Women Are Human Beings Not Property

There's one word guaranteed to get my wife fuming: ITIS. She thinks that it's insulting to her that the Income Tax Department can take whatever money they like out of her wages and yet refuse to talk to her about it because that's her husband's business. And she's right. It is insulting. It's not just insulting to her, it's an insult to every human being on this island.

Curiosuly enough I raised this very point at St Martins when I stood for senator 8 years ago. A person raised the issue of women's rights and I used this very example and I asked how can a civilised society in the 21st Century continue to allow such a deplorable practice. The result was that a female journalist wrote an article in the JEP to tell me off. She said, how dare I suggest that the women of this island needed the help of me or any man to fix this problem. They were empowered feminists and could change it without my help, thank you very much

So, for the last 8 years I've done nothing. If the feminists didn't want my help, that's fine.That is their democratic right. But sadly, I've not been the only one that's done nothing.

So what am I going to do about this obscenity in the future? Absolutely nothing. Not a thing. Actually I'm lying - I'm trying to be a politican after all - I'm going to do just one thing. I'm going to encourage the female candidates, in no particular order - Moz, Kristina, Tracey and, of course, Sarah - to get together with the female constables and the female deputies and change this stupid and offensive law.

If I may suggest a tactic: I would demand that, until they treat women as human beings and not as property, the income tax department be stopped from taking money from any wife's accounts or wife's assets because only humans can earn income tax. I bet the law will get changed pretty damn quickly when the Tax department realises that it may lose revenue

So I'd like to end by leaving you with one question to think about:

How much longer will it be before we start acknowledging women as human beings? Surely not another 8 years, please.

The Horrors Of Tax Addiction

Do you like horror stories?

Well it's bad news for you if you don't, because you're living in one.

We have a massive substance abuse problem and addiction in the island. And no one is talking about the worst type of addiction. True, the number who suffer from it are small, but the social impact it has ruins all of our lives.

I am, of course, talking about tax addiction. Now it is only suffered by a group who call themselves "politicians" and there's only a small number of them although this year there 91 confirmed cases. But it does hurt everyone and we need to deal with it because it's getting worse.

Politicians need their fix of taxes - and there's never enough.. So in the last 10 years, we've had GST twice, LTC twice, VED, extra impots duty on fuel to supposedly "replace" road tax and more stealth taxes than I can keep track of, including the minimum wage. Here's why that is a stealth tax. The governemt says to itself "There's too many people with Small Income Excemption relief who aren't paying their full taxes. I know. We'll demand businesses pay low earners more so that they no longer qualify for Small Income Excemption. We can take more money from them and they'll be worse off than when they started". Has any of the Reform Party sat down and worked out the financial implications to the people who will get the wage increase? Of course not, they're politicians. All they care about is the tax. You see, it doesn't matter how much you get paid. What matters is how much you get to keep. So, the only people who are going to really benefit from a minimum wage are the government

The problem with tax addiction, as with every addiction, is that there is a massive social cost. These are:

.1 This is why the politicians are throwing money at massive construction projects - it's just an excuse to charge you more tax.After all, can we really afford to pay back £800 million for a new hospital without new taxes?

2. Increased immigration and all the problems that causes - high rents, unaffordable homes, the impact on the environment. That's because getting people to pay more tax is just soft drugs. Getting more people to pay more tax, that's the really hard drugs that really get them high. That's the reason we had GST, why there were no exceptions to it as with VAT and why GST will go up again at least once if not multiple times in the near future.

"But Phil we need more people because we have a skills gap"

Utter Bulllocks

There's no skill gap.

I have a business project that I'm working on at the moment and I'm currently interviewing for an extra 500 skilled staff to be involved by the end of the year. Not one of them will be in Jersey. I have this wonderful gizmo called a "Lip-top" or something and it is connected to this thing called an "UltraWeb" and I can use it to contact any number of skilled professionals anywhere in the world for any project I wish - when I'm not looking at cat videos, of course.

3. Increased civil service - the bigger the civil service, the more excuse they have for charging more taxes.

As further proof that there is no skills shortage, look at where the majority of immigrants are working. From 2006-2016, the island population increased by 11,900. Where did they go? Into finance? No that's shrinking. In fact, the only two employers that are expanding are the Civil Service - in order to improve our infrastructure to take account of the increased numbers - and the Building Industry - to build that infrastrutre and the houses those people need. So they're only here to solve a problem that only exists because they came here in the first place. Isn't that a bit like paying one person to dig a hole and paying another to fill it in? So, here's an idea: just don't employ any more civil servants anad builders. Problem solved.

