Alf Cannan's I Have A Dream

[Andy Onchan]

4 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

Yeah.  What’s that got to do with what we are talking about with the casino on Middlemarch site? Nothing

So you know that the developers of Middlemarch haven't applied for the rebate?

[CrazyDave]

6 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

So you know that the developers of Middlemarch haven't applied for the rebate?

I don’t know if they applied, but I know they haven’t got one.

It would have obviously been four schemes in the press release if that was the case.

[english zloty]

8 hours ago, CrazyDave said:

They will be on site working a few months of planning being approved, by which time Duke Street will be cracking on and hopefully the Tevir Site at the Villiers as well.

Planning really need to get their arses in gear and get some of these pushed through.

Does anyone know what happened about the Newsons appeal recently?

They will have to wait for the taxpayer funded car park to be built by MDC first because building car parks is apparently what an organisation costing £400,000 a year in wages does

[english zloty]

4 hours ago, CrazyDave said:

I don’t know if they applied, but I know they haven’t got one.

It would have obviously been four schemes in the press release if that was the case.

I think they already got enough bungs to develop the site before the brown envelope/field development idea.

[CrazyDave]

12 minutes ago, english zloty said:

They will have to wait for the taxpayer funded car park to be built by MDC first because building car parks is apparently what an organisation costing £400,000 a year in wages does

Its part of what they do, and we desperately need a car park in that part of town so what is the issue?

If a private firm built a carpark there and charged prices that meant they made a return then everyone would moan it was too expensive 

[english zloty]

4 minutes ago, CrazyDave said:

Its part of what they do, and we desperately need a car park in that part of town so what is the issue?

If a private firm built a carpark there and charged prices that meant they made a return then everyone would moan it was too expensive 

Yawn, you're boring me now Dave. And quite patronizing too. Must be the civil service way. 🤡

[CrazyDave]

5 minutes ago, english zloty said:

Yawn, you're boring me now Dave. And quite patronizing too. Must be the civil service way. 🤡

I am not a civil servant.

Whats your counter argument other than just calling someone a clown?

[english zloty]

On 9/22/2023 at 2:26 PM, Roger Mexico said:

He was certainly moving around very gingerly and slowly at the Villa yesterday.  I suppose MR didn't want to describe him as being supine as the word has the secondary (and common) meaning of being "weak and willing to accept the control of others"  or "failing to act or protest as a result of moral weakness or indolence".  Which might lead some to ask how that is different from normal.

(I'm not really sure that you can be described as lying flat in a chair anyway, but that's MR for you).

seems to be as good a place as any to quote the EVENT! Seems no one is interested in 'engaging' with this administration. I wonder why that is...

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/number-of-people-attending-isle-of-man-government-conference-drops/

[Roger Mexico]

45 minutes ago, english zloty said:

seems to be as good a place as any to quote the EVENT! Seems no one is interested in 'engaging' with this administration. I wonder why that is...

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/number-of-people-attending-isle-of-man-government-conference-drops/

We probably ought to praise the fact that these do appear to be honest and informative figures:

Despite 508 people registering in advance for a free place at the Wednesday evening session just 258 attended.

The following day 449 people took part – again down from the 597 who had signed up.

A spokesperson for the Isle of Man Government has confirmed the figures, which they say are an estimate, include the number of check-ins from the Eventbrite booking platform, walk-ins, panellists and named guests.

An additional 47 government staff and politicians were also recorded as attending.

Of course adding 258 to 449 doesn't mean that 707 people attended, there will be a big overlap.  And adding in 47 politicians and staff (who may have gone to either or both) makes it even more meaningless.  But that appears to be Manx Radio's fault.  But as someone who went for most of the full day, the figures seem plausible, given several things going on at once and many people were clearly only popping in for a few hours.  And the 449 includes speakers, press and the like, though presumably not all the helpful young people in government-issue black polo shirts (what do they all do the rest of the year?).

