Assisted dying discussion - Jersey 18 November 2021

 

Dr Nigel Minihane (above)

NB this video is missing the initial minute of recording

Silvan Luley of Dignitas (below)

A Q & A session followed but is not shown here.

Jersey Farming Conference 11 November 2021 - COVID concerns

 

I attended the Jersey Farming Conference today 11 November 2021 and wore a face mask.

I was the only person there who did wear a mask for this all-day event which ran from 9.00 am to 3.45pm. Presumably all attendees received similar emails a few days before the conference date that  the event was to run “adhering to Public Health guidelines on events and gatherings.”

This further stressed that attendees were “strongly advised to wear face coverings” and increase their lateral flow testing.

 Several speakers at the conference had arrived from the UK especially for this event, which was also attended by ministers Senator Farnham, Deputies Morel and Guida (who all spoke) besides other States members who sat among the audience and generally circulated.

 The seating provision at this conference was very closely spaced (as my video indicates) and I thought (from memory) there were only 80 tickets available and others wanting to attend should do so “on-line.”

 

I have no idea if the farming community habitually ignores safety precautions in their working life, but it did seem extraordinary that I was the only person present in any capacity who was masked.

An organizer even explained to me that a box of 50 masks had been made available at the entrance for anybody who wanted one, but this had “disappeared” by the end of the day.

 

During the course of the day’s presentations I attempted to ask a question from the floor about the lack of masks being worn but was told that questions were only being allowed on-line.

 I raised it again with several speakers and an organizer and was told that the “strong advice” was only a recommendation and could not be enforced.

 

It is a pity that this instructive and important conference was allowed to proceed as described here whereas “COVID” supposedly remains as a very real and dangerous threat to our well-being.

 

Sixty years of building and Architects in Jersey. Public meeting to sort out St Helier - 9 November 2021

 

The Association of Jersey Architects is celebrating 60 years of their building design works this week.

I must say that I don’t think they have much to celebrate and the booklet they have produced indicates a somewhat “ordinary” level of achievement.

It is significant I think that the most innovative and smallest project – La Fregate Cafe completed in 1996 – is likely to be demolished soon.

Of course, there are some buildings of merit shown in the printed brochure but for the most part they are safe structures designed to fill spaces. They do not deserve the highest accolade of “architecture” and do not add much of quality to the built environment for the whole population.

At the St Helier Town Hall presentation and “discussion” today it fell to a member of the public audience to point out that “designing for disability” was not featured at all.

In fact, the lift access to the room had not been enabled and the printed brochure included some obscure illustrations and very small font sizes were generally used. Inevitably too, no effort was made to engage a signer and much of the presentation was difficult to follow.

 For a profession that claims expertise in “design” such omissions and failures have been and remain far too evident in the works of the membership throughout the 60 years from 1961.

 The discussion was more like a junior school project than a serious examination of the very major problems facing St Helier and the whole Island. The interactions between the 12 Parishes were ignored. It was as though St Helier is a unique Island with problems that need to be addressed in isolation. The proposals put forward for discussion by the panel were generally banal and undemanding raising virtually no matters that are likely to be addressed by or relevant to architects.

 Most of the proposals have already been discussed to death over many decades and I have linked to those that I managed to video record. I have not attempted to record or present any of the panel discussion and the proposals might appear here in the wrong order of sequence but the final question about a “single” suggestion to improve St Helier does not feature here.

 I don’t want to be too unkind to Jersey’s designers – whosoever they might be – but for an Island that presents such an abundance of “natural beauty” I think that the prospect of another 60 years of building and extension of a built environment, either within the boundaries of St Helier or beyond, needs to be based upon different and better standards.

Disability and Inclusion - "Embrace the Difference" Jersey 21 October 2021

 Seven video recordings from this event appear here including Lord Blunkett as "keynote speaker."

There were more that could be included but this is deemed an appropriate record of this excellent event.

The recordings appear in a vague order only.

