Sun's out, guns out!

Occupying British forces suppress a protest in Basra, 2003

Seems the military-industrial complex is planning to enjoy the sun while it lasts.

This Saturday, another militarist showboat will fill up our Royal Square. Armed Forces Day will be marked in Jersey and across the country by military drills and army stalls, with the flag of the armed forces to be flown from the Royal Court and the Cenotaph for the rest of the week and reservists and cadets set to attend work and school in army uniforms.

I hate to rain on the parade, so to speak, but I can't be the only one who is deeply disturbed by the continuing attempt to normalise the presence of the agents of state violence in ordinary people's lives. As recruitment stalls in the latest episode of a long-term decline in the size of the army, the generals are desperate to shore up their recruitment levels, and parades like those that take place on AF day are another familiar part of this ongoing campaign - they are designed to glamourise the armed forces and encourage you to become another cog in the military machine. Don't be sucked in. https://dontjointhearmy.co.uk/ is a site produced by former soldiers, in order to show potential squaddies what life in the army is really like.

The news is grim. The ex-troopers report poor food, standing on parade for hours on end, endlessly polishing uniform and accommodation, loss of free speech and severe punishment for failure to obey orders such as "report to the officers' mess, they need a waiter tonight", "stick your chin out, I am going to punch you" and "you aren't going home this weekend. You're on guard instead". The training encourages soldiers to form an in-group and hate civilians, operators in other branches in the military and foreigners, marshaling this hatred in order to psychologically transform ordinary recruits into killers. And while we're on the subject of killing - 179 British soldiers were killed in the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. 456 were killed in a similar intervention in Afghanistan. During Operation Banner, the British intervention in Northern Ireland, 763 servicemen were killed.

Don't become a killer. Don't become a casualty. Please, don't join the army.

If you go to the event on Armed Forces Day, if nothing else go with the knowledge that they are trying to suck you in. Go with the knowledge that the smiling men and women trying to get you to take the Queen's shilling have only one aim - more cannon fodder for the generals to sent off to die.

I even made a playlist just for the occasion. Let's see if the squaddies enjoy this one.

Whining businessmen attack government for minimum wage pledge

Not a week into the working term, the whining business lobby have put the government in the firing line. Over what? The minimum wage. Again.

The Jersey Chamber of Commerce, a whinging cabal of entitled capitalist bastards "vibrant association of members from all business sectors who are dedicated to the promotion of trade, commerce and the general prosperity of Jersey", has directed one of its regular moans at the new Chief Minister and his partners in government, Reform Jersey. Criticising the agreement made last week between RJ and le Fondré, the Chamber said it was "concerned" about the "potentially serious impacts... on employers, employees, consumers and the wellbeing of the Jersey economy". In typical gutter-level style, Elliot Lincoln, the President of the JCC, raised Project Fear-style fears of "companies forced out of business, increased unemployment, reduced hours and raised prices for consumers".

My favourite part of this is how the JCC refers to RJ's plans to raise the minimum wage to a tenner an hour as "unresearched promises". Did they miss the part where Jersey's "living wage" was raised to the same level as London's - nearly £1.50 higher than the rest of the UK? The part where average house prices in Jersey was tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds higher than the UK average? Or perhaps the fact that a fifth of households live in relative low income, in one of the world's richest jurisdictions? The evidence is clear - Jersey needs a pay rise, badly.

The conventional business wisdom the JCC are peddling that minimum wage rises don't work is frankly ridiculous. Multiple studies done over the last few decades have shown that a rise in the minimum wage has little to no discernible effect on employment levels; below are a few sources that debunk the nonsensical myth of an unemployment-pocalypse in the event of a minimum wage rise.

Business for a Fair Minimum Wage:
https://www.businessforafairminimumwage.org/news/00135/research-shows-minimum-wage-increases-do-not-cause-job-loss 
The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/the-evidence-is-clear-increasing-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cause-unemployment
Business Insider:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/britain-doubled-minimum-wage-with-no-effect-on-unemployment-2017-10
The Huffington Post:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-pacitti/raising-the-minimum-wage-_3_b_7152976.html?guccounter=1

There is no evidence for the propaganda the JCC is peddling. It simply isn't true, and the evidence proves that. It's clear what their real intentions are: to prevent a rise in the minimum wage to keep more money in the hands of the greedy capitalists that make up their members, and out of the hands of ordinary working people.