It's difficult to tell whether it represents a drop from last year on the full day as the figures last year we even more confused and blatantly rigged.  Certainly the evening session seems a poor turnout (like 50% of those registered I decided my hair needed washing) though that may have been due to an agenda consisting only of questions to various Ministers, which usually end up being stilted and staged.  They'd be best going back to two full days (the agenda's always crowded) and maybe having one of them Saturday/Sunday.

I'm not sure that no one engaged - there seemed to be a number of property developers looking keen and carrying bags marked SWAG.  But there was no real structured attempts to get politicians involved with the public. they seemed mostly concerned with avoiding questions in the Main Hall.  A lot of politicians didn't seem to be there (certainly not all the time) and few senior civil servants were notably present either.  The whole thing was more about putting on a self-congratulatory show than informing or learning from the public.

Which is a pity, because there was a lot of potential to do both - and also getting more people to participate.  And as usual at such events it was possible to have informative conversations with politicians, more junior and technical civil servants, outside experts and other participants.  It was also informative in a more depressing way as you realised just how useless certain policies and people were and how little will there was to change them.

But the overriding need to control and a lack of any real interest in learning on show made it feel mostly wasted.

[asitis]

4 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

I'm not sure that no one engaged - there seemed to be a number of property developers looking keen and carrying bags marked SWAG.

Humour often disguises the truth LOL excellent.

[code99]

The IOMG have historically prioritised construction companies, by having large capital budgets. This spending created both: profits for those companies and jobs for local workers. Arguably, spending on capital projects have been more important to the IOMG than spending on health services, for which public funding has been systematically stifled over many years.

That being said, because property companies on the IOM pay 20% tax on their profits, if these projects go well, there could be a few future tasty tax-morsels for the IOM Treasury. The developers might be hoping to sell the projects on competition to various investors (some of whom could be ‘foreign’ and have chequered human rights records) for highly inflated prices and sizeable profits. On the other hand, if these developments are either misjudged, poorly managed, or if the economy dives into a recession before these projects are finished, they could all become financial black holes and instead of producing much needed additional cash for the Treasury, they may need IOM taxpayer bail-outs. Time will tell.

[Banker]

33 minutes ago, code99 said:

The IOMG have historically prioritised construction companies, by having large capital budgets. This spending created both: profits for those companies and jobs for local workers. Arguably, spending on capital projects have been more important to the IOMG than spending on health services, for which public funding has been systematically stifled over many years.

That being said, because property companies on the IOM pay 20% tax on their profits, if these projects go well, there could be a few future tasty tax-morsels for the IOM Treasury. The developers might be hoping to sell the projects on competition to various investors (some of whom could be ‘foreign’ and have chequered human rights records) for highly inflated prices and sizeable profits. On the other hand, if these developments are either misjudged, poorly managed, or if the economy dives into a recession before these projects are finished, they could all become financial black holes and instead of producing much needed additional cash for the Treasury, they may need IOM taxpayer bail-outs. Time will tell.

As previously mentioned Tevir group have a great track record & substantial asset base so don’t foresee any issues with them, also Dandara have a track record of being able to sell everything they build & again have plenty of money. Not sure who’s financing casino but they always seem to do well even in recession.

[Dirty Buggane]

I was waiting in a noodle bar in Castle Street for my lunch. when within the space of ten minutes the premises were overflowing with students from St Ninnians. When I enquired what was happening it appears they had been given the afternoon off but had to attend the conference, so would guess this would also skew the figures about attendance.

[Banker]

2 hours ago, Dirty Buggane said:

I was waiting in a noodle bar in Castle Street for my lunch. when within the space of ten minutes the premises were overflowing with students from St Ninnians. When I enquired what was happening it appears they had been given the afternoon off but had to attend the conference, so would guess this would also skew the figures about attendance.

I didn’t see many high school students there so either they were telling you rubbish or didn’t go

[cissolt]

6 minutes ago, Banker said:

I didn’t see many high school students there so either they were telling you rubbish or didn’t go

My friends grandchildren were bussed down to the conference from St Ninians, lunch was provided and i am told it was a very sad looking ham sandwich and a carton of juice. They left hungry.