By Ben Shenton
WE were holidaying in northern Spain and found ourselves near the Museo de Altamira, so decided to visit and learn about the cave paintings made around 36,000 years ago. To be honest I’m not exactly into archaeology and would not have gone out of my way to visit, but I consider any form of education as positive.
The curators of the museum were keen to point out that many of the claims made about the lives of the cave artists had a degree of artistic licence, simply because confirmation of the truth is unobtainable. However, no museum would be complete without a depiction of a cleanly shaven early man – they could not paint very well but they knew how to get a great close shave.
A sign in the museum caught my eye. It read, in Spanish and English: “The species that survives is not the strongest, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that best adapts to change.”
I thought that this was so true, not just in evolution but also in business, investment, politics, life and numerous other areas.
In the past, Jersey has always been quick to change. Unburdened by big government, we were quick to open our borders to UK tourists after the Second World War, develop niche markets in agriculture, and use our special status to create an offshore finance industry. We were nimble. Planning applications were free, tax on alcohol and tobacco delightfully low, and we were not strangled by socialist-style regulation.
Those in charge failed, and are still failing, to understand the importance of adapting to change. The population is now heavily regulated in just about everything they do.
There are layers of expensive and time-consuming regulation in almost every profession. Tourism has become expensive, and we failed to adapt to the attractions of cheap air travel to rival destinations where good food, good weather and a low budget can be guaranteed.
I do all my shopping on the internet because St Helier not only failed to adapt, it actually implemented policies to accelerate the decline. Even the finance industry seems to be behind the curve, failing to react to the risks of centres such as Dubai, or the threat of AI to professional employment.
My worry is that we are getting slower and slower at implementing necessary change, bogged down by red tape imposed by “experts”, heritage dreamers and socialists who don’t believe anyone is capable of taking responsibility for their family, or looking after themselves.
We impose UK regulations just because some idiots in the UK have imposed them. It’s often just strangling red tape or an inappropriate hammer to crack a nut.
I often wonder why anyone bothers to organise anything. Permits, red tape, permissions and the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. We see regulation in almost everything we do. The most common phrases are “you cannot do that” without permission. The other common phrase is “you cannot say that” – when, of course, you can.
In terms of evolution, where does this leave Jersey? If a business fails to change a possible outcome is its closure and ultimately its extinction, but what will happen to Jersey (or even the UK)?
The first thing we need to do is admit we have a problem, or should I say that we need to admit that the way our government operates needs to change. We need to deconstruct many of the planning laws, close all the non-essential government departments and reduce regulation in many areas. Zero-ten taxation, whereby tax falls on the individuals instead of the corporates, is unsustainable and corporates must start paying their way.
The current socialist government, which we did not elect, needs to learn about basic economics. Investors will move their funds elsewhere if government makes investment onerous.
The government has killed the property market, killed the buy-to-let market and killed the development market. They have killed Airbnb, killed cheap informal childcare, killed socialising in pubs and killed St Helier by making it ugly and inaccessible.
They need to look at the far-reaching ramifications of everything they do, and every piece of legislation they pass. Their whole concept of what government is is flawed. For example, their role is to keep Havre des Pas swimming pool open and well maintained so the public, who fund government, can use it. Their role is not to treat it as a cost centre like some bloody accountant.
And, sadly, the phrase can also apply to individuals who refuse to change their lives when it’s blindingly obvious that they need to.
We need to change, and we need to change fast. If we are to survive, we need to make people start to take more responsibility for themselves. We need to reward endeavour and entrepreneurship. We need to be more like we were before we started to blindly copy the UK and treated everyone as idiots who needed saving from themselves.
And we need a political system able to counter the rise of the left, before red-tape and socialism strangle us all.
As the Museo de Alcalma sign succinctly said: “The species that survives is not the strongest, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that best adapts to change.”
