as a result of introducing zero ten, corporate tax has dropped from 52% to 12% in ten years and personal tax - that’s you and me - has risen from 42% to 84%.)
Allowing a consultant for the Hospital to be engaged at a ludicrous cost.
Despoiling our coastline with developments like Portelet and protecting Jersey’s ugliest building, the Odeon, and blocking a £40 million development that would have rejuvenated an ugly part of St. Helier.
Threatening to remove grants from private schools and dismantle what is an excellent education system.
Allowing our road system to deteriorate to such a degree that will cost £100million to put right.
Letting our housing stock deteriorate so much that £84million has to be spent.
Failing to tackle the Housing problem and provide decent homes for young people at a reasonable cost.
Allowing the tax burden to shift from business to the people- in 2000 business contributed 52% of our tax revenue and now it's leapt from 42 to 84%.
Building an incinerator of total ugliness on a beautiful Ramsar foreshore and ignored all expert advice about the site being inappropriate.
Leaving the island without a reciprocal health agreement with the UK for nearly two years.
Closing the Fort Regent swimming pool and totally neglecting the development of Fort Regent as a sporting and health centre (as well as paying a subsidy to a Waterfront pool that costs over £500,000 a year)

WHY IS THE JERSEY MEDIA SO GUSHING WHEN IT COMES TO DEALING WITH OBSCURE BRITISH MPS?

2011-08-23T12:43:00.000+01:00

THE JERSEY MEDIA - both the JEP and BBC Radio - have given a huge amount of space to a recent visit to Jersey by a Shrewsbury MP and his views about what a wonderful place Jersey is and how he is going to try and persuade Mr. Cameron, the British Prime Minister to visit the island and see his concept of The Big Society in action. Don’t hold your breath!

Let’s get this straight. The fawning Jersey media gave the impression to the Jersey people that this British politician was someone of significance in British political life. The JEP said that he was a junior minister of agriculture and “chaired two committees on relationships with the Arab world.”.

Sounds impressive - until you do a bit of research into the man. This research shows that he is a political lightweight. He is not a junior Minister of Agriculture. He is merely a parliamentary private secretary to a junior Minister of Agriculture which is as far removed from the power base of politics in the UK as a milk monitor is from the headmaster.

How come he was in Jersey? Well, there’s an election coming up isn’t there. And although Ozouf and McClean are not up for election, they are backing a number of candidates to bolster their influence within the States..

So enter Ozouf’s great admirer, Freddie Cohen - the MP was brought here by the amiable Senator Freddie Cohen as a sort of trophy. His gaggle of political friends led by Philip Ozouf are desperately worried about the forthcoming elections and the likely election of some serious opposition to them and the possible foiling of Ozouf’s Chief Ministerial ambitions.

They need someone to say how good Jersey is so they bring political non-entities to Jersey, give them a good time, wine him and dine him, let him be brainwashed by the spin masters at Jersey Finance, take him to meet officials of the Jersey Financial Commission and send him home with a pot of black butter, a bottle of la Mare wine and a silver Jersey milk can singing the praises of Jersey.

He was impressed by everything about the island. He told the JEP that “this is an extremely tidy and safe place. It has all the attributes of the sort of community that we all want to live in and I think that the UK can learn from that”.

This is the one thing he said that I agree with. It is a lovely place to live if you have money. And it is an argument I have been putting as to why our wealthy workers (lawyers, accountants, finance workers at high levels and top level public servants who would never leave Jersey if we were to put their tax up slightly to help pay for what less well-off residents require to make their lives more tolerable.

Of course, what Jersey Finance and Freddie Cohen want him to say is that Jersey makes a huge contribution to the UK by pumping money - most of it gained through tax avoidance schemes - into the City of London. He is reported in the JEP as saying: “I am staggered by the amount of support that the City of London has had from Jersey, the massive liquidity that is pumped into London as a result of Jersey’s offshore status and the work that you do here. Not enough is known in the UK about the hugely important financial benefits that we get from Jersey”

If he starts peddling this kind of nonsense around Westminster, he is likely to get very short shrift from colleagues. They will point out to him that much of the money coming into Jersey comes from tax avoidance schemes from around the world, some of it from their own country. They will also point out that if the British taxpayer hadn’t bailed out HBOS-Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock and others, the Jersey finance industry would have collapsed.

