Are you an ally of the States of Jersey?

It is with dread that I open the newspaper every night, I live in constant fear that the government will have dreamt up a new hair-brained idea to waste taxpayer money and bring yet further ruin to this once great island. Money that they actually no longer have and so they are now recklessly spending our inheritance from better times when more sensible heads ran an Island we could be proud of. The current crop seem dead set on bringing ever more misery to the daily lives of the people they purport to represent. It could well be a case of rags to rags in three generations if something is not done to stop them.

Imagine my horror to discover that the Chief Minister is going to burn my money by having a new 'imagine Jersey' style public consultation exercise, when the cause of mass immigration is blatantly obvious - the unrestricted growth of bureaucracy in Jersey creating ever more jobs which have to be filled from an already usually fully employed population. Government is the problem.

It was with disgust that I learnt that thrift clubs, the working man's preferred method of saving was to be the subject of double taxation by stealth in the form of gambling commission fees. A fine way to support local businesses which are already under the cosh from the probe happy Treasury Minister.

Imagine the nausea I felt when the Economic Development Minister had the bare-faced cheek to claim some of the credit for the 'success' of Play.com and to discover that the pointless Jersey Business was going to be an Ambassador for local businesses. Anyone considering launching a business had best remember that those that can't, enter public service and so should avoid seeking their advice.

The solution to the vast majority of our problems is so simple that only the government could fail to recognise it - cut taxes and remove unnecessary regulation.

If they wish to reverse unemployment then a) repeal income support and b) repeal the employment law.

If they wish to control the population then cut the number of employees paid for out of taxpayer funds and repeal income support.

If they wish to increase the tax take then repeal GST, lower harbour and airport stealth taxes and lower impots and liquidate the Tourism department, to make Jersey, once again, the duty free shop for France and the UK.

Whilst the government is keen to be seen to be doing more, what we actually need is for the government to be doing less.

The evidence over the past 30 years clearly demonstrates that anything they try to do, not only fails spectacularly, but creates additional problems too.

These additional problems require higher taxes and more regulation which further pushes the island along the economic death spiral we are in. Whilst the civil servants are delighted with the additional responsibility, head count and of course, personal pay rises that result.

Sir Philip Bailhache may be onto something though.

The history of the States of Jersey is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these islands.

In every stage of these oppressions islanders have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: those repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A government whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to govern a free people.

How much longer before the good people of this Island solemnly publish and declare they are of right, and ought to be, free and independent; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the States of Jersey.

Jersey Reform Day is the 28th September, that might be just the day to publish such a declaration.