From the Summit of the Moral High Ground

I AM writing in response to the letter from John Henwood (JEP 16 October). I find it encouraging that the debate on the role and nature of our government has been initiated by Mr Henwood and I am broadly supportive of his sentiment and views. It is self-evident that if the government seeks to remove a significant proportion of the disposable income from the population then the amount of money available to spend is reduced. Our government has systematically increased the effective rate of taxation from around 20% in 1980 to somewhere in the region of 45% today. It is no surprise, therefore, that our economy is faltering. Increased regulation has hammered much of Jersey’s industry – first making the tourism industry non-viable and lately rendering the finance industry non-competitive as the cost of complying with an ever increasing bureaucratic burden has escalated exponentially. This started in 1998 with the insistence that all corporate entities prepare accounts. Regulation is also mak...

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such fo...

The 3rd October 2013 was Gandhi's birthday, a day when we celebrate international non-violence day. I like to take a pause and consider the wisdom of one of my chief inspirations, the enlightened soul that is Gandhi. It is easy in the modern world to confuse the basis of personal wealth; the love of money is the root of all evil but it is in the love that you are given freely by your fellow human beings that your true worth is correctly estimated. The most important and most difficult human to love is yourself; and how much more difficult when you place yourself in a position of authority over other humans. When humans places their trust, safety and security in you. This is an onerous task and one that should not be accepted lightly. Perhaps a task that is accepted without sufficient consideration for the consequences and overbearing weight of such a burden. I do not expect you to be perfect so: Every time you make a self-serving decision, every bribe you accept, ever...