Some of them will also point out that the head of Revenue and Customs told a recent House of Lords Select Committee that Jersey tax information exchange agreements were not transparent and that they found it impossible to get information from Jersey authorities. Others will tell him that moves are afoot to curb the Jersey fulfilment industry which is damaging British High Street shops.

We are also in conflict with the UK Treasury over our Zero Ten tax regime which has been declared non-compliant by the European Union.

If Freddie Cohen is keen on visiting political lightweights coming to Jersey to see what we are all about he should make sure that anyone like this insignificant MP knows that we have1400 people unemployed (40% of them under 21), house prices as expensive as in London, making it impossible for young people to ever own their own home, no anti-discrimination legislation, a government system where the chief judge (Bailiff) is also the president of the States, where legal fees are the most expensive in Britain. Visiting politicians should be allowed to visit Age Concern and talk to Mrs. Minihane about how the elderly are struggling to make ends meet with food prices 30% higher than in the UK with GST on food pushing the cost even higher.

These visitors need to be told that the cost of paying rent, feeding a family, and transporting them is 60% higher her than in the UK.

This will soon turn their rose-tinted spectacles a dark shade of grey.

NOT OUT... NOT OUT... NOT OUT FISTICUFFS AT ANNUAL CRICKET MATCH....

2011-08-18T15:28:00.000+01:00

“The Bailiff is not in any real sense involved in making the law. His function as president of the States is that of a neutral umpire ensuring the observance of the rules of debate” Sir Philip Bailhache, Bailiff of Jersey, letter to Policy and Resources criticising the Clothier Report 15th February 2001

The extra-ordinary decision by the former Bailiff of Jersey, Sir Philip Bailhache, to stand for a Senator seat in the forthcoming October elections is totally without precedent. Having been in the public eye for over 30 years, 15 of them as Jersey’s leading citizen as chief judge of the Royal Court and President of the States of Jersey he has an enormous unfair advantage over other candidates.

Whilst it is true that as Citizen Bailhache there would appear to be no legal way in which he can be prevented from this action, it is also clear that if he is elected - and this is by no means certain as many people will see through his statement that he has no desire to be the Chief Minister because I predict that this is exactly what he aspires to - the States will be placed in a ridiculous situation where his brother William, Deputy Bailiff, who presides over half of the States sittings, will be totally unable to be a neutral umpire.

The situation could well mirror this report published in the JEP of the annual cricket match between a team representing the Constitutional Lawyers and the Very Clever Lawyers, played at the Farmers Field, St. Martin.

“Opening batsman Sir Philip Bailhache, for the Constitutionals, was at the batsman’s end facing the bowling of Advocate Philip Sinel for the Very Clevers. Sinel is a very accomplished off-spinner, having learnt the art at Eton and later gained a cricket blue at Oxford. Sinel beat Bailhache all ends up with his first ball - a vicious off-break and had him plumb lbw.

All the Very Clever team leapt in the air as one, bawling “OWZAT”. The neutral umpire, Willie Bailhache, stared down the wicket at his brother and declared “NOT OUT”. Sinel stood at the bowling end, hands on hips, nostrils flaring, staring at Philip Bailhache, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

He stamped back to his mark, turned and delivered another perfect off-break. Bailhache again mistimed his shot, got the thickest of edges which was even heard as far away as the St. Martins pub. Again the fielding team leapt in the air shouting “OWZAT” Again Willie stared down the wicket, winked at his brother and declared “off his pads not his bat”.