None of these "excuses" are real, they're just to hide the tragic truth of tax addiction.

How do we cure it?

I don't know if there is a cure.

The only thing I know is that these people need to be kept as far away from government as possible so they can't cause more damage.

Preferably, they should be locked away in a quiet, padded room - so their environment isn't too taxing on them!

Horror Story 1: The Hospital

Do you like horror stories?

Well it's bad news for you if you don't, because you're about to live in one.

What happens once the hospital is finally built in 20-30 years and at a cost of £20 billion putting us, our children and our children's children into debt for the rest of our lives? What will life look like then?

Well nightmare scenario number 1 is that on its very first day of opening, the shiny new doors of our shiny new hospital will open up, patients will enter and be greeted with a smiling receptionist who will say

"Welcome to our very expensive and very shiny new hopsital. Unfortunately, we can't treat you because we don't have any doctors or nurses. We turned around to them and said 'Sorry we can't pay because we've spent all our money on the hospital.' And they said 'That's fine. We'll just go to America or Switzerland or wherever else will be able to afford to pay us'. However the good news is that we do hourly tours to show how shiny new and clean our new hospital because it's certainly clean of patients, doctors and nurses. By the way, the politicians and civil servants who are responsible for this mess have all taken their money and have followed the doctors and nurses off the island"

Nightmare scenario Number 2:The hospital is finished and the Chief Minister then turns around and says "Because it cost us about £800 million and counting and we can't afford to pay it back, the hospital won't be open to the public. You will now have to get health insurance IN ADDITION to your taxes in order to be treated here". And we are instantly transported to America where Jersey citizens will be dying on the streets whilst rich clients are specially flown in on private jets

Nightmare scenariio number 3: what if it's like the police station where they build it and discover it's too small and have to build another building nearby at an undisclosed figure?

Nightmare scenario number 4: What if it's like the incinerator where we paid £160 million for a standard design only to have to pay extra money when it turned out that the square chutes needed to be round? How much did that cost us? How more times has that happened that I don't know about? Oh no one is saying, strange that

Nightmare scenario number 5: What if it's like the airport that was originally only going to cost £8 million then cost 4 times more to actually make and has cost us money every year since for the last 25 years? How much did it cost to replace the shiny roof that blinded pilots on landing? How much did that enormous watch tower cost - you know the one you hardly ever see because it's permanently shrouded in fog?

Has there ever been a building constructed by the states that has ever worked first time without additional costs? And they're now telling us that it is now going to cost closer to £800 million or 167% more than originally estimated. That's an average increase of £62.5 million for each of the 8 years we've been discussing it and they're blaming this on you for delaying them. So which one of you was it commissioned all of those expensive reports? Now according to the BBC, in Jun last year, it was only going to be £400 million. So, it's doubled in a year. I can tell you this: if they're now admitting to £800 million, you can guarantee that the real figure is a lot, lot higher. But they're saying "trust us, we know what we're doing" Does any of this sound like they know what they're doing?

Here's the absolute worst part: what is this hospital actually going to be designed to do? There's a lot of talk about primary care. Now is that primary care of an average population or of an ageing population that they so like to moan about. Because health costs increase dramatically at the end of life. Ecept that's a lie. They only increase now because of our approach to ageing. To be fair to the NHS, ageing is a new concept .

My solution is give the problem over to a private organisation that has demonstrated for over 40 years that it can deliver top-notch medical assistance at a stupidly low price. I am, of course referring to Jersey Hospice who year after year provide a quality service at no cost to the taxpayer

Oh, I almost forgot, I'm a consultant. So, Chief Minister please make the cheque for 1 million pounds payable to ....

Just How Much More Grey Concrete And Black Tarmac Do We Want to Cover Our Island In?

Do you like horror stories?

Well it's bad news for you if you don't, because you're about to live in one.

Just read Sarah's manifesto.

She speaks about the Council of Ministers insane idea of allowing the population to increase by 700 a year.

700 a year!

And she appears to be the only standing member who is concerned by this number, particularly about where we're going to house them.

I'm not concerned. I'm absolutely bloody terrified.

