Sometimes, I imagine, it’s tough to be a part of the Jersey government. Our island is made up of such a diverse population, packed into such a small place, that there is literally no way to please everyone. At each and every turn, you are faced with backlash from one group, and support from another. Democracy, as much as it is probably the most fair and representative way to run a government, is unfortunately constantly marred by the fact that the voting public is made up on the whole by, to put it lightly, imbeciles.

For god’s sake let’s look at America, the country that has literally (that’s a loose use of that word) started wars to bring Democracy to the world. In a study by ITS OWN GOVERNMENT, it was found that 32 million U.S adults cannot read. At all. That’s 14% of the population. That doesn’t seem low to you? Well, when you consider 21% of the adult population, which is 66,000,000 people by the way, 14 million more than the population of the UK, can’t read above a fifth grade level, the statistics become scary. I’m not saying that the U.S.A is a fair comparison with Jersey, that would be insulting for all of us, but my point is this; we are putting the decisions that dictate our lives in the hands of people who can’t read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to their children. As much as I’m all for fair representation, when I stop and think about who is shaping my future, the thought of autonomous dictatorship doesn’t sound too bad.

If dictatorship sounds appealing to me, an irresponsible and self-confessed naive student, I cannot imagine how close the men and women pioneering the island’s newest financial institution have come to going what I like to call “Full Tse Tung” on the public. The Jersey International Finance Centre has been a point of contention from the moment the Esplanade Quarter Masterplan was announced in 2008. Without including the proposed park and the new underground parking structure, the plans consist of six new office buildings to be built in the Esplanade car park, combining to provide a staggering 470,000 square feet of ‘Grade A’ office space for prospective tenants to come and expand the booming financial industry in Jersey. Through the maintenance of public land and a complicated process that involves the use of, but not the control of, private investors, the JDC are projecting returns from this project of roughly £50 million before rental income, which will go back to the public rather than into private pockets. Along with the business offices, the JDC are extremely keen to promote the public spaces that the project will create. At the centre of this side of the development is the large public park that will be created in the middle of the quarter, which, along with improvements to the larger Esplanade area and improved pedestrian pathways into the existing town, will showcase the potential for renovated and natural areas in Jersey. So, to summarise, if all goes to plan we will have six new office buildings, an improved park and open space, better access to the existing town area, more parking, and £50 million pounds for public spending. Unfortunately, when something sounds too good to be true, it’s normally because it is.

Opposition to this project has been constant, vocal, and, unlike the work of most protesting masses, relatively logical. Like any dream, the Esplanade Quarter Masterplan has holes in its velour fabric. Nothing, unfortunately is perfect (except Kinder Buenos), and whilst we should all applaud the rhetoric used to get the States to give planning permission for this project, we should also be able to see through it. Perhaps the most glaring issue with the entire 6-building development is the assumption that it will actually be filled. Yes, there is only a limited amount of Grade A office space on the island currently, and yes the vacancy rate for this space is only 1%, but the JDC can only use its “progressive expansion” excuse for the fact there is only one building currently under construction for so long. You may be told that only Building four is under way because progressive, phased introduction will limit exposure and allow for the plan to be evolved and shaped around public and private need, but it might also have something to do with the fact that so far only one building has been let, and even then only 25% of it. That’s right, in this new structure designed to house and facilitate the expansion of the finance industry in Jersey, we’ve only managed to attract the attention of two banks, who both already had a base on the island. The announcement from the States that they have had “interest” from another potential client in 5,000 square feet of space doesn’t do much to dampen the disappointing sting of a plan unfulfilled, and dissatisfied islanders have made clear that a lack of information from the States, a disregard for procedural necessities, and a rush to start on a project that promises ambiguous long term return have left the project marred by the veil thrown on it by its own innovators.

Add into these the abstrusity of the dealings with money and ownership and you can begin to understand the opposition stance on the development plans. With changes to plans, namely allowing it to be completed in a piecemeal fashion rather than a single build meaning that promised returns can be altered depending on how much is actually completed, and a series of different companies being given control of the project, most notably the offer to Dandara being rejected in place of the SoJDC, the entire situation becomes marred by disingenuousness and half-empty promises of returns that may never be seen…allegedly.

