What kind of society is the Cannan government proposing?

World organisations and activists rightfully fight for human rights and social inclusion for all.

Our government is funding and supporting the building of campuses and accommodation complexes in Douglas for foreign workers (Westmoreland Road project) designed for the creation of a residents restricted travel zone where personal transport is to be accommodated by 241 bicycle parks.

This discriminatory concept paints a very sorry picture of any proper intention to maintain or grow the island as a sustainable democratic inclusive society fair to all.

Our government appear to be introducing the very uncomfortable cultural proposition of workforce apartheid; these distasteful concepts cannot be allowed to progress.

The island must endeavour to attract the most credible young professionals by making them welcome by inclusion, with an expectancy to set down roots, own a home, own a car, raise families and be a part of society experiencing an island culture and island activities.

Past generations were attracted here to work by lifestyle (not restricted to a bicycle or e-scooter) and made significant contributions to the economy, improved the island as a place to live and invest by raising standards of healthcare, education, and policing, creating a modern society with an enviable feeling of safety.

Before the hard sell, to again attract a new modern workforce, there must be an immediate change in government policy.

There must be visible and immediate investment in infrastructure projects, the provision of family homes, new modern schools and child care facilities, investment in education, expansion of health and care facilities, and investment in policing.

Some of the island’s loss of attractiveness, loss of living standards, and lost economic potential, consequential of governments bad management must now be addressed head on.

If government financing facilities have gone pear-shaped, own up.

If the multi-million loans to the Manx Electricity Authority are not recoverable then they should be written off to cut the price of electricity and help the cost of living.

If the Steam Packet venture with exposure approaching £400 million is recoverable, then the company must be sold to immediately finance infrastructure and re-investment for the benefit of economic advancement.

The New Development Corporation must be immediately reined in, and a statement of its expenditure to date disclosed.

A stop put to the funding of hare-brained concepts derived from inner-city problem areas.

Next to be paraded could be a 13-storey tenement block at the ferry terminal?

This corporation (growing an entourage of directors, consultants, and advisors and fees) must immediately become accountable to the taxpayer (not a committee of three within the Cabinet Office) and only engage in re-development of governments vacant brown field sites, applying appropriate due diligence to planning policy, and achievable affordable deliverability.

This corporation (like the failings of the MEA structure) must be stopped from exposing the taxpayer with multi-millions of undisclosed unnecessary debts in chasing NIMBY ideologies imbedded in a lame “Island Plan”.

A plan which reads like a thesis of aspirations dreamed up by a delusionary student.

This Island Plan has no achievable fiscal structure, or ability to address urgently the island’s most imminent critical needs.

Chief Minister, you fail to engage with opinion, with private enterprise, with consultation data or Inquiry findings, as if you rule a kingdom.

Your politics, your Island Plan, your immigration worker plan, are an economic disaster, only propped up by a ‘Lavrov’ styled press office spinning government failures and everyday occurrences into extravagant success stories courting media headlines, which are no longer believable.

Your politics are simply not conducive with an island economy and do not address issues specific to an island’s population progression.

Dumping the work permit system will only look inviting to those living from crime.

The non-productive Housing Board headed by Minister Thomas needs to be scrapped immediately.

Your mishandling of the Ranson revelations highlights you have no meaningful appetite to address destructive and vindictive bullying cultures in administration government.

The next election, like the last election, will send many ineffective whimpering MHKs and Ministers heading for new employment, but Chief Minister, for the good of the island, you and your political ideologies, must go, and go now.

Henry Kennaugh

Hillberry Green

Douglas

This letter was first published in the Isle of Man Examiner of June 13.

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