What the Bailhaches didn’t know, however, was that Sinel, in his young, slimmer days, was one of the fastest bowlers in the UK university cricket teams around the country. By now thoroughly incensed, he paced out his run up of over 20 yards, thundered in and let fly a ball of jet-like speed which Philip never saw and which knocked all three stumps out of the ground and it took five minutes to find the bails which were located down by the boundary 50 yards away.

Sinel stared at neutral umpire Willie Bailhache and said: “Bloody near got him that time Willie” to which Willie replied “Not out it was a no ball”

A fight broke out on the pitch and the Bailhaches were last seen being chased through the lanes of St. Martin by stump weaving players and spectators. It is unlikely that this match, which has been part of the social scene of Jersey for over 100 years, will ever be played again.

All because of two brothers who thought they could make the rules - and consistently break them - hoping that ordinary islanders wouldn’t notice.

DID YOU KNOW THIS ABOUT THE BRAND NEW, EXPENSIVE INCINERATOR?

2011-08-10T10:27:00.000+01:00

INFORMATION IS STARTING to leak out about our £105 million (plus) incinerator commonly known as" de faye's folly".

It is now quite clear that Jersey's infamous refuse operation is far too big for the amount of waste Jersey has to burn. When I chaired a scrutiny panel looking at the plans back in 2006 this was also our conclusion but, as is usual, our evidence was ignored. Deputy Rob Duhamel was on that panel and he researched a lot of the evidence regarding the incinerator and knows the subject inside out and back to front. He is now the Minister for Planning and Environment and has a lot of influence over what is going to happen at this la Collette monstrosity. I am sure he will not put up with much of the rubbish that is coming out of the mouths of the public servants responsible

The publlc servants responsible want to ship waste in from Guernsey and Alderney so that we can use the spare capacity and keep the fires burning. I know that he has strong views against this, which includes the problem of the ash that results from burning garbage.

I also can't see him agreeing to allowing the plan to put the ash it in a giant plastic sack and let it float off Collette which has struck me as an "off the wall" plan being highly unstable and a huge threat to the protected sea areas of the Bay. I believe that is a dead duck.

Further more, the spin masters at Technical Services have told us that the fact that Bellozanne will still be the place where households can drop off their rubbish and ordinary domestic vehicles cannot go down to the incinerator at La Collette. This was sold to the people of Jersey as being an advantage to the general public.. But, in fact, the reason is that the incinerator has been built so close to the fuel tanks holding the island's petrol there that only commercial vehicles are permitted to use La Collette due to health and safety regulations.

And I further hear that senior executives at the JEC don' think they will get much value in terms of electricity from the plant, which was sold to us as an" an energy from waste plant Only candlepower by the sound of it..

The incinerator drama goes on and on and on.......

FREDDIE COHEN WILL BE STANDING IN THE SENATORIAL ELECTIONS

2011-08-08T11:55:00.001+01:00

DESPITE THE ANNOUNCEMENT made by him, some time ago, that Senator Cohen would not be standing in the October Senatorial elections I have it on very good authority that he will be putting himself forward after all. Why? Because he really is enjoying tripping around the world at the taxpayers expense promoting Jersey and "helping inform governments that we are really good guys and we don't encourage tax avoiders to our shores and we keep to the rules".

Expect to read shortly that a deputation of supporters called on him at his palatial home in St. John and begged him to stand again and he received so many letters and e mails imploring him to face another election he felt duty bound to heed their wishes.

So what are these trips of his all about? Well, a delegation has been to India to sign a tax information agreement which could have been signed in London. The trouble is India, which is cracking down on tax avoidance by its wealthy companies and individuals, didn't think the tax information exchange agreement was worth the paper it was written on and wanted to toughen it up. So they refused to sign it.

Egg on face all round.

Then we had the trip to Israel. What came of that?. Well, Freddie was impressed with an electric car they build there and plans to introduce it to Jersey. Benefit to the island? Nil. But Freddie "made some important contacts". To do what.? Probably to use Jersey to funnel money out of Israel to avoid paying tax in their own country.

