Guernsey’s 'good' recession was inherently bad

Well, as we’ve previously noted, it’s not entirely clear where we want to be as a community in five, 10 or 15 years’ time, let alone how we intend to get there.

Before I’m corrected, yes, we know the Assembly has endorsed the Future Guernsey Plan (Great Today, Better Tomorrow), a 20-year vision which summarises itself as: ‘We will be among the happiest and healthiest places in the world, where everyone has equal opportunity to achieve their potential. We will be a safe and inclusive community, which nurtures its unique heritage and environment and is underpinned by a diverse and successful economy.’

The problem with this is the plan itself was effectively put together by a 38-strong committee so that individual States members couldn’t find anything in it too objectionable – or that their pet policies were ruled out.

At the same time, this has to dovetail into something called the Policy and Resource Plan, which is supposed to start delivering Future Guernsey, a process designed to prevent committees charging off and doing things that don’t feed into the overall betterment process.

This clearly is working. Ending the carnage at the Bulwer Avenue end of the cycle track – who knew toucans were so versatile – trumps ‘diverse and successful economy’, so disrupting the island’s main commercial road artery, decreasing productivity while increasing stop-start diesel pollution and fuel use are prices well worth paying and justified by the saving in body bags alone.

In any event, air quality and the island’s appalling addiction to hydrocarbons can be addressed through fresh initiatives, inventive new taxes and more bicycles. This, of course, can be justified under the ‘happiness’ heading because if a committee is happy then by extension we must be as well.

If you look at the various government department business plans and how deputies justify pressing ahead with pet projects, you’ll quickly see the Policy and Resource Plan hasn’t really achieved the focused discipline initially envisaged.

I think Deputy John Gollop had some of this in mind last week with his letter to this newspaper in which he urged a culture of leadership that has real 2020 vision and paints a better picture for all.

In essence, something meaningful. So that when asked, ‘what have the Romans (States, obvs) ever done for us?’ we can respond with something a bit more positive than ‘higher taxes, reduced standards of living, collapsing property prices and many, many more 25mph road signs in our leafy lanes’.

At the same time as Deputy Gollop was working on his must-read piece, one of his colleagues was running up another rallying call: all the current evils we face are caused by zero-10.

If you just blinked at that, this was Guernsey scrapping corporation tax on businesses at the start of 2008 because the Isle of Man had done the same in early 2006 and we were trying to prevent a flight of companies from here to the IoM. AKA collapse of finance.

Ancient history I know, but Future Guernsey’s ‘diverse and successful economy’ aspiration is not what gets most deputies out of bed in the morning despite the jobs, revenue, connectivity and everything else that flows from it.

Deputy Lyndon Trott gets it, of course, which is why his vice presidential update on connectivity in December was such a surprise to so many because Policy & Resources has turned its back on a runway extension.

My guess, conveniently confirmed by P&R president Gavin St Pier in his Monday address to the Chamber of Commerce, was the decision was as much political as factual. Guernsey could starve before some deputies – and many others, to be fair – would support extending it, so without an overwhelmingly compelling case behind it, P&R backed off.

At the same time, the business groups here estimate that not having a decent runway will cost the economy £100m. a year by 2024 and that it is already acting as a ‘negative differentiator’ for the island – ie. a deterrent to people and businesses coming here.

How much of that P&R view is also to protect loss-making Aurigny is not clear to me, but what we can say with certainty is that Deputy Trott’s update is now significantly out of date. The collapse of Flybe and its implications for franchisee Blue Islands have seen to that.

Just as an example, the sale contract insists that the Flybe fleet be brought up to a standard ‘which is befitting of the Virgin brand’. In other words, the bailout is on Virgin’s terms and not those of, for instance, Guernsey, with its fondness for short runways and enhanced flight frequency in a sub-optimal market.

So no, I don’t think Virgin, Stobart Air and New York hedge fund Cyrus Capital Partners as the ‘rescuing’ consortium will be much bothered about our wants, only what they can get out of the island and how that fits their own brand aspirations, business plans and profit forecasts.

Which is where we came in. We don’t really have Brand Guernsey, for all the plans and strategies piling up in the Assembly, and no meaningful agreed direction of travel – hence Deputy Gollop and others of us banging on about it so much.

What Deputy Trott’s update really tells us is the political climate here is too uncertain to propose what might be seen as radical, such as extending the runway. In turn, it also reinforces the worst aspect for us of the global crash in 2008.

By having a ‘good’ recession, by avoiding crisis, there is no pressure to do anything different. Business as usual with the odd nip and tuck of savings and efficiencies. But effectively it’s the same old island as it was in 2009 while the rest of the world has changed out of recognition.

Islanders see this, however. It’s why there is a lot of anger on the streets about the States not being in touch, not improving living standards and being fixated on stuff the rest of us either don’t care about, doesn’t affect us, or see as having no economic or development value.

So by not having our backs against it, there is no need to pull together because, hey, everything’s fine. Which in turn explains why the island has no meaningful business plan.

When you’re off-the-scale complacent, you don’t need one because you’re not going anywhere.