Selfish homeowner complains about Planning enforcing the law

I've said it before and I'll say it again: some folks just can't take a hint.

Ivor Barrette, St. Mary farmer and long-term arch-nemesis of the Planning Department , has lodged a complaint with the States Complaint Board over his supposed "mistreatment" at the hands of the PD. Barrette was fined £50K in 2016 after Planning took him to court for breaking planning laws. Why? Let's look at the history of the case, and see who's really being mistreated here.

In December 2009, Barrette received a letter from the Planning Department notifying him that his property was now "listed" - a special category of historic building, subject to far more stringent planning regulations. The month after, in January 2010, he received a similar letter, which explained the concept of a listed building and explicitly told him that he wasn't allowed to make any modifications to the house without planning permission.

Barrette, who was planning to make modifications to the building at the time, decided that actually, you know what, let's just forget about silly little things like planning regulations, and began working on the house in 2011. Seemingly believing himself to be above the law, he "gutted" (in the JEP's words) the interior of his house, removing 15 historic windows without receiving planning permission. Planning found out about his illegal modifications, and they sent Barrette an enforcement notice ordering him to put the windows back in place. Having received no response, Planning decided to send some of their boys down to investigate - the planning officers turn up at Barrette's house, only to find the charred remains of the historic windows on Barrette's bonfire.

Planning obviously pursued legal action - Barrette was now not only flouting regulations, but destroying protected historic fittings and ignoring both officials and their enforcement notices. He was tried in 2016 and received a £50K fine for two counts of breaching the Planning and Building (Jersey) Law - allegations which Barrette himself pleaded guilty to. Then Barrette decided to throw his toys out the pram.

Barrette covered his house in signs such as the one on the left ( or above if you’re reading on mobile) — including a few more recent additions reading something along the lines of "IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL A FAIR AND JUST SOCIETY" and "IAN GORST. KRISTINA MOORE. JULIETTE GALLICHAN". You'll have seen them if you've ever driven to St. Mary's School or the parish hall from the west - a big farmhouse covered in signs trashing the planning department, great if you're looking to attract attention but not so much if you're an innocent driver who has to put up with being exposed to this nonsense. He also accused planning officers Jeremy Bolton and Keith Bray of bullying him and his wife - according to Barrette, this "bullying" consisted of turning up once every two weeks to check on the state of the property.

(frankly, considering Barrette's record of serial rule-breaking I'm surprised Planning weren't turning up more often)

Neither Bolton and Bray are in a position to defend themselves - one is ill, while the other has started a new life in Scotland. Chris Jones, a senior planner, answered when questioned that the amount of visits Barrette received wasn't normal - unsurprisingly, cases like these attract slightly more attention from planners - but Graeme Marett, a fellow member of the States Complaints Board, made the point that there's no legal restriction on how often planning officers are allowed to check on properties.

So in summary - arrogant man thinks he's above the law, Planning shows him that he isn't, man gets in a huff and starts accusing others of bullying him and breaking the rules.

The worst part is that Barrette's case has been taken up by the new Connétable de St. Mary, John le Bailly, who, having "known Mr Barrette for 35 years" said he was "supportive" of Barrette renovating his home - or, as we would understand it, he's fine with one of his mates irreparably damaging a historic building.

I believe this is called the "Jersey Way", eh, Mr le Bailly?

The new top team

 Jersey has a new government!

Today, the Assembly voted in all the new ministers that will form John le Fondré's new government. A few inevitables, a few surprises - and a few disasters.

To begin, the inevitables. Senator Tracey Vallois is, of course, Education Minister. Having ruled herself out of running for Chief Minister specifically to run for this post, and with the backing of the new Chief Minister, Vallois has practically glided into the Education Department, facing no opposition. The Dictatorphile is External Relations Minister, as promised after his smashing at the hands of le Fondré - presumably our new Chief Minister shares the previous administration's view that sucking up to head-chopping absolute monarchies, state sponsors of international terrorism and ex-terrorist dictators is somehow paramount to Jersey's interests - while, as per the agreement signed in exchange for his party's support, Senator Sam Mézec is Housing Minister.