And then we had the big one to China with the Chief Minister. Result- a school exchange program and the possibility of selling some bull semen to them That could have been done by our own cattlemen using the inter-net.

Oh, and that agreement with the Chinese telecoms company. Well that was negotiated by Jersey Telecom months before and all the Chief Minister had to do was sign it there.(which could have been done by mail)

Earlier this month our globe-trotting Freddie was in Malta accompanied by his mate, Senator Ozouf. Promoting what? Twinning with a Jersey school. Big deal !. Why not Tristan de Cuna or Norfolk Island or Fiji.

And , of course, I've forgotten that memorable trip to Abu Dhabi where their tourism Minister hinted that they might put a float in the Battle of Flowers. Now that was worth the trip.

Then we had the spin-masters at Jersey Finance putting as much gloss on these visits as possible. They have two reasons for doing this. The first is that they need to convince many of their members that these trips are worthwhile and, more importantly they need to convince the States of Jersey and the tax payer that the money is being well-spent.

So they trot out the story that there has been an increase in funds flowing into Jersey as a result of these visits. The problem with that is that there is no way of checking the truth of that. And having read the stuff put out by Jersey Finance over the years I frankly wouldn't believe a word ot it.

So how much has all this tripping around the world by Freddie, Ozouf and all the public servants they take on these trips, cost the taxpayer. Deputy Mike Higgins tried to find out by asking a question in the States. The answer was that it came our of the Chief Ministers budget. Yes, but how much was it, persisted the Deputy. Not going to tell you was the answer. Which is typical when a States member is trying to find out how much something costs.

My estimated is that we have spent over £200,000 so far now on Freddie's little trips.

No wonder he wants to keep doing it for another four years. So remember you heard it first here-

FREDDIE WILL BE BACK..,.....

THIS MAN IS IN CLOUD-CUCKOO LAND

2011-08-08T11:04:00.000+01:00

OVER THE YEARS Senator Ozouf and Jersey Finance have constantly told us that Jersey is part of the global scene, that we are an international finance centre par excellence and that we punch more than our weight on the world stage.

Yet overnight, we are not that at all. According to Senator Ozouf "islanders need not be concerned about the local economy and local public finances" because of the financial crisis that is sweeping the world. How can the problems of the US allied to the Eurozone disaster that have caused share markets around the world to plummet wiping billions off the value of world shares and causing a massive rise in the gold price- now up to $1650 an ounce- not be the cause for huge concern for an international finance centre whose main industry is finance and whose business is global and international

Senator Ozouf's pronouncements about the likely effect on Jersey puts him in cloud-cuckoo land. He appears to have lived much of his political life in this place for readers will remember when he broke his solemn commitment not to increase GST, he claimed that at that time he could not possibly have known the likely effect on Jersey's economy of the then financial crisis gripping the world..

He was clearly sleepwalking through life then for when he delivered this promise, Lehman Brothers had collapsed, Northern Rock, HBOS and, RBS had been bailed out for multi-millions and Gordon Brown had declared that the "world's financial institutions are in meltdown"

His inability to understand the seriousness of the threat to Jersey's economic future is very, very scary.

STOP THIS RUMOUR MONGERING BY BRINGING CHARGES

2011-07-31T12:34:00.000+01:00

On 12^th February this year, a pretty 27 year-old woman died when the Lotus sports car in which she was a passenger, skidded off the road and crashed into a wall on St. Clements Road . The 37 year-old male driver was also injured and after treatment at the General Hospital was sent to the UK for further treatment. He returned to the island four days later apparently unhurt except for a broken arm.

That was five months ago and there is still no word about whether or not the driver is going to face charges or who he is. Because of this delay, rumours are awash that the driver is the son of a prominent ex-politician and that the police are hushing up this incident because of that.

