Maybe it's just me, but does our Jersey whiff a bit?
Whatever your perceptions of Jersey are, it is often described as one of the UK’s great success stories, albeit that constitutionally, it is not so much part of the UK as an attachment, It is one of that rarest of beasts, a Crown Dependency that owes allegiance directly to the British Crown, and where the UK is responsible for defence and international representation, while Jersey governs its own domestic affairs through the States Assembly and its own legal and taxation system.
Jersey is one of the world’s leading international finance centres. Funds, trusts, banking, private wealth management and corporate structures administered in Jersey handle very large amounts of global capital. It attracts international investment into Britain and supports thousands of jobs in London and elsewhere. It also provides specialist financial services that complement the City of London. However, critics suggest that offshore financial centres help tax avoidance and reduce tax revenues elsewhere. Either way, Jersey’s financial sector is economically significant and closely intertwined with the UK’s financial ecosystem.
For many decades, it has enjoyed a high standard of living that many larger jurisdictions could envy. But as is the way of the developed world in the 21st century, islanders have become increasingly concerned about the cost of living, housing affordability, and the growing sense that the government is becoming larger, more expensive, and further removed from the people it is supposed to serve. This sense of abandonment is manifesting itself in what might be considered quite a ”spikey” general election.
Firstly, it sees the reintroduction of the 49 members of the State Assembly. Voters will choose nine Senators (a role that is being reintroduced after being controversially abolished ahead of the 2022 election) from among seventeen candidates who represent the entire Island, alongside 28 Deputies and twelve Connétables, or parish councillors. Additionally, they have decided to move away from the traditional Wednesday voting to a Sunday to encourage voter turnout. Furthermore, in order to allegedly address historically low turnouts (only 42% voted in 2022), the island implemented automatic voter registration for eligible residents over 16.
It marks a significant shift in how the Crown Dependency governs itself, and, bizarrely, for a UK-centric election process, international observers will monitor the entire election.
Historically, Jersey politics has been dominated by non-aligned independents. This year, organised political movements have come to the fore, including Reform Jersey, the island’s essentially left-leaning political party, and Value Jersey, a newly formed organisation focused on making Jersey more affordable. The latter has already attracted significant attention because it is registered as a movement rather than an official political party and therefore not obliged to, for example, reveal it’s funding sources.
Reform Jersey is fielding sixteen candidates. Their manifesto pledges to introduce tax allowances for pensioners, reform the marginal tax rate, build affordable housing, and improve local bus and cycling infrastructure. There is some alarm at the political stance of some of their candidates, who have openly expressed support for Russia’s position on Ukraine and supported the enemies of Israel. Reform Jersey is the largest and most successful political party on the Channel Islands, and is very close to Unite the Union. Unite is the party’s largest donor – providing 94% of its publicly declared donations at the last election, and a Unite delegate is constitutionally required to sit on Reform Jersey’s board. The Government of Jersey is the largest single employer on the island, with approx 9,800 public sector workers accounting for about 15% of the island’s total working population. The majority of the workforce is represented by Unite
But new revelations are raising questions about Unite’s support for the party. Reform Jersey leader Sam Mezec – who is also a Unite member – is a founder of the Jersey Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and regularly speaks at its marches and rallies.
Meanwhile, Value Jersey has produced their “Purple Book” of policies to make Jersey more affordable. Because it registers as a “movement” rather than an official political party, it has faced heavy criticism and calls for transparency from UK democracy groups like Unlock Democracy for refusing to name its donors, despite paying political consultants to support their nine candidates.
Public hustings and media calls have shown that voters are overwhelmingly focused on economic pressures.
Yet for generations, Jersey thrived on a simple, robust formula: low taxation, minimal bureaucratic intervention, and a fiercely guarded independence that attracted global capital. The bloat has delivered a crushing cost-of-living crisis, a stagnant housing market, and an economy suffocating under the weight of its own administrative state.
Instead of addressing these core issues with fiscal discipline, the political consensus has drifted dangerously to the left. The socialist agitators of Reform Jersey, who are, in the main, Unite union members, are fielding 16 candidates on a platform that reads like a textbook blueprint for economic decline. Their promises of slashed marginal tax rates and massive public infrastructure spending must be funded somehow. In the real world, that means higher taxes on businesses, greater burdens on hard-working families, and the steady asphyxiation of the financial services sector that keeps this island afloat. Similarly, the invisible objectives and shady political machinations of Value Jersey also suggest a less-than-rosy future.
The real choice facing Jersey is not between capitalism and socialism, nor between left and right in their crudest forms. It is whether the island can rediscover a culture of disciplined government. One can believe in helping those who are struggling while also recognising that prosperity ultimately depends upon enterprise. One can support public services while insisting that they operate efficiently. One can favour reform without embracing perpetual expansion of the state.
What Jersey requires is neither ideological zeal nor managerial complacency. It requires politicians prepared to ask difficult questions about spending, regulation and economic competitiveness. It requires a renewed commitment to building homes rather than merely discussing them. Above all, it requires an understanding that government can create the conditions for prosperity, but it cannot substitute for prosperity itself.