Here's why:

1. The figure of 700 is a lie. It's a delusional wish. It's an arbitrary figure that the government has no strategy in place to enforce It's also nowhere near the real figure for annual immigration. If you look at official documents, you will see that from 2006-2016, population grew by 11,900 or an average of 1,190 a year. That's 490 more than the Council of Ministers figure or 70% more. So that doesn't mean we will need the 185 Les Marais blocks that so concern Sarah. It actually means 314 blocks. Now evenly distributed, that mean 26 blocks per parish. So where would you like your 26 put? Are you horrified yet? Well it gets worse
2. The people coming over here don't want to live in a Les Marais block. The bad news is that what they want is the Jersey dream of at least a semi-detached with a little garden in front and back, a garage they can convert into another room and room for at least 3 cars - one for daddy, one for mummy and one for the kid once they grow up - more if they have more kids. So it's not 314 Les Marais, it's 314 Clos du Corvez housing estates. The bad news is that a Clos du Corvez estate takes up at least twice the footprint as a Les Marais block. Every parish is going to look like St Clement. Are you horrified yet? Well it gets worse.
3. It's not just housing. Every additional house means additional utilities, additional sewage management, additional refuse removal, more cars, more car parking, more schools, a bigger hospital, and even more freight on the roads. That means more strain on our infrastructure and that means a much bigger civil service. And a bigger civil service means more taxes. How many extra civil servants do we need with each additional family? 1,2,3, 30? No one knows because everyone is too scared to ask. Are you horrifed yet? Well it gets worse.
4. What the hell are these extra people going to do over here? Do we have 1,190 jobs for them to fill? Well, as the first quarter of this year, we have 910 people Actively Seeking Work. So that would tend to suggest that we don't have the work for these new people. So is the figure next year going to be 2,000? .The only work seems to be in the civil service - so are we talking about increasing the civil service by 1,000 just to handle the extra population? Are you horrified yet?

And don't think you're going to escape it because your constable and deputies can vote to send it down to St Clement like you've done in the past because St Clement is almost full.

So what can be done?

You can demand the government set a limit on the population - and stick to it. To do that you must act now by voting out any candidate who is for more immigration. The bad news is that appears to be everyone on this stage apart from me and Sarah.

So maybe we should also act by placing a limit on building. At the moment, according to Gov.je, there were 3,103 empty properties in the island at the last census. For those interested in numbers that was 7% of the total number of proerties. So how about we set a limit that at any time, we cannot have more than 3,000 properties empty. And then drop that limit by 500 each year until we get to 500. So, we're not allowed to build any more until we have people staying in the ones we already have. We can run it on a simple waiting list. So a property developer will come along and say "I want to build 10 houses" and the states will say "No problem. We'll let you know when 10 spots become available and then you can build". "But I want to build now". "Well you can't. You'll have to wait"

"But Phil, what about the 1,000 needing homes on the waiting list". Well, compulsory buy the best 1,000 empty properties and then sell them on to the waiting list. Ooh look, problem solved and no new houses needed.

So I'd like to end by asking one simple question: when will the island be full enough of people? 200,000? 300,000? Half a million? When are we going to stop letting people flood in?

The Hospital Con Trick

Do you like horror stories?

Well if you don't, it's bad news for you because you're about to live in one.

Do you know the biggest con trick the government is trying to pull on you at the moment?

The hospital.

Here's why:

Do you know which hospital in the world has the best success rate and safest record?

It is the British Army trauma unit in Afghanistan.

Now I would like to know this: how come doctors operating out of a couple tents in a war zone in a third world country have a better record than we do - and they treat all victims whether friend, foe or just innocent victims of war equally and do so for no charge?

The answer is simple:

They don't have our politicians and our civil servants screwing it up for them.

Now the con trick has the usual two parts:

• First, is the Commitment Effect: they get you to pay a tiny, almost insignificant amount and then ask for a little bit more and you keep paying because you've already paid some money, you would hate to lose it so you keep paying. So it is that we have now spent £20 million or thereabouts and politicians are now saying "Well let's not waste that by stopping" What's wrong with saying "Well we've wasted £20 million plus, why not find out why so we don't waste any more?"
• The second part of the con is to not tell you the full extent of the costs so you get used to to the slow increase. So it was that a standing politician informed us at St Saviour that the actual cost was closer to £800 million when you factor in the cost of the bond. That's a £62.5 million increase for each of the 8 years that we've been talking about it. Now you can be absolutely sure that if they're talking about £800 million now, the real figure is going to be so much more bigger

Here's the horrible truth: the problems we have with the hospital are nothing to do with the building and are everything to do with staff issues and management. They will be the same problems when we have our brand new shiny building.

Do you want to know the truly scary part?

The Red Cross decided that it wasn't right that Jersey had no provisions should an emergency happen here and we needed an emergency hospital like the one the British Army Trauma Unit have. They decided it work cost £75 thousand and have already put the money away. And after spending £800 million and counting, we will be in such a terrible state that we're going to need those tents.