People are asking the following questions:

Why has no action been taken when this accident happened five months ago?
When Inspector Chris Beechey commented on the rumours in May he said that it was a” significant and complex investigation.” What is complex and difficult about an investigation of a car crash is the question they are asking.
Why did the driver have to go to England immediately afterwards for medical treatment when his major injury was a broken arm and he returned to Jersey four days later Did he have another injury that he didn’t want recorded.
Why has his name not been released?

I can deal with number 4. Until a person is charged, no matter what the offence, the name of the person is not released, so there is nothing peculiar about this. What is peculiar is the time this investigation is taking. The longer this is left hanging in the air, the greater the speculation and rumour which is unfair on the person who is the subject of the rumours if he is innocent. I have to say if it was me being tainted in this way I would make a public statement that I am totally innocent of this event and produce the evidence to show it. Silence on his part simply adds to the speculation.

The sooner the police complete their investigation and put this thing to bed the better.

MORE LIES AND SPIN FROM OZOUF

2011-07-26T21:34:00.000+01:00

The Jersey tax avoidance industry (i.e. the finance industry) has worked overtime to sell to the people of Jersey the idea that a recent decision in the United States is the result of lobbying by our politicians.

Only politicians as politically devious as Senator Ozouf would have the gall to put this into the public domain, because it is absolute rubbish.

The people of Jersey need to know the facts.

In 2007 an American Senator, Carl Levin – an avowed enemy of tax havens – took a Bill to the Senate called A Stop Tax Avoidance Act. This included a section that provided a blacklist of tax havens around the world. He withdrew it, and has now just replaced it with a beefed-up version.

An important feature of his new proposed legislation is the removal of the blacklist of secrecy jurisdictions that was present in the previous version. Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man were included in this list.

Foolishly, Senator Ozouf responded to this news by preening himself and claiming that he and staff from Jersey Finance had lobbied American officials to have the Crown Dependencies removed from the blacklist and they had been successful.

Senator Ozouf said: ‘We are delighted, therefore, to see that we have been listened to and there is now a greater understanding in Washington of our open and transparent regime.’

That is complete nonsense.

The Crown Territories were not removed from the blacklist – the whole blacklist was removed. And it was removed because Senator Levin, following advice from US Treasury officials, changed his Bill so that it concentrated the whole direction of the Bill on US persons who do businesses with foreign financial institutions that don’t comply with their 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FATCA).

This Bill, instead of recommending that the US Treasury automatically imposes stiffer requirements on those who use offshore jurisdiction, will build on FATCA by creating tougher disclosure, evidentiary and enforcement consequences for US persons who do business with foreign financial institutions that reject FACTA’s call for disclosing accounts used by US persons.

Jersey and the Isle of Man are included in those territories not complying with FATCA’s demands.

Senator Levin told Congress: ‘By focusing on non-FACTA financial institutions instead of offshore jurisdictions, my Bill relieves the Treasury of a difficult task while providing additional incentives for foreign banks to adopt FACTA’s disclosure requirements.

‘“Probably the biggest change in this Bill from the last Congress is that this Bill no longer requires the Treasury to develop a list of offshore secrecy jurisdictions and then impose tougher requirements on those US taxpayers who use these jurisdictions.

‘We are taking a different approach than that contained in the last Bill. Our focus is not so much on the jurisdictions [the blacklist], but rather on the financial institutions that specifically shun FATCA, which is our crucial tool in fighting abusive offshore behaviour. They are now the targets of this Bill.”

It is quite clear from this evidence that the US has not listened to the pleadings of our politicians. They have simply decided on a better, tougher, more effective route of stopping the drain of money out of their country which Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man facilitates

THE SCRUTINY SYSTEM HAS JUST BEEN BLOWN APART

2011-07-25T19:28:00.000+01:00

I was the first chairman of Scrutiny when it was introduced six years ago. It was called “shadow scrutiny” at the time and it was to enable the system to settle in before Ministerial government

I remember Frank Walker being very annoyed that the States had voted me in as the first chairman. He made a speech in the States when he warned us that Scrutiny should not be seen as “opposition” but as a “critical friend”

I saw Scrutiny in a different light. To me our job was to appoint experts to help us provide an evidence based report on the subject under review. When we looked at the incinerator, we appointed two experts to advise us-a University professor whose expertise was waste incineration and an acknowledged UK expert on re-cycling.

