There is an urgency to this game now because that other seasonal game - the "10 Years Island Plan" - has also to be designed and sold to the ever gullible public PDQ. Some call it the "Decimation Game".
For those interested in Jersey's post Occupation political history I have scanned a couple of images and post them below.
These are from previous attempts - 1979 and 1995/6 - to devise "population and immigration" policies for Jersey and of course they failed miserably.
What I find especially interesting is that I made submissions in both 1979 and 1995 and I am still wasting my time and energies in trying to influence the decision making process - or even ( I must be deluded) to influence the outcomes.
What is also interesting is to note how few others have stayed the course but a few very significant names are still evident in 2019!
I note that John Young (now President of the Environment aka Planning Department) was in 1996 the COE of that organisation (although it has changed its name and address since then) and John has been knocking Alderney into a different shape too.
Also I note that Mark Boleat chaired the 1995/6 Working Party and he has been Knighted ( I do not know what for) and as Sir Mark Boleat has just been appointed to head up Andium Homes.
It may or may not be relevant that he was one of Charlie's Chums at Westminster.
Who else might have survived the ravages of time I know not but it is the old ideas legacy that concern me mostly.
Of course my political aims and objectives remain remarkably similar to those I gained from my mother's breast ( it was acceptable in those enlightened Socialist days) - whereas I fear that those now entrusted with producing the latest population and immigration policies are also still entrenched in their old discrimination based solutions.
Alas, I include the latest crop of "planners" too because they have a traditional reliance upon creating zones for anything that does not move and a belief that all land must have some sort of "farming" use priority even when there are no farmers to work it or realistic crops to produce. Thus "call it green" is their mantra and there is no more to be said or done....
So to cut a long diatribe short - we are inevitably going to come up with similarly flawed policies and plans - if they can be agreed at all.
If you can try to look at the 1979 and 1996 Reports - they are almost as funny as the Beano Yearbook - so ideal Xmas reading.
