States must heed crisis of confidence

Recognise your worth. Be proud of the small things. Don’t judge yourself against others. Practise self-care.

It might work for individuals – but will it work for an island? When business leaders admit that they’ve got concerns about the island’s economic outlook, then somebody somewhere has to sit up and take notice.

It’s noted that they’re largely not short of confidence about their own businesses and their individual prospects, in terms of investment, revenues and job growth.

And while Economic Development has claimed to have responded rapidly to concerns about travel links, recruitment of staff and housing, those are really operational matters. They grease economic wheels. Industry expects this level of support.

One would suspect that the real concerns that business leaders have are the feeling of general malaise, the sense that Guernsey, or more accurately, its government, is going nowhere fast.

This States set to out back in 2020, to ‘do’ things, rather than consider policies and strategies. The ‘reality’, as perceived by the business community, is that it has failed to achieve that, and now it has snarled itself up in a state of near-perpetual inertia.

The longer that lasts, the more that confidence will be damaged.