My comrades fought for this Island – and look at it now

From H Gaskell.

SHOCK, horror, our States Members want a pay rise and we OAPs are bracing ourselves for the next cut.

Nothing is sacred so long as they are paid more to run the Island, but as one wag put it: ‘Run the Island? That lot couldn’t run for a bus.’ But so few actually know that Connex is contracted to run our bus service. Their desire to do so efficiently is often thwarted by bureaucratic interference from Transport and Dysfunctional Services.

This is a department whose catalogue of errors includes the bottlenecks impassable to emergency vehicles in rush hours, a cavern that overflows in heavy rain, often with raw sewage polluting their marina, which can only be entered with extreme difficulty. The green weed also attests to their inept operation of the Bellozanne plant and our roads their failure to provide adequate maintenance.

Nor are they alone in that respect. Our sea defences are in parlous state and States properties little better, but complaints have prompted Housing to initiate a program of refurbishment which, unfortunately, has left some tenants unable to afford their heating.

The hospital has deteriorated so much that, we are told, it will have to be knocked down and rebuilt in order to improve the service to patients, an improvement we have yet to see.

In the meantime, our dearly beloved representatives occupy themselves in squabbling and endless debates on the composition of the States in order to secure more power for a select few.

Sunday was Remembrance Sunday and I regret to say that in remembering my comrades who fought for their Island and who paid that terrible price I felt a certain gratitude that they will never know the washout that this Island has become in the never-ending quest for money and power.