Guernsey’s two most senior politicians went on what I assume was meant as a charm offensive last week in support of Policy & Resources’ GST-plus but which, from my inbox at least, many of you took as an attack on anyone uppity enough to criticise the proposed ‘tax reforms’.
‘Negativity might grab attention, but it doesn’t solve problems,’ chief minister Lindsay de Sausmarez’s piece in this newspaper advised us in a slightly finger-wagging manner. ‘You’re not taking that lying down I hope,’ one reader asked me.
Well, yes, I am rather. After all, it would be a bit shabby for someone like me to complain that someone else has expressed an opinion contrary to mine. I’m old-fashioned enough to think editor C P Scott got it right in 1921 (the centenary of the Manchester Guardian) when he declared that ‘comment is free, but facts are sacred’.
And that’s where I part company with Deputy de Sausmarez and her vice-president Gavin St Pier. Charm offensive? Fine. Bring it on. Blatant spin and half-truths? No. And that’s why the GST debate is alienating and polarising so many islanders.
Guernsey people aren’t fools and they can see at a glance that the planned ‘tax reforms’ are nothing of the sort. They’re a naked tax and spend agenda so government can carry on doing exactly what it’s doing now but with a few crumbs tossed our way to persuade deputies – who, after all, want to do the actual spending – can be relied on when it comes to the vote.
If you’re an elector, you know that you can’t trust States members to challenge this stuff because they couldn’t even be bothered to check that £42m. on IT improvements was being spent wisely or why an £11m. refurbishment of Alderney’s runway is now suddenly £24m.
The most jaw-dropping example of the misrepresentation and fudge P&R is stooping to was Deputy de Sausmarez’s declaration that ‘No one in their right mind would get too excited about the [Government Work Plan], because it’s really just a bureaucratic necessity…’
Not only is that plain wrong – it’s the States’ integrated action plan for this political term; in other words absolutely what it exists for – this falsehood was uttered for one pretty shameful reason only: to deflect criticism of P&R for having done such a poor job on this latest iteration.
The chief minister might be correct when she says people like me ‘seem to misjudge how local politics often works best’. But if so, that’s because my definition of best is what benefits the island and islanders, and government’s track record here is appalling – presiding over a cost-of-living crisis, rocketing accommodation prices, falling real incomes and pretty much a total loss of trust in government itself.
Deputy St Pier’s first of two pages here was headed, ‘The question is not whether we act, but how’. Sorry, that’s head-in-the-hands, kick-the-cat stuff. By his own pen, we’ve had since 2008 to act, but haven’t.
I take no issue with his timeline of how we got here but the ‘woe is us’ narrative adopted is profoundly irritating. As I’ve said before, it didn’t just happen. Government allowed it to, and in many respects has actively made it worse.
‘In 2023, we had 22 people of working age for every individual over the age of 85. By 2053, there will only be eight people of working age for every individual over the age of 85,’ he says.
Well, yes. But a variant of that forecast was available a quarter of a century ago, the collapse in birth rates here was evident at least as far back as 2013 and the decline in immigration – people wanting to work here and contribute tax – started with Brexit in 2020. Compounded in our case by unaffordable housing and rents and the States itself relentlessly recruiting in competition with the private sector.
Look, enough of this. The evidence of decline and poor government abounds. Indeed, the inability or reluctance to update national statistics likely masks the full horror of what’s been allowed and it was ratings agency S&P Global that busted the myth that GST (plus or minus is irrelevant) is the solution. It’s not enough. Future tax increases are guaranteed.
So what do I want? What does the island deserve from its elected leaders? In a word, honesty. Just ‘fess up. In plain English. Apologise for getting us to this point, where being an islander is so grim it’s better not to have babies.
Say sorry, people of Guernsey, we and earlier Assemblies screwed up. We let you believe you (and us) could have it all and we’ve lived that lie for so many decades that we came to believe it ourselves.
We also apologise for pretending we need GST to ‘invest’ in public services when the bulk of that will go in civil service salaries, subsidised housing for our staff and creating more pointless jobs like hiring an invasive non-native species policy and co-ordination officer.
Honesty and humility at this stage would really help.
In passing, I see that the Confederation of Guernsey Industry is calling for government spending reviews, an increase in income tax, rises in company registration costs and corporate taxes and deferred pensions instead of GST.
S&P Global also appeared to suggest rejecting a temporary 2p increase in income tax was a missed opportunity and I note that the Isle of Man has just reduced its own temporary 2p tax rise by one percent to 21%, so these things can be done without the sky falling in and without recruiting an army of bureaucrats to turn local businesses into GST tax collectors.
The other thing to say is that this island has some deep-seated issues to overcome and that government and regulation are part of the problem and not, as yet, part of the solution.
I believe we can meet these difficulties – but not without government and what we might call its chief charm offencers coming clean and admitting that the underlying issue is actually quite simple – that public spending has grown faster than the economy.
Face up to that, and we can do something about it. Refuse to, and you get more half-truths and a GST that’s merely a warm-up act for more tax rises. So which is it to be?
Over to you, P&R.