To my great surprise and irritation, the Wicked Witch was elected unopposed to the position of Treasury Minister (presumably having forgotten her pre-election promise to continue wreaking havoc at Social Security). It's something between ridiculous and tragic that Susie "Culture of entitlement" Pinel can simply walk into one of the Island's most powerful positions, especially after her Thatcher-style ideological war on poor people of the last four years, the result being that someone whose wrecking campaign has left anyone unfortunate to be on income support essentially to the dogs is now, terrifyingly, in charge of Jersey's purse strings. Her successor at Social Security, veteran Deputy Judy Martin, has a lot on her plate - a department beset with a culture of bullying and box-ticking, slipping living standards, increasing poverty to the point that 1/4 households in Jersey are now under the poverty line. The disgusting legacy that Pinel has left at Social Security can't be understated - this is not the sort of thing that Martin will be able to just sort like that.

Deputy Richard Renouf, in a mildly surprising upset, managed to beat JLF-favoured candidate (and homophobic climate change denier) Sarah Ferguson for the position of Health Minister, receiving 27 votes to Ferguson's 21.  The chair of the committee that masterminded the overturning of Susie Pinel's brutal £40 cut to single parent benefits, and my own parish's deputy, I'm personally one of the man's fans. Although he voted for Gorst in the Chief Ministerial vote, he is regarded around the parish as an easy-to-work with, friendly, competent man who fears God and knows his stuff (he certainly had the biggest crowd of supporters at the hustings!).

Perhaps depressingly of all, the slimy, dishonest, idiotic toad that is Senator Lyndon Farnham has walked straight back into Economic Development. From his arrogant, question-ducking, Gorst-sucking-upto attitude at the Senatorial hustings, his litany of project failures and legacy of shrinking productivity, the man has been a failure for Jersey at every turn. My question is -why did no-one stand against him?

Other successful bids include Kevin Lewis for Infrastructure, John Young for Environment and Len Norman for Home Affairs.

Try not to vomit, eh?

le Fondré triumphs in the race for Chief Minister - but how much will really change?

Senator John le Fondré has won a devastating victory over incumbent Chief Minister Ian Gorst in the election for Chief Minister today.

The former Deputy of St. Lawrence (2005-2018) was elected to the Island's highest elected office in a shock result that saw him win with 30 votes to Ian Gorst's mere 19. le Fondré's status as a member that was a traditional opponent of the Chief Minister rather than a former crony (like, say, Terry le Sueur and Frank Walker) prompted Senator Sam Mézec to call le Fondré's election "the end of 70 years of 'Jersey Progressive Party' government" (the JPP was a post-WW2 reactionary party, dominated by businessmen - many of whom were alleged German collaborators - formed in opposition to the socialist Jersey Democratic Movement) - "the first time a head of government has been democratically removed from office and replaced by someone not from the same political gang". Senator Mézec and his Reform Jersey colleagues all backed John le Fondré in the vote for Chief Minister.

While this election has certainly earned its place in Jersey's political history, and Senator le Fondré's elevation is most certainly a political upset in a traditional sense, the question has to be asked - how much change does this really represent? Our new Chief Minister is, after all, a former accountant, having studied Accounting and Finance at university and worked for Ernst and Young, a tax-avoiding gang of busybodies cashing in by helping rob poor people "multinational professional services firm" headquartered in that well-known oasis of transparency, the City of London. His vote.je profile confirms a Reaganite "low, broad and simple" approach to the issue of tax (meanwhile, the low-tax low-spend model continues to be trashed even in business media such as Forbes), while making vague platitudes about "middle Jersey" while making precisely zero mentions of the struggles of working-class, low-income Jersey. le Fondré is best described as what a businessman might call "safe" - a slow-it-all-down, non-radical CM. While his deal with Reform Jersey of veteran socialist Geoff Southern getting an assistant post in Social Security, patron of the arts Monty Tadier as assistant Culture and the chairman himself as Housing Minister and Minister for children shows us that radical politics has most certainly come out of this election as a force to be reckoned with, his promise to appoint The Dictatorphile himself as External Relations Minister (fresh on the tail of yet another ER scandal, this time about Jersey's relationship with Rwanda) sends a clear message that head-chopping dictators are still in and principled diplomacy is still out.

Information about which members voted for which candidate can be found here: https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/new-chief-minister-jersey-john-le-fondre-voted/#.WxV7i-4vyUk

Jersey's support for the Rwandan dictatorship

Ian Gorst with Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame

The Jersey Overseas Aid Commission has defended its financial aid to the central African country of Rwanda as a row breaks out over the country's sponsorship deal with Arsenal football club.