Our final report showed that the island only needed an incinerator that could handle 50,000 tons a year, recycling should be at 50% and it should be re-sited somewhere else other than Bellozanne Valley but not at La Collette

During the hearings, we were treated with absolute contempt by Ozouf, who was president of Planning and Environment and who constantly gave us wrong figures and simply wouldn’t answer questions put to him. His officers were just as bad, especially John Richardson, who has since been promoted to acting head of the whole of Jersey’s public service. When our report was published, our findings were totally ignored by the States.

The same happened with our deliberations on zero- ten. Much to Walkers, fury, we appointed Mr. Richard Murphy as our advisor and a local accountant who claimed to be an expert on international taxation whom the Council had asked us to appoint to counter Mr. Murphy’s views.

Before we did this, Walker tried to get the States to veto our appointment of expert advisors and I rigorously resisted this interference. If the executive can dictate who Scrutiny advisors should be, the independence of Scrutiny would be seriously threatened. I made a statement in the States to that effect and Walker reluctantly withdrew. It is a matter of public record that Mr. Murphy publicly humiliated Walker, le Sueur and Ozouf and, after examining the Code of Conduct of the EU Council on Taxation, we concluded that there was no way that zero-ten would get their approval. Our report was ignored and we all know now the mess we are in as a result of that decision.

The fact is that Scrutiny costs the taxpayer over £1.5 million. It involves a lot of work and dedication by the scrutiny officers and those Stats members who sit on the panels. The facts are that over the last year the number of States members prepared to sit on a scrutiny panel has dropped alarmingly as each report is totally ignored by the Council. Scrutiny is clearly a waste of everyone’s time and a gross waste of tax-payers money if it is to be treated in this way, it may as well be scrapped as a complete waste of time.

Then we had the remarkable case of Senator Ben Shenton, in one of his rare appearances in the States, protesting that Deputy Mike Higgins should not chair a scrutiny panel looking into the financial affairs at the airport. His argument, backed up by that “let them eat cake” right wing monster Senator Sarah Ferguson, was that because Deputy Higgins was the organiser of the annual air display he has a conflict of interest.

In fact Mike Higgins would know more about the operation of Jersey Airport than anyone in the States. It is clear that what the Ozouf party want is that people with knowledge of the subject under review should not sit on a Scrutiny Panel The last thing they want is for the truth to come out.

The latest resignations from Scrutiny by Deputies Le Herissier, Tadier, Pitman and Wimberley are the death knell of Scrutiny. Serve the Ozouf Party right.

IT’S TIME THE DEAN OF JERSEY STOOD UP AND JOINED THE METHODISTS AGAINST TAX AVOIDANCE......

2011-07-22T16:36:00.000+01:00

The Dean of Jersey is a member of the States (in my view he should not be) with the right to speak but not vote He is there in that capacity following the report by the Committee of the Privy Council on the Proposed Reforms in the Channel Islands of 1947.

It was this report that led to the removal of the 12 rectors and the introduction of 12 Senators. On the role of the Dean, the report said this: “The retention of the Dean in the States with a voice but no vote does, to some extent, favour the Church of England over other religious denominations; but we agree that the representations of matters spiritual in the Assembly is to be vested in one, the Dean is the most suitable person”.

His role in this should - and is presumed to - include matters of morality. He is quite happy to speak about gambling, shops opening on Sunday and other such matters. But he remains totally silent on tax avoidance, the islands main business.

Last week the Methodist Church at their national conference made its position very clear by loudly condemning tax avoidance as an immoral activity.

I have written a letter to the Dean of Jersey calling on him to actively oppose the practise on which the Jersey Finance Industry is based. I reproduce this letter, which is self explanatory.