Jersey Sport and Enable Jersey

Stuart Penn presenting the Jersey disability strategic survey results

Lord Blunkett

Lord Blunkett questions and answers

"Embrace the Difference" and intro

Jersey Cheshire Home off stage chat

Inclusion for deaf and friends choir

Derek Mason - Architect and La Fregate - Jersey - Channel Islands

Architects Derek Mason and Will Alsop designed "La Fregate" cafe building n 1997.

Now it is under threat from the rising sea level and may be demolished or moved.

This interview with Derek Mason was recorded on 20 September 2021

La Fregate today

Derek Mason interview Part One (below)

Derek Mason interview Part Two (below)

YouTube is becoming a nightmare.

It changes every time I try to post or comment and I cannot easily overcome the darkness on my recordings or attach  sub-titles. But we plod on and if anybody wants to help or record an interview then please make contact by PM

Exploitation of Russian workers in Jersey - 76 years after the Liberation?

 Jersey has imported many workers over the centuries - especially agricultural employees.

Why it has never been possible to use only local labour is a bit of a puzzle but this year has been especially difficult to recruit workers because of BREXIT, COVID 19, a severe housing shortage (since the Liberation) and low wages joined to a high cost of living.

It is especially ironic that Jersey is a very wealthy "international finance centre" where there are great contrasts between the wealthy and workers' lifestyles. Yet the demand is to grow the economy even further whilst the population - so many claim - is already too large at 106,000 residents.

Inevitably there are all sorts of discrimination permitted in pursuit of a "hostile environment" to discourage "immigrants" from settling. The Russians have experienced much unfairness yet are still keen to work in Jersey - or the UK- if allowed to do so.

Deputy M. Tadier interviewed  (above)

Nick Le Cornu - Jersey Employment lawyer interviewed (above)

Russian farm worker interviewed in Jersey (above)

Jersey Human Rights Group wreath laying at the Occupation workers memorial in 2014 (above)

BBC Politics South West - A good discussion but no Channel Islands content - 23 May 2021

 This BBC South West programme usually follows the Andrew Marr TV broadcast on Sunday mornings. 

It hardly ever fetaures the Channel Islands.

Recently it did feature the Jersey fishing dispute with France - which received world-wide attention - but did not include any speakers from the Channel Islands.

This week the programme featured Housing, Farming and Free Trade and Disability in Politics. All subjects that are important in the Islands yet they were not discussed at all.

I have here below posted bite-size recordings of each part of the programme.

I hope that some might comment here or better still complain to the BBC.

INTRO       

HOUSING

FARMING and FREE TRADE

DISABILITY in POLITICS

That's All Folks

The rest is up to you

JERSEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE - A Political Party by any other name?

 

JERSEY CHAMBER of COMMERCE  - A Political Party by any other name?

 

According to the Chamber’s own website it was founded in 1768 by Jersey merchants who were

“not satisfied with their representation by the ruling elite in the States.”

 Then as now it is a very political organization that is regularly consulted by government and it  lobbies for reform over a wide range of activities.

It claims now to represent a diverse community but its Executive Council is dominated by persons from a very limited range of business backgrounds.

 They would fit in well with any Tory Party in the UK context but here in Jersey they exist as a “business” promoting organization claiming  over 250 years of “influencing change for the good.”

 They claim a membership of nearly 600 “business” organizations employing 30,000 but what those many thousands of employees actually think is presumably not within the organization’s TOR to determine.

Like most people I have seen the C of C logo many times on the wall of the Royal Square building (donated to the Chamber in 1821) and have not really considered what it represents now or when it was first designed.

Whether it shows a pagan goddess or female slave with a barrel of Newfoundland cod and a box of smuggled tea is not of much importance today. But it is significant in an historical context for Jersey and something that the Chamber might usefully re-consider today.

Is it still an appropriate image for the Chamber?

 Does the image have any political significance today?

 The general public too might like to consider what the political or other roles of the Chamber of Commerce are - or should be - in the 21^st century?

