Alf just does not have the courage to change course

OK I’m a cynic! I want to believe that Treasury Minister Alf Cannan MHK wants to engage with people and have them inform his decision making process when he frames the budget. Alf to me is a pain in the neck but as I have a pain in the chest already I can do without getting all vitriolic and adding to it.

I happen to believe that the IOM government frames its needs around the business community rather than the desires or input of ‘the man in the Onchan omnibus’ however I haven't arrived at that view via cynicism but through observation.

I sat for two decades on the MNEDC seeing how successive Manx governments adopted an obsequious attitude to the business community and primarily their ‘messengers on earth’ the Chamber of Commerce.

Paradoxically Alfs Dad was the last Treasury Minister who pointed the way towards a better society with the concept of the Caring and Prosperous society but he soon went and his successor Donald Gelling ( a very nice man I hasten) was soon pictured on budget day in the TGWU newspaper ‘The Manx Worker’ with a briefcase with moths coming out of it.

Of course we ‘over egged the pudding’ at the time that was our job - looking after working people and those on low incomes such as pensioners. But in hindsight I’m glad of what we did in the Manx TUC of which I was president at that time - who is shouting these days?

However you cannot deny that after a good start to the decade (the 1990s) by the end of it divergence in terms of income aspiration was the norm. It may not have become as sharp a contrast but the VAT debacle a decade or so later was the final nail in the coffin for income aspiration.

The Isle of Man is in a fiscal black hole. It's not as dire as some believe but successive governments starting when Allan Bell was at the Treasury and then Eddie Teare had determined that the ‘hoi polloi’ were going to dig us out of the mire by being ruthlessly milked by direct and indirect taxation.

The latter is important because if Treasury do concede a taxation benefit to lower/middle income workers chances are some invertebrate like ‘Popeye’ has already cancelled it out by restructuring utility charges. Or indeed rent and rate adjustments occur which leave you further behind than you were before the ‘benefit’.

Alf Cannan could change that dramatically as he has his hands on the levers of (fiscal) power - and let's face it there is not much competition to him for that role in the current Council of Ministers.

Alf is NOT going to change course no matter how many meetings he holds and how much public engagement occurs its not in his DNA. I don’t disdain Cannan because he is an unpleasant person (he may personally be very nice) I despise him because he has not got the courage to change direction in terms of revenue raising and ease the pressure on lower and middle income workers. When/if he does I would take my hat of to him - if I had one! Until then I intend to visceral in my condemnation. You can be fooled if you like I’m not!

Image and link: Alf goes on a charm offensive courtesy of Manx Radio - political discourse on the latter becomes more surreal by the day!

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/treasury-initiative-is-n...

Bernard Moffatt