A Spot Of Legalised Robbery

I have said how I'm back in the political arena because the income tax department is breaking the law ... again ... and yet I haven't spoken about that yet. I'm sorry. It's just the way the hustings went. I had to raise particular issues in particular parishes and although they were about other departments are also breaking the law, they weren't specifically about the income tax department.

When I wanted to pick the worst thing the Income Tax Department were doing for my printed manifesto, it was toss-up between the one I finally picked and this obscene practice here.

They are abusing their ability to assess you whatever they like to over assess people for thousands of pounds. They then inform them that they are free to appeal but if the appeal process goes over the end of the year, they will be liable for a fine on non-payment of taxes they might not even owe. And even if the appeal eventually shows that they didn't owe it, they will still be liable for the fine.

This is all a lie. First it is obtaining money with menaces or mugging as it is called when it happens anywhere else but the Tax Department.

Second, it's against the Tax Law. The Tax Law clearly states that the Income Tax Department has no rights to any money until it has been properly assessed and any appeal process has been resolved. After every assessment, you have 30 days to appeal. If you do, the Tax Depatrment has not rights to any money in dispute. It has to resolve the dispute before it can pursue the money which is the exact opposite of what it is doing.

That means that the Department is obliged BY LAW to stop taking ITIS payments from you and return any monies it has already collected that are in appeal until such time as the appeal is resolved. Before then, it can't take a penny from you because no tax is due until thereis no longer a dispute. Nor can it fine you. It can only fine for non-payment of taxes 12 months after they became due and that only happens once the appeal process is resolved.

The writers of the law thought that your right of appeal was so important, they gave it to you twice. You have the right to appeal 30 days after the assessment. Then thanks to article 38, you have an additional right to appeal that starts on the 31st day and extends for 5 years.

Yet all of that is being violated by our present Tax Department - and by extension by the Treasury Department and by the Council of Ministers who are turning a blind eye to it all.

So I'd like to end by leaving you with two questions to think about:

1. How many people are paying more than their legal obligation because of lies and fear tactics from the Tax Department?
2. How have we come to this place where our government is happy that the Tax Deparment can lie and cheat and steal from the public?

A Spot Of Legalised Mugging

I'm back on the campaign trail because I'm sick and tired of our government breaking the very laws its supposed to protect

Let me give you yet another example

Over two years ago, a grandmother went to work at Les Amis as usual. However, that day, the chair she was sitting on broke and she fell backward hurting her back. From that day to this, she has been in constant pain and has been signed off unable to work. The back injury may be permanent.

Les Amis responded by immediately reducing her wages to £17 a month for the last 2 years and then recently terminated her contract on the grounds of illness.

So how many laws has this broken?

Well, apart from not having health and safety policies and protocols to prevent such accidents, they have also not carried out a management review to deal with inadequate maintenance. That's negligence on two counts. Then according to someone who knows the employment law better than I, they've broken that law by terminating someone's employment in the middle of a dispute. On top of that, they have broken the discrimination laws by treating an employee's present disability as an illness. They're a disability charity. How would they like it if we told them that their clients aren't disabled, they're just ill? Where does a disability charity get off creating disability and then abusing the victim of their negligence?

So what's been done about it? Er ... nothing

Has Health and Safety investigated this accident? Well, I haven't seen a report

Have they even checked the other chairs to ensure that other members of staff are not at risk?

No

What about the Charity Commissioner? Ensuring good governance and that charities don't endanger the health of their employees is his domain? Has he done anything for the £1 million a year it's costing us to employ him?

No

Has parish of Saviour and its deputies done anything seeing as it happened within their boundaries? God, no

You know the thing that makes my blood boil is if that little old lady had been violently mugged and robbed in the street, it would be front page news and there would be a massive public uproar. But because a charity did the same thing behind closed doors, no one but me gives a rat's arse - not even the people getting paid large sums of public money to care

So I'd like to end by leaving you with two questions to think about:

1. How many more people are currently living with pain and hardship because they have been injured at work whilst social security, the parish leadership and every other relevant organisation looks the other way?
2. How have we come to this point where this kind of thing is allowed and even acceptable?

Social Security Versus The People

When I first stood back in 2008, one of the two things I was campaigning against was the Income Tax Department's wilful disregard for the Income Tax law.

Well, thanks in no small part, I'm sure, to a then-Deputy Gorst, the Income Tax Department mended its ways and started obeying the law.

Since then, that deputy has gone on to become Chief Minister and it would appear that the Income Tax Department has thought that he would be too busy to notice if they went back to the law-breaking ways. And they're right.

The really bad news is that other departments have see the Income Tax Department getting away with it and have followed suit. One of these departments is Social Security.