As voters prepare to cast their ballots, they should look beyond slogans, whether they come wrapped in the language of social justice or modernisation. The future of Jersey will not be secured by ever-larger government, nor by nostalgia for a vanished past. It will be secured by prudent finances, transparent politics, economic freedom and a willingness to confront uncomfortable realities. The best way to achieve that is not through outrage, but through common sense
Meanwhile, if you have funds in Jersey, I’d have a good think about your mattress!
What a fun weekend. A hugely generous party, which featured a trio of drag artists and a small appearance by the magician Fay Presto, who has always been one of my favourite people from a different past. You would remember Fay if you’d seen her - great close-up magician and does the bottle through the table trick, and the selected card pinned to the ceiling after a pack is hurled in the air.
I met her at the Hippodrome with Peter Stringfellow two thousand years ago and again at Langhams at least thirty years ago, when Peter was still alive. She has a distinctly cynical, perhaps even jaundiced perception of the cabaret world, her own industry, and the punter, which makes any conversation with her always amusing and insightful. She sat with me for a few moments at the Beano and expressed her disappointment that people never understand that when she declares what she needs to succeed, if it isn’t there naturally, her show looks “staged”, which is not magical. She then declared, Do you know dear, I’m still bloody learning, and you’d think I’d be too old. But I had to get rid of my old agent, who simply wasn’t producing the goods, so I got a new one who got me a private party for good money. After dinner, the dessert and coffee course, and a bit later, if everyone was in the mood and the host so desired. So my agent called and asked how it went, and I told her it had worked very well and I’d picked up £500 in tips from various kind souls. Do you know what she did? She sent me a bill for bloody 15% for the tips! You keep learning, don’t you? Anyway, I’ve gone back to the old one….
And then she was gone, almost eighty; did the bottle through the table, made the card disappear, and the coin go into the bottle and then made that vanish as well, as she moved another old hand into the secret pocket in the tail coat, and another piece of her magic kit still working, appearing as if by…
What was so sad was that throughout and in the very present background, the three screaming Priscillas of the Desert strutted and shouted and clapped and organised and danced, like seven-year-olds showing off their new panto costumes to Mummy on their first school panto appearance. They had that manic hysteria, without having a good time, blissfully unaware of how much work Fay had done for them and their community. Fay was kicked out of the Magic Circle when she transitioned, but was one of the first women let in when they voted to end the discrimination against women! Fay regularly organises and performs in benefits to support the rights of women, children and the LGBT community. An absolute legend.
We didn’t have a bad day on Saturday, with my quick output generating a 13pt+ profit, but it’s eyes down for Epsom now, with a hugely busy week. Sadly, being away from my desk meant no ratings, because their generation requires my physical presence to move beads on the abacus and the like. However, they appear to be acting consistently - if you have any comments or have had some luck using them, do let me know! I’d prefer to know about potential unforeseen issues rather than discover them too late and say I wasn’t aware!
Talking of Nicola Sturgeon, a rather unpleasant vision popped into my head the other day when I discovered details of the plea bargain her former husband had obtained.
In return for sticking his hands up, specific items were removed from the indictment as part of the plea deal, thus avoiding the release of some embarrassing info. However, the prosecution had already read out the exact items that were being axed from the final charge sheet following defence negotiations. The dropped items total another near 15% of additional fraud, and feature an array of personal, household, and highly publicised women’s products:
Women’s Products and Cosmetics
High-End Makeup: £886 worth of foundation and cosmetics from Estée Lauder, plus nine makeup organisers worth £116.
Haircare Tools: A £300 Dyson hairdryer.
Clothing & Underwear: A Nike women’s tracksuit and packets of women’s knickers.
Fitness Gear: Various women’s fitness clothing and accessories.Household and Office Supplies.
A significant portion of the dropped charges involved bulk everyday goods and specific office machinery:
Bulk Toiletries: A massive order of 1,226 toilet rolls
Office Equipment: Commercial paper and credit card shredders.
Hygiene Tech: Six premium electric toothbrushes bought between 2016 and 2022 (worth £846.47), alongside replacement heads.
Hairspray (vital if you’re as bald as Peter Murrell) and Toiletries: Multiple cans of hairspray and bottles of Avon Skin So Soft body spray.
I was especially pleased to see that political literature featured lest we were thinking their mutual eyes weren’t on the job; there was a copy of “Why We Get The Wrong Politicians” by journalist Isabel Hardman.
The Crown Office accepted the removal of these items to secure Murrell’s early guilty plea, which avoided a costly, months-long public trial - but possibly more importantly, prevented many of us from having visions of Mrs Krankie in her magically sourced Janet Raeger kit!
Still, it does make you wonder… even I wouldn’t get away with a second coffee machine on the strength of having it away twice with a lucky 15 at Newbury and Folkestone!