It’s time the Dean stood up and did his job. He has written back and we have arranged to meet in the next fortnight to discuss the matter. Watch this space.

I Osborne Court St. Aubins Road,First Tower St. Helier, Jersey

July 11,2011

Dear Sir,

As you may be aware the Methodist annual Congress approved a motion declaring that “tax avoidance impoverishes the vulnerable and is morally unacceptable” For more details go to tedvibert.com.

Former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Dennis Healey, once said that the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.

Anyone who believes that Jersey is not engaged in the tax avoidance has to be incredibly stupid not to understand what is going on under the guise of “the Jersey finance industry” or, if in authority, is being influenced by those in power in Jersey. I don’t think you are stupid, therefore I have to conclude that you have been totally influenced by the power of government in Jersey.

You sit in the States as a member for the sole purpose of giving moral guidance as the representative of all Jersey’s churches. Yet not once have you raised the question of the immorality of tax avoidance. In my view that is a disgrace. You would be well aware of the statement “evil flourishes when good men do nothing”

May I ask when we can expect a definitive statement from you about the evils of tax avoidance industry?

Yours sincerely

Ted Vibert.

THIS OZOUF IS UNBELIEVABLE

2011-07-17T20:22:00.001+01:00

During my lifetime I have worked with a large number of people in a variety of industries in Jersey, London, New York, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Victoria.

I’ve worked with Government Ministers and politicians of other ranks; actor’s and film stars; editors and columnists; television personalities - modest ones and divas. I’ve played with and against national football stars and rubbed shoulders and played with international golfers of world-wide fame.

In all of that giant mix of people I have never met anyone so ego-driven, so conceited about his own ability, so dismissive of people who disagree with him than that political non-entity, Philip Ozouf. Australians would describe him thus – “he is so far up himself it must hurt”.

He is a man without political honour. He told the electorate he would fight any attempt to increase GST. He came fourth in the election out of six. Such was the anti GST feeling at the time, if he had come clean about his intentions it is quite likely that he would not be in the States today. He was elected on false promises.

Once elected, he had to convince States members that he was the man to be the island’s treasurer. During that procedure, he was asked by Deputy de Sousa “In the event of a recession, will you increase the rate of GST”. His answer was :” I can give you a categorical assurance that I will not increase the rate of GST”

And then he did

He has tried to justify this disgraceful action by claiming that when he made that statement he could not have been aware of the financial crisis that was to later engulf the world. This argument was so shallow as to be only millimeteres deep. First, the question was “in the event of a recession” so he had to answer the question on that basis. Second, he was lying when he said that he could not have been aware of the financial crisis that was to later engulf the world when he gave his “categorical assurance”.

Why is that totally untrue? Because a financial crisis had already engulfed the world when he gave that assurance. Northern Rock had already collapsed, two huge American insurance and mortgage brokers had had to be bailed out, Lehmans had collapsed, RBS, Lloyds and HBOS has also been handed eye-watering amounts of British tax-payers money to save them from collapsing and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had announced that the worlds’ financial institutions were “facing meltdown” If Philip Ozouf was unable to comprehend the likely effect of that on the Jersey banking industry- our major money-earner- he certainly should never have been made Treasurer.

The fact is , by claiming that when he gave his “categorical assurance “he was not aware that the world’s economy was in trouble was simply a disingenuous way of getting out of the hole he had dug for himself . It was a barefaced lie.

Now this political pygmy is claiming that a “minority of States members are wasting time in the Chamber and do not represent the views of islanders”

So all of those States members who supported the 20,000 anti GST petition, the later 10, 000 anti GST petition and the 9,000 petition did not speak for their constituents? Those members who voted for a progressive form of taxation which would have seen the very wealthy pay more towards the cost of running this island were not representing their constituents? Who does this judgmental control freak think he is ? And who cares what he thinks about how other members are doing their job? The people whose judgments matters will show their support or otherwise at the elections. They are the judges who matter.

