The Guardian's 'long read' this morning is headed as follows:
Long term readers of this blog will have noticed I have been talking about the black hole in the island's finances that I forecast that it would face by 2015 from about 2006 onwards (or right from the very beginning). And that, fundamentally is what this long read is about. To put is unsubtly, what the article acknowledges is that I was right.
The star of the show is, however, very definitely my long term friend and Tax Justice Network colleague, John Christensen, which is only right and proper as John is a Jersey man, and has had to face enormously bitter attacks to campaign on the issues created within and by the island of his origin. I have always saluted John for that: I've always suspected he would still live in Jersey if he could. Exile is a high price to pay for your convictions.
But when weaving the story Oliver Bullough, for the Guardian, does mention:
Perhaps his most notable comrade in this struggle is the accountant and Quaker Richard Murphy, whom he met by chance in 2002. “Richard and John have done magical things, absolute miracles,” said Pat Lucas, a teacher on Jersey and another veteran campaigner against the offshore industry. “They have changed the whole narrative.”
And adds:
Christensen and Murphy are not solely responsible for Jersey's troubles but sometimes, when talking to officials, you could be forgiven for thinking they were. (At one point during my interview with the former treasury and resources minister Philip Ozouf, he appeared temporarily to forget he was talking to me. “What's wrong about that, Mr Murphy? That's good stuff,” he said, as if fantasising about taking on the turbulent accountant.)
Before noting
Christensen ... is not the kind of man to get into a slanging match.
Murphy, on the other hand, is combative — he advised Jeremy Corbyn during his leadership campaign for the Labour party — and has no such reservations. “They have for 10 years refused to accept that, fundamentally, their business model is, to use a technical term, fucked,” he told me.
I won't be suing. And the description of the Jersey business model is accurate. This though is a little wide of the mark:
If Christensen, Murphy and their gang had been Jersey's only opponents, the island's feelings would be hurt, but it would otherwise probably remain unharmed.
The article then notes the forces, such as the EU, assembled against the island. My doubt is whether they would have been assembled without us. It's a point to debate.
More importantly, there is a serious point to the article. Having noted that Jersey clearly sees no way out of the mess it is in the comment is made that:
Jersey bet its future on finance, allowing its other industries to shrivel, in the belief that it could live well in perpetuity from moving other people's money around. If that belief was false, then does its fate await another island off the coast of France — one that has also pledged its future to finance? In short, is Jersey's worrying present Britain's bleak future?
This is no minor issue. As the FT notes this morning:
Few countries have been as enthusiastic about tax competition as the UK.
That's the classic sign of a tax haven.
Are we heading the way of Jersey, with all that means? I think it possible. And it would be a disaster.
Reading the whole article is recommended.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
I read the article, thought it was quite good – did wonder where the journalistic license crept in. One thought struck me – there appears to be no functioning democracy on Jersey & I’d suggest that with the decline in Tory party membership (I think they are below 100k) something similar is happening to the mob the pretend to currently run UK Ltd. Their paid-up supporters are no longer citizens but corporations & doners – with a PR operation – “let’s pretend” & “bread & circuses” every 5 years to fool the voters. Note also on Jersey the lack of talent to forge a different path (tourism/agriculture)…. the Uk is on a very similar path …. failure of the UK to educate UK citizens etc etc. Jersey, the Uk in microcosm and 10 years ahead?
Precisely
It’s good to see the term “finance curse” getting some more airtime and so sad for the general population of Jersey to now be suffering at the hands of their inept and corrupt leaders who have allowed the island to become captured by the finance sector at the expense of the majority of people who live there.
Who will rid me of this turbulent accountant.
An update for our times?
As soon as I saw John Christensen’s name I knew it would only be a slag off of Jersey because that’s all he ever does yet his brother owns a trust company in the Island which nobody understands.
Its a shame he has to do this but tomorrow the Guardian is chip paper and that’s that.
No man is his brother’s keeper
Your understanding has not even got that far
The Treasury Minister has dismissed this.
Get back to the Drawing Board TJN.
http://www.itv.com/news/channel/update/2015-12-08/claims-jersey-heading-for-bankruptcy-inaccurate/
They denied it in 2007 too
I was right then
And they have no answers now
There are enough people in Jersey who recognise John Christensen and yourself as haters of its finance industry anyway.
So any connected article like this predicting doom and misery for Jersey which you have done many times before anyway, is simply taken with a pinch of salt.
I know the Finance industry is growing and has a record number of workers in it so to suggest bankruptcy is frankly silly.
Silly?
So a Jersey government deficit fro which there is no known remedy is a good thing?
Explain how, when unlike the UK, it cannot print money to get out of the mess that is real in Jersey but entirely controllable here because we are the issuer of a reserve currency
For those amongst us still harbouring under the delusion that “this time its different,” may I recommend Kipling’s take on this subject (paying particular attention to the last line of verse 8):
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
The Article was enlightening and well research IMHO. All I’d like to know Mr Murphy is where you buy your crystal balls from.
Balls Crystal 1A is a legendary stores item supposedly on the inventory of any large organisation from the military through to manufacturing and utilities.
Generations of managers have genuinely believed everyone below them was issued with one the day they were employed.