They break the law by independently re-calculating income. They do it so that the figure is higher so you pay more social security and receive less benefits. However, if the figure that they get differs in any way from the figure calculated by the Income Tax Department, then they're guilty of trying to defraud the public.

Let me tell you about Paul. He was a gardener and handyman who diligently paid his social security throughout his entire working life which was about 40 years. Then he got cancer and became too ill to continue working. So he turned to the Social Department for the help he had paid for only to receive a letter telling him that they had re-calculated his income and he was £2 over the limit and he wasn't going to receive a penny

I'd like to ask the minister in charge and all the civil servants involved

How did it make you feel stealing from a dying man?

Did you feel good?

Did it make you feel powerful?

Did you pat your selves on the back because you'd "saved" the department so much money?

How did it feel to turn the cornerstone of a civilised society into an abomination?

Well, I hate to disappoint you but it didn't make much of a difference to Paul because he died a few months later. But that's another story for another evening

So I'd like to end by leaving you with two questions to think about:

1. How many more people are currently living with hardship this very second because the social security department is denying them the support that they are legally entitled to and have paid for?
2. How come I know about this and the 11 standing members wanting to be senator don't? Is it because they don't want to know because this is all about ordinary people and it's not to do with finance or construction?

The Invasion Of The Construction Monster

I attended the JeCC meeting yesterday. I went with the idea that the construction industry is the island's biggest enemy but should be our greatest friend. It is our greatest enemy because it just wants to build and build and build until there is nowhere to build any more. That will mean no more green spaces left. It could be our biggest ally by reconditioning our existing environment to make it fit our modern needs better. For example, it could champion the use of fritt as a way of cutting down heating bills.

Now I raised that with them 10 years ago at a similar meeting. So much fritt is there in the island? Not a single piece.

I came away from the meeting convinced that it is a fight for survival - it is either us or the construction industry

Well, I vote us.

Farming Versus Finance

I'm pessimistic about the future of this island because far too many people think talking and doing are the same thing.

How many times in the last 10 years have you heard something like this from a politician or civil servant: "We need a diverse economy to offset finance and farming is the cornerstone of our rural economy?"

Now has things improved or got worse in the last 10 years? No, they've got worse. 10% of farmland was turned over to "development" - as if covering the island in grey concrete and black tarmac is a development

Why does the government hate farming? Three reasons:

1. It's nothing personal. They hate every business that diminishes their dependence on the finance industry. They want us totally dependent so that they can keep threatening us with its loss. It's a classic drug-pusher strategy: get you hooked and then raise the price by threatening supply
2. They want your land for housing. Yes, they could use less useful sites and poor farm land but they won't because those areas don't offer the best return. 50% of the land is used for farming. Guess which 50% they want to build on?
3. No one cares about the future. They all want a quick buck now. So, selling the land for development is easier than working it to earn more money over a longer period.

So what does the future hold?

More land loss and less farmers until such time as property speculation ends.

No One Is Above The Law

When I first stood back in 2008, one of the two things I was campaigning against was the Income Tax Department's wilful disregard for the Income Tax law.

Well, thanks in no small part, I'm sure, to a then-Deputy Gorst, the Income Tax Department mended its ways and started obeying the law.

Since then, that deputy has gone on to become Chief Minister and it would appear that the Income Tax Department has thought that he would be too busy to notice and have gone back to the law-breaking ways. And they're right.

Of the many ways that they break the law, the worst is that they dispose of all documentation after 5 years. This is a direct violation of the data protection law and your human rights because they are destroying legal documentation that you may require later should there be any issues that call for a re-assessment of any previous years income tax. The real reason that they're doing is to hide their mistakes in the hope that you won't have kept vital records yourself. But whatever the reason for this, it is a criminal act.

If they weren't going to keep them, the least they should do is return them to the owners of the information ie you. But they don't, they destroy it and they do so without notice to allow you to ensure that you have proper copies.

The really bad news is that other departments have seen the Income Tax Department getting away with it and have decided to follow them including Social Security, amongst others. And they've been doing it for some time.

Now the reason they do ths is because they think that they are above the law. Apparently, there is a law that states that no civil servant will be held responsible for their actions. Well, I hate to say this, but this law has been superceded. In 2000 when we introduced the human rights legislation, we introduced a requirement that any existing law that are subsequently found to infringe human rights are automatically null and void

A law that allows the civil service to violate the public without recourse is a direct violation of articles 7 and 14.

I want to know why we have not enacted this human rights legislation on any and every law protecting civil servants and politicians. After all, it's been around for 18 years now.

No one is above the law. Everyone should obey the same law - including civil servants - especially civil servants