The Jersey Evening Post has published a gushing report saying:
PRIME Minister David Cameron should come to Jersey to see his vision of the ‘Big Society' in action, according to one of his MPs who has been in the Island this week.
Conservative MP Daniel Kaczynski has been in the Island for an official visit, and he has echoed the comments about Jersey's community spirit that departing Lieutenant-Governor Andrew Ridgway made two months ago.
Mr Kawczynski — a junior agriculture minister who chairs two committees on relationships with the Arab world — said that Jersey's system of voluntary and honorary service was the model of the more caring society that Mr Cameron spoke about.
Well, let me set some facts straight.
Mr Kawczynski is not a junior agriculture minister. He has never held ministerial office - although his personal web site says he is a member of the 'shadow' foreign office team - indicating that he has not updated it since May 2010 - such is his attention to his duties. What he actually is is parliamentary private secretary to a junior agriculture minster - something very different indeed.
And Mr Kawczynski is not a member of any select committees at all right now - because he so rarely turned up when he was.
So Mr Kawczynski seems best noted for being that sort of Tory MP whose concept of the Big Society is getting elected to a pretty safe seat, ignoring the constituents, for whose benefit he can't even communicate what he's doing, going on some nice jollies to places like Jersey and doing as little as posible in Westminster.
And we're supposed to be impressed by this man's opinion?
Oh come on Jersey! When you can't even report his status properly please don't ask us to believe the guff as well.
And guff it is. Because the reality is Jersey is a place riddled by fear, populated by people who can't afford to buy homes, who know their government is going bust, who are having more tax demanded of them just to support tax avoiders and evaders and which is running an illegal tax regime to ensure that the place continues to be considered a pariah on the international stage.
And that's the Tory vision of the Big Society?
Well, maybe it is.
I take it all back.
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To be scrupulously fair, while Mr Kawczynski is not a member of any select committees, he chairs the all-party Saudi Arabia committee and chairs the Conservative Arab Network parliamentary group. This is just crappy JEP reporting, rather than spin.
It’s a little ironic that he’s big mates with our quasi-Foreign Minister Freddie Cohen, formerly chair of the local synagogue!
No one believes the nonsense that gets written in the Jersey Evening Post. It is a reflecting mirror. It offers belief for those desperately wishiig to believe, yet whose faith has worn thin. Yes, Jersey is crumbling and socially divided. The looters are probably planning now how to get out on the last train from St Helier Central.
Sadly there is a missing word in your first sentence: it should read “no one sensible believes the nonsense…”
“while Mr Kawczynski is not a member of any select committees, he chairs the all-party Saudi Arabia committee and chairs the Conservative Arab Network parliamentary group.”
How nice, I daresay when the House of Saud are next over this way they can pop down to St Helier for a loving reunion with their money. In fairness, persuading US presidents to launch illegal wars can’t come cheap.
Sounds like you’re describing USA, UK, China…
You’re right, Jersey is riddled with fear and there is nothing any of us can do about it…
When the longest serving politition gets his house raided by the police without a warrant and the Chief of Police gets suspended with no charges ever being brought, how on earth is the ordinary man in the street going to be able to do anything ?..
The UK government has a duty to make sure that the proper rule of law is being upheld in it’s crown dependencies and they have failed us miserably..