How could this be? They’re the same people, right? But then I remembered this 1956 film widely recognised as one of the great political allegories of the 1950s. In a nutshell, some alien life form lands on earth and grows into pods which spawn exact duplicates of any human unlucky enough to fall asleep within their vicinity. Long story short, they completely take over the town. Save for one man, who eventually escapes to warn the outside world.
But what if they actually did take over after all? What if that 1956 film foreshadowed a new reality? What if those aliens do actually walk among us? What if, some of our deputies are not who we really believe them to be? How would we know? I leave you to ponder after considering the following.
Two clues present themselves in my opinion – firstly, expressing completely contrary positions to that which characterised them last term. Secondly, increasingly irrational behaviour.
When viewed through this lens, the bizarre behaviour that has unfolded since the publication of the Tax Reform 2026 policy letter makes a lot more sense. Certainly a lot more sense than the resulting 22 amendments (and a sursis) that have since been lodged.
We got a foretaste of much of what we might expect to see debated unfold during a recent Scrutiny hearing about the policy letter. It was little short of chaotic, with deputies on both sides practically shouting over each other, accusations and counter-accusations, all vying to be heard and all at the same time. That this ‘performance’ was permitted by the chair was entirely unprofessional in my opinion, but since he bore direct responsibility for instigating some of it anyway, it’s hardly surprising.
But back to the ‘body snatchers’. Of the eight deputies present on both sides of this Scrutiny fracas, five were members of the last Assembly whose position on the central subject of GST are a matter of record – indeed might even be described as a broken record, having been so consistent.
Chief among the eight was Deputy McKenna. His position on GST has remained entirely consistent. He wants none of it.
So much so that he was an ardent supporter of one of the suspected body snatchers, Deputy Parkinson, himself a member of the protest ‘group of eight’ anti-GST campaigners last term. Deputy McKenna even seconded one of Deputy Parkinson’s numerous failed attempts to introduce his favoured (now doomed) territorial tax.
Consequently, one can completely understand his Scrutiny question to Deputy Parkinson (after quoting his manifesto commitments back to him): ‘Why, when we spent years talking about no GST – and you actually said to me, that if P&R lose their flagship policy, they should resign – and here you are today, putting your flagship policy letter. And if GST doesn’t go through, one of the questions I ask is why have you done this u-turn? Will you resign or will it call for a vote of no confidence in the committee through not resigning?’
Well, bravo Deputy McKenna. I wondered the same thing when P&R (finally) dropped Deputy Parkinson’s central obsession with territorial tax as a GST alternative. Deputy McKenna at least, has not succumbed to an alien seed pod in his sleep.
Spoiler alert: as Deputy Parkinson began his response, newly-elected P&R member Deputy Niles visibly hides a smile behind his hand, although it could have been indigestion (35.16 minutes in to the official video).
Deputy Parkinson’s response (or at least whatever now inhabits him), patiently explained (as if this was some sort of revelation) that the consultants’ considered advice was that any substantial corporate tax reform could only be undertaken in concert with Jersey and the Isle of Man (which is not forthcoming by the way, since they already have their own consumption taxes and want us to level the playing field first).
Shock horror. This was precisely the advice given some three years ago, by a previous set of consultants (E&Y) but the ‘non-pod’ version of Parkinson had refused to accept – worse still, had actively campaigned for re-election on a platform of what he actively promoted as ‘fair corporate tax reform’. (It worked, he got re-elected).
He concluded: ‘If I can’t get the money off the corporate sector, the way I wanted to get it, then I will get the money this way [by introducing GST].’ Thus conveniently ignoring the fact that this was already on offer three years ago and he would already be raking in that extra corporate contribution if his ‘pre-pod’ ego had not prevented him from refuting that set of consultants’ advice. Needless to say, he left the question of whether he should resign unanswered.
Enter Deputy Falla, who displayed at least some semblance of ‘pre-pod’ memory by stating honestly: ‘If you look around the P&R table and our track record as far as GST goes, I think that shows that wasn’t our pre-disposition by any means.’ (Deputy Falla was another deputy who supported territorial tax last term). He went on to say: ‘We were hoping that the corporate tax sub- committee would bring us some good news – the outcome of that was disappointing.
We had to then look at how else we could address issues so that we wouldn’t blindly reduce the general revenue reserve without any effort.’
But the clincher for me – that he too was now ‘podded’ – was what he said next: ‘The easiest thing of all would be just to turn our back on the issues that are coming down the road. That was not what we thought we should be doing...’
Except that ‘pre-pod’, that is exactly what they all did, three times in the last Assembly, when confronted with exactly the same challenges and potential solution. Spooky huh?
Similarly, Deputy Burford then goes on at some length to explain why the accompanying 15% income tax reduction seeks to assist exactly the lower paid that are clearly struggling – as if this was some sort of new element of the GST package peculiar to this P&R. It isn’t, it was a main feature of the proposals three years ago which ‘pre-pod’ she would not sign up to. Furthermore, this committee’s package has actually reduced the amount of lower-paid workers who might benefit by dropping the earnings ceiling from £32k to £28k.
Meanwhile, Deputy de Sausmarez then goes to great lengths to emphasise that the next Assembly will have the ‘whole suite of tax options open to them’, not just raising GST, should there prove to be a continuing deficit. She is correct. So they will, but they will have to vote for such change and she conveniently forgets that she personally did not support any of the substantive taxation proposals last term including GST, income tax or Deputy Parkinson’s favourite – territorial tax. Maybe that’s why she topped the polls...
But lets move on to the other indicator of possible ‘pod interference’ in the Assembly – irrational behaviour. A good example might be Deputy Ozanne. Pre ‘pod’ she campaigned extensively on a ‘fair tax’ mandate which essentially meant no to GST and yes to the infamous corporate territorial tax. Very recently she wrote an article for this newspaper in which she correctly highlighted that trust in government is key.
She said: ‘If trust has to be earned, then our priority should first be to earn it. That means demonstrating, through our actions rather than our promises that government can deliver.’ Amen to that. The problem being that she ran a series of videos promoting a fair tax alternative to GST because she felt corporates in particular were not paying their fair share of tax.
Now of course even the grand doyen of the fair tax movement (Deputy Parkinson) has conceded that the only way to get more money from corporates will be through the international services entity component of the GST proposals. This of course was already a feature of the GST proposals last term which she will have been well aware of. Which makes the last paragraph of her article about trust somewhat difficult to understand: ‘Trust begins with keeping your word and that means remaining true to the commitment I made when islanders elected me to represent their concerns. On this issue, that means continuing to oppose the introduction of GST.’
This does sound now a little like cutting off your nose to spite your face, because as Deputy Parkinson already conceded, the only way to get the corporates to make a ‘fair’ contribution, is to implement the GST proposals. So, making pre-election statements about the unfairness of the contribution made by corporates and then discovering the only realistic way to address that is via something you have committed to oppose is something that will sit uneasily with the voters who bought into her whole ‘fair tax’ ethos and who may reasonably conclude that her approach amounts to a lose-lose outcome.
Be vigilant when you fall asleep tonight...
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