It is the electorate who judge the performance of their elected representative. not this jumped up little prat. But we all know he can’t help himself when confronted with tough opposition. Readers of this blog will be aware of the story I have related before that when I sat on the Planning and Environment Committee when he was president. I had had a series of serious disagreements with him over policy matters and he had the audacity to say to me the following words “I won’t stand for our insubordination.” Wow, red rag to a bull which had a result that was widely reported in the press!!

This little hypocrite also had the audacity to say “we want an Assembly not with just businessmen but one which has a divergence of views and is capable of debating the “things that matter”, He also said that” we need to raise the standard of debate and behaviour......and appoint people capable of being in Ministerial office”.

His view of what constitutes “things that matter” can be interpreted as “things that I think matter” (back to the control freak syndrome). And as for appointing people who are capable of being a Minister, he sat on Frank Walker’s knee for three years and would have been part of formulating who was in their cabinet. Then, as Treasurer, under that disaster of a chief minister Senator Terry le Sueur, who made him assistant chief minister, he would have great influence in choosing the current Council of Ministers

People of ability- don’t make me laugh!

· Deputy Anne Pryke, former nurse with no management experience in charge of health who thought that £340,000 was good value for the chief executive at the Hospital

· James Reed - farmer who has made a monumental hash of the education portfolio and has no idea how to handle matters.

· Alan MacLean - estate agent, who has feather-bedded the finance industry but done absolutely nothing in terms of diversifying our economy and has allowed tourism and agriculture to drift along without any plans for re-invigorating both industries

· Terry Le Main - a man of intelligence and intellect? The thickest member of the Assembly, who was a disastrous housing minister, built no States or affordable houses in the last ten years and stopped maintenance on States properties, leaving us with a £48 million bill to put the damage right.

· Eddie Noel, an assistant minister for Treasury. An absolute joke. He sounds like a schoolboy, looks like a schoolboy, acts like a schoolboy, and talks like a schoolboy and has the understanding of crucial matters of a schoolboy.

Looking back at decisions of the Council over the last ten years – remember these are people that Ozouf believes are capable of “Ministerial office”, and what do we find:

· An incinerator twice the size of what is required, sited on a beautiful headland paid for in cash rather than a long term loan and in such a manner that left us vulnerable to currency fluctuations which is likely to cost us over 4 million plus.

· Top public servants salaries through the roof.

· Pay-outs to two public servants of over £800,000.

· Consultants being engaged to do the jobs that top public servants are paid to do.

· Having been promised a Waterfront of “international standard” we have an area defined only by its monstrous ugliness.

· The disastrous zero ten tax policy. Having been warned before they introduced it that it would fall foul of the European Code of Conduct on Business Taxation, they went ahead with the inevitable result. This created a “black hole” of £100 million, forcing us to introduce GST at 3% and then increasing it to 5%. The solution put forward by the Council to get it approved by Europe will cost the island between £10 to£15 million. The only way this money can be raised is to put up GST even further.

These are people that Ozouf regards as capable of Ministerial office.

And as for behaviour and personal attacks in the House, there is no one more adept at frustrating members who are genuinely trying to get information from him. He is a monumental time-waster at question time-a member has to drag information from him. He regards question time as a place to demonstrate to his mates how clever he is in not giving away any information. He criticises other members for making personal attacks- yet he is at the forefront of this and showed it last week when he attacked Deputy Roy Le Herissier whom Senator Le Gresley had named as his assistant minister if he was elected Planning and Environment Minister (he wasn’t).

If elected to office in the Senatorial elections in October, I will do everything in my power to ensure that Ozouf he will be neither Chief Minister or Treasurer and that most of his sycophantic, supine, Ministers are sent to the backbenches and are replaced by people with a genuine desire to see that government in Jersey is transparent, inclusive, intelligent and fair to everyone and has a dynamic approach to revitalising other industries. Roll on October.