The African state, which has been de facto ruled by President Paul Kagame and his racist Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) since 1994, is to spend £30 million on a sponsorship deal with Arsenal to promote tourism - the footballers will wear "Visit Rwanda" on their t-shirts - while receiving handouts of upwards of £60 million a year from the UK in poverty relief programs, as well as over £2.5 million from Jersey since 2008.

Since 1994, Rwanda has been ruled by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a former terrorist organisation that seized power against the backdrop of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Dominated by the Tutsi, the minority ethnic group that ruled the pre-colonial and colonial era Kingdom of Rwanda, the RPF was founded in 1987 as an outgrowth of the Rwandese Alliance for National Unity, an organisation of Tutsi refugees thrown out of Rwanda by the majority Hutu people in the 1959 revolution. Enslaved for centuries by the Tutsi, and later the Tutsi's Belgian colonial allies, the Hutu revolt was sparked by the assassination of a Hutu chief by radical Tutsis - many Tutsis fled Rwanda as a result of the revolution.

The RPF's objectives were simple. They aimed to invade Rwanda, removing the Hutu government by force and restoring Tutsi minority rule. Backed by the United States, in 1990 the RPF invaded Rwanda, beginning a four-year civil war in which hundreds of thousands died. In 1994, as the government and social order collapsed against the genocide of Tutsis by extremist Hutu nationalist militias, the RPF eliminated remaining Hutu resistance and took control of the country, ending the violence but restoring Tutsi minority rule. Kagame, originally styling himself as vice-president but officially becoming president in 2000, has since suppressed opposition, placed heavy restrictions on freedom of speech and association, murdered opponents and generally established a violent and authoritarian society. Under the guise of preventing further sectarian violence (and shamelessly exploiting Tutsi fears of further genocide), Kagame has overseen the introduction of a new constitution that effectively turned Rwanda into a one-party state. He was re-elected in 2003, 2010 and 2017, unsurprisingly receiving 95%, 93% and 98% of the vote.

Has this stopped our dictator-loving Chief Minister from cosying up to Kagame and his government? Of course not. Has this stopped the Overseas Aid Commission from pouring money into Rwanda? Of course not.

Is it actually surprising that our oligarchic, tyrant-friendly government is getting in bed with racist African tinpot dictators?

Of course not.

States once again show contempt for civil service

Bully boy tactics abound once again at the top of SOJ management.

In a move clearly meant to send a message of "we're running the show here", States representatives decided that they couldn't be arsed to show up for a meeting last week with public sector union Staffside. According to Prospect, Staffside's representatives were left waiting for three-quarters of an hour for States representatives to arrive, after which they saw that no-one was showing up and left.

These negotiations come at a critical time, both for employees and management of SOJ. Despite an organisation-wide propaganda drive, Charlie Parker's utterly derisory "workforce modernsation" offer to put all States employees on one pay scheme with only ten bands was humiliatingly withdrawn after being rejected by major public sector unions in February. Since then, negotiations have been ongoing between said unions and the employer, apparently, given this latest show of force by SOJ, to not much success - Terry Renouf, chairman of Staffside and Prospect's Jersey branch, called this "a clear indication to Staffside that once again the Employer is not sincere about wanting to negotiate with staff representatives in line with agreed timescales".

This isn't the first clear indication of an insincere attitude that workforce modernisation has produced either. While Parker's restructuring program has had senior bureaucrats, often with years or even decades of experience, having to re-apply for their jobs, a "trebles all round" attitude has taken hold in head office, with two of Parker's pet sycophants "expert consultants" earning up to £1,300 a day and the other two on £100,000+ a year contracts, approximately three times the average Jersey salary. Helier Clement of the JEP slammed this gravy train in a column a few weeks back - he said that "this lot have not only hopped aboard (the gravy train) but appear also to have struck oil or discovered gold in the bowels of Cyril le Marquand House". I couldn't have put it better myself - especially coming at a time when living standards are slipping and inequality on the rise.

(Incidentally, is anyone else sick of being referred to by Parker as a "customer" or watching him lecture the bureaucracy on "customer services"? This isn't some mega-corporate state, Parker. We aren't the States' customers - we're the owners, something SOJ top management would do well to remember).