Should it be consulted so regularly and widely by government?

Is it behaving like a political party without the democratic constraints that a party system imposes and which many think that Jersey desperately needs.

Especially since “business” is represented by many other organizations too in Jersey.

 We should not forget that just 12 months after the Chamber was formed in 1768 the so called “Corn Riots” overthrew the rotten Jersey Royal Court on 28 September 1769  - now called “Jersey Reform Day” - to initiate long term democratic and judicial changes by direct action of the people.

 Of course many of the merchants who formed the Chamber then were also exploiting the general public through arbitrary impositions and manipulations of “corn prices.”

But then as now, the Chamber was not formed to speak for the general public interest.

It still speaks for business

and claims to

 “promote trade and build on the prosperity of the Island.”

 But  that may be just a fanciful PR claim in this Island where the demands of COVID 19, BREXIT and CLIMATE CHANGE are much more important .

 

The Holocaust memorial in Jersey - and how we remember or forget

The Holocaust is remembered across the world on "Memorial Day".

This year  it will take place on Wednesday 27 January in Jersey but due to the restrictions of Covid 19 will be a simple event  and not open to the general public to participate.

The short video below shows the grave in Jersey of "Frank" Le Villio who might have been one of only two known British survivors of the Belsen Concentration camp complex. 

He was born in Jersey but died in Nottingham during 1946  and was re-buried in Jersey recently.

In my view Jersey has failed to recognise since 1945 the importance of the Liberation from Occupation during WW2.

We should all be much more pro-active in promoting human rights and related international standards to eliminate discrimination and injustice in all forms. 

Most of all, our government should take a much more active role and create a human rights and international standards Ministry or Special Unit with adequate funding for publishing information and promoting the elimination of ignorance.

Perhaps such a committment can be announced on 27 January 2021 at the Holocaust Memorial ceremony.

The tragedy of Norman Le Brocq

Nowadays we have almost unlimited opportunities to insult each other via the Internet.

Norman Le Brocq was not so much a target by electronic means but he experienced a great deal of mud-slinging - actual or otherwise - during his long political career. And the media of the day - notably the JEP - was ever ready to discredit him and his political aspirations - and those of his supporters - for decades. 

Yet when world leaders such as Donald Trump are now actually banned by Facebook and Twitter because of the general rubbish and personal attacks that they publish then we know that something has gone seriously wrong with our modern concepts of "free speech" and "expression."

Norman is well known now for his anti-Nazi activities during the Occupation but the Jersey establishment very soon disowned him and his vews during the post Liberation election processes.

Although Norman was a very placid man and his family background was hardly ever discussed except that he was orphaned and had attended Victoria College as a scholarship student - there was a secret that has strangely never been fully explained.

He was the victim of a family tragedy in 1934 when his parents and 2 young sisters were found dead - by a servant or maid -  in their Rouge Bouillon house from gas poisoning.

The court hearing concluded that this was a double suicide - by the parents - and double murder of the children.

The family appeared to be reasonably well-off and the father - Stanley Albert aged just 37 - had been a fruit grower at St Peter and ran a couple of florists shops in St Helier.

Norman aged 11 had survived because he was sleeping in another room and the tragedy took place in a bedroom where the father normally slept alone.

Since Norman became such an important part of Jersey's post-war political development I am surprised that his tragic family legacy is so little known or discussed. Especially since Norman's own left-wing political awareness was so untypical in this very conservative and small community.

It also provokes me to wonder how political critics can be so cruel to candidates or those who express "different" points of view without any understanding of their personal circumstances.

Below I have posted Norman's Jersey Democratic Movement (JDM) re-election manifesto - I think for the elections of c 1982.

It was a modest proposal which could well be appropriate for the approaching elections in 2022.

Yet there would be plenty of people insulting him or anybody else who tries to present such views even today - the moreso if they do so in the name of a "political party."

It seems to be just another aspect of the "Jersey Way" and is encouraged by the "wonderful anonymity" and or remoteness of the NET.