States is tied up in ribbons again
RIBBONS worked for campaigners against a two-school model – will they work for anti-GST protestors?
Senior politicians putting forward the Tax Review won’t be surprised at the protest movement launched last night, nor, indeed, the source of it.
They will be disappointed, but again probably not that surprised, that the opposition doesn’t come with a ready-packaged and costed solution, which Deputy Peter Ferbrache had asked for.
What also shouldn’t surprise them is the nature of the opposition.
These deputies now do largely accept the numbers. They know that States finances as they currently stand are wobbling and can’t continue.
But like the public the campaigners hope will support them, these deputies don’t believe that the solutions proposed are sustainable, and seem to agree with the public that more needs to be done to find savings in the public sector.
Which means, if they can secure just a bit more support, that P&R and Deputy Roffey will need to return to the drawing board yet again.
This time the focus would need to be moving away from how to get a GST to be palatable to public and political colleagues, and more on what kind of public service islanders want.
That’s a challenge for both sides, because it’s clear what the public wants – the best of everything. We just don’t want to pay for it.