Do you want Jersey Royal potatoes with your Xmas lunch? Hear what William Church has to say on the matter...

This interview with William Church of the Jersey Royal Company is a follow on from that posted here on 23 March this year.

Then the ground was waterlogged and today the fog was thick and as William Church explains this season was "not pretty" - farmers speak for miserable we suspect - as was last year's.

As before by the time you have watched this video your Jersey Royals will be boiled and ready to eat (about 21 minutes)...if you have any.

William does not want any political intervention and suggests that the growers will battle with the weather and the market to put the spuds into your cooking pot - but we are not so optimistic.

There did not seem to be much political clout at the recent farming conference (which William did not consider worth attending) so who will fight the corner of the industry is anybody's guess.

Sentiments that protect agriculture simply because the industry keeps the countryside looking green are wearing a bit thin - especially since the Green Zone is no longer sacred.

My views that the island population needs many thousands of new dwellings are not supported by those who are already housed thank you very much - but the reality for the 700 families on Deputy Green's urgent need for "social housing" list, or the unknown thousands seeking "affordable" accommodation in the private sector - not to mention the ever lasting 10,000 without housing quals.....


but its Xmas so let's not worry about all that....pass the mint sauce and tuck in...

see http://www.jerseyroyal.co.uk

for the company view on things or look at Jersey Royal Company on Youtube....

Potatoes, Polish people and portacabins serving the Jersey Royal...

We return here in this interview with William Church (above) of the Jersey Royal Company to the subject of housing the 10,000 residents of Jersey without "housing quals".

In fact the Jersey Royal Company  employs up to 600 of the 1,500 who work in agriculture and some of these will have achieved Jersey housing rights. So this is specifically about those "seasonal" people - mostly from Poland - who work to produce the famous Jersey Royal potato.

In an Island where the very lucrative Finance sector is dominant economically (12,000 employees), the difficulty of generating comparable wealth from a simple crop such as spuds is obvious. But the importance of the agricultural activity to the image of the Island - keeping the countryside green - and maintiaining a place that is attractive to live in for residents and tourists cannot be overstated. However, that importance alone does not attract money.

The factors that dictate whether agriculture can survive in the long term are complex. We have tried not to take sides in the discussion posted in this or previous related blogs but discrimination is not, in our view, an accptable standard to base a fair society on.

Clearly, if agricultural workers are to be paid similar wages to workers in the finance industry and to be properly housed then Jersey's potato industry must soon collapse.
But why should agricultural workers accept lesser standards of pay and living conditions  in this tiny community of just 100,000 people?

We thank the Jersey Royal Company for meeting with us and allowing Wiilam to speak so frankly.
The company has its own web site;
http://www.jerseyroyal.co.uk
and several interesting videos are posted on Jersey Royal Company YouTube.

As always we invite comments and will be especially pleased to video record and post the views of local politicians or those with a particular interest in the subjects raised.

Conspiracies Jersey style plus a Moroccan mystery...

It takes about 20 minutes to cook a pot of spuds and this video can be used to time their boiling to perfection - but as always where  local Royals are concerned you must not forget to add a generous pinch of salt...

Here Deputy Mike Higgins and former Deputy Bob Hill discuss some aspects of the Jersey Six plus One conspiracy aka the Curtis Warren  case.

Whether Jonathan Welsh, Jamie O'Brien, Jason Woodward, Paul Hunt, Oliver Lucas and Curtis Warren were justly convicted in September 2009 is a question that might yet  be considered further  in another place - as might the role of Mohammed Liazid...

but for the moment the focus of attention seems more directed at Jersey's various "law and order" agencies.

Unfortunately the paying public's right to know has a very low priority in Jersey and one is left to wonder whether the true conspirators have yet been apprehended and /or punished?

Perhaps if Deputy Higgins persists with his line of questions in the States he might succeed in prizing open a few oysters to reveal some tiny pearls of legal wisdom but it must be obvious to anybody with an ounce of curiosity that the current system of public accountability of the Police, the Home Afffairs Minister and his Department, and the Crown Officers is a totally inadequate mess.

Deputy Higgins is carrying on with questioning that was to some extent initiated by Bob Hill and a few others in the States but we cannot help wondering why so few States Members are asking such questions now?

If bugging and surveillance tactics are allowed to grow and such precedents to gain credibility, who knows where they might lead ?
My own attempts to initiate a full Scrutiny Review of sureveillance policies and practices in  Jersey - by both public and private operators - has so far had a very luke-warm and tentative response.

Shall any of Jersey's 250 or so lawyers be raising these matters and promoting an informed public discusion in the near or distant future....