Let's put Guernsey first

SOCIAL media is a wonderfully entertaining and educational medium and I can't recommend Twitter enough.

I've been particularly amused by the local educated elite tweeting about Brexit and the rise of Trump. They have become the digital version of the man with his 'The End of the World is Nigh' sign, but instead of wandering around singly they have formed themselves into packs.

Their tweets are always impeccable, their sentiments real and their outrage truly righteous. Not actually being UK or USA voters they can, of course, do nothing to prevent Brexit or the inauguration of Trump, but they think it important as global citizens to express their outrage and deep melancholy as we all approach the End of Times.

Just because we live in Guernsey and can have no impact on major world affairs doesn't mean that we can't let the world know how we feel, and therefore I fully support the apocalyptic tweeting. I do hope as much effort is being put into how we can benefit from whatever mess the world may be getting itself into, but I don't think the neo-liberals want to profit from the misfortunes of others.

I can support an element of our population harmlessly tweeting about world events we can't influence because it costs us nothing. None of our tax money has to be set aside to counter global Trumping. We aren't being asked to invest in major infrastructure projects to demonstrate our support for the beloved European Union. No, for once the bleeding heart liberals are just mouthing off and not trying to save the planet by changing the way we do things at enormous extra cost.

Once upon a time the people of Guernsey were a canny lot and it was said the average Guernseyman made a Scotsman appear to be a spendthrift.

There was a 'Guernsey way' that primarily was designed to suit us and would be based on reasonableness and affordability not ideology.

We are a tiny fish in a huge ocean. We survive because we need relatively little shelter under a rock and exploit any advantage we can find. If we have spare money we invest it in our island and people because we know bad times follow good as sure as night follows day.

But look at us now. We live in an incredibly expensive place. Everything, unless we buy it from Amazon, is expensive; our houses, though declining in value, are eye-watering in price; more than half the price of fuel is tax and the major drivers of ever-rising costs are the actions of our government.

We seem more concerned about reversing global climate change, which we hardly contributed to and can't in any way influence, than we are about ensuring our children and grandchildren have a future in their island home.

How many of you reading this believe that their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren at school today will have a life in Guernsey? How many who leave will even be able to afford the air fares to come back and visit their ageing relatives?

As we bend over backwards to save polar bears, why are we not spending money to save our next generation from leaving? The state has done nothing to discourage the breakup of the caring wider family that was once commonplace here but is now replaced by the state – which complains it can't afford the care.

We only have to look at Alderney and Sark to see how fragile small communities are. When times get bad the folk with the deepest roots will see it out. But if they are gone, what does the future hold for small rocks in the English Channel?

The Guernsey Disability Alliance invited a professor over and her advice regarding disability legislation was music to my ears.

Guernsey, she suggested, should look at what others have done, at what others have been able to implement and then pick and choose what works for us. Any legislation has to be reasonable and implementable.

Perhaps permanent access ramps or elevators are just not possible in some older Town buildings and reasonable legislation would make an exemption for them while insisting all new builds must comply. How sensible.

But how often are we sensible? How often are we reasonable? How often are we truly cost-conscious?

That brings me to the inspiration for today's column, the Waste Strategy.

Sensible, reasonable and cost-conscious? I think not. I wonder how attractive a hole in the ground seems now we know the enormous cost of dealing with that waste. And who thinks the final numbers will end up anywhere near those announced this week?

Come on, Guernsey. Get it together for goodness sake.

Once again our timing is impeccably wrong. We have become a neo-liberalist island and our bleeding hearts are telling us we must spend our riches on helping the 7bn others who share our planet, plus all the polar bears, just as the Trump era begins.

I predict that within a couple of years more of us will have the courage to be openly insular; to put the long-term viability of our island home before all else; to persuade our children that Guernsey is a great place to live, despite what others tell them.

In fact, post-Trump perhaps Guernsey can become the centre of the universe again as it was when I was a boy.

Or is that more of a post-Brexit Guernsey?