Obviously I have to remain impartial in this, otherwise it would just be another one of my many, many pro-capitalist, anti-humanitarian rants, and in my final month here I’d like to prove myself as somewhat of a professional. However, as I began this introductory section with a brief discussion of my views on the flaws of democracy, it only seems fitting that I bring it full circle and once again discuss the possible utopia of a dictatorship (for the dictator and anyone on their side, of course). Ahead you will read some (and I must stress the some) of what I discussed with Sean Power and John Baker, the heads of the St. Helier Waterfront Action Group, or SWAG for short, when I met them this month. A former politician himself, Power understands the importance of an opposition in democratic process, and it is indeed opposition that his group provides. SWAG have campaigned tirelessly against the construction of the finance centre, even making it to headline news with their protests around the Esplanade car park, and it seems that, despite their efforts, in this instance they have become the symbol of a broken democratic process. But is that a bad thing? Do we need a functioning democracy? The reaction from the young generation to the Brexit outcome is evidence enough that, whilst there is something to say about fair representation of each generation, people under the age of 25 don’t seem to understand that the needs of one group may not necessarily be the best for others. The “older generation” (>40), who in 2011 made up 51.2% of the island’s population, have a pretty sizable majority when it comes to voting on public decisions, and it’s fair to say that the best outcome for a student may not be the best for a person nearing retirement. However, if there is indeed a dichotomy to be created here, to which side should the responsibility of the population’s future fall? Should it be the younger, inexperienced group who have seen as much of the world as getting high in university halls can show you and believe that disregarding and denouncing right-wing politics online will gain them the Facebook likes that they so misguidedly equate with respect? Or should it be entrusted to the group who have worked in the industries that will be so affected by any change made in politics, but haven’t to grow up in a time when international alliance and overseas opportunities are so prominent and important? My point is, before you start answering these rhetorical questions, that nobody is perfect. There’s no way to please everybody, at least not until we manage to overcome human nature and understand that we are not always right (but who wants that? Being right is great). And so, rather than disappointing a certain generation and making them feel as though their vote means nothing, why not just take away the vote? Give ultimate power to the one in charge, and then at least the anger of the disenfranchised can be directed at a singular target, rather than at a disseminated list of menial and inconsequential flaws in the voting process. Anyway, I digress. Here are John Baker and Sean Power.

To start off, can I just get a brief outline of what the St Helier Waterfront Action Group are aiming for concerning the Jersey International Finance Centre? We’ve seen the pictures of protests in the JEP, but what is it you’re actually trying to achieve?

We need to make it as clear as possible from the outset that we are not at all against the finance industry in Jersey. We understand and appreciate what that sector does for the island and its economy, and we wouldn’t want to halt the development of the industry itself. However, what we are against, and what we hope to expose and stop, is the way that the people of Jersey have been supplied with insufficient information on the extremely important finer details of the entire Esplanade Quarter Masterplan, and specifically the construction of the Jersey International Finance Centre. We believe that the people, who have become inextricably linked with the project through the use of and risk to public funds, deserve to know how their money is being spent, and who by.

So, is it the entire Esplanade Quarter Masterplan that your organisation opposes, or the JIFC in particular?

We’re fans of the Masterplan as a whole! The integration of the Waterfront and the Esplanade is, in our eyes, a great idea. The plans for the park and natural open space, as well as the underground car park, are viable and would certainly add to the area. Even the JIFC itself is not, in theory, a bad idea. What we are against is the way that the States of Jersey, and the SoJDC, have gone about the entire process involving their construction.

What do you say to the promises made by the Jersey Development Company concerning the massive potential for returns of roughly £50 million from the JIFC?

[extremely audible laughs] Well, how long have you got? To put it simply, that was just a matter of good marketing. The States used that figure to fool the public into believing in the project, but I think, through our work and through mistakes made in the development’s maturation, the confidence that was once there is being depleted. Quickly.

The promises made were based upon the assumption that the entire development would be incredibly desirable to international finance companies, and that leasing the space would be a matter of fighting off combatting bids. As we well know, this hasn’t been the case, and that’s why we’ve seen the project veiled by legally ambiguous activity and rushed into construction. The States allowing construction to start after leasing only 16,000 sq ft was just a small part of a larger system of questionable actions by senior ministers. Last minute changes to the plans made without consent and the rejection of incredibly high-profile contracts from Dandara only raise unwanted questions surrounding the companies and people leading the development, and that is what we here are trying to bring to the public’s attention.

Have we seen examples of this from the States before in Jersey? Is the JIFC the first building that you’ve been disappointed with?

We probably shouldn’t mention anything by name, but we can say that the States have certainly disappointed us before. Our problem is not so much with the developments themselves, but the decisions that lead to them. The Jersey Development Company have been infamously risk-averse in the past, and it has meant that potential developments that could be literally life-changing for islanders. These low-risk, low-return projects don’t particularly benefit the public, who they are technically working for, and so we see wasted potential in things like the failure of the plans to build a high-rise tower at the Waterfront, and specifically the inability to find a new area for the Hospital (the Esplanade wouldn’t have been a bad place…). The States aren’t particularly bad at the development side, but the decisions that determine the construction, planning and location of these developments are often questionable.

So, to finish off, what would you say is the ultimate solution to the problems you see in the development of the JIFC?

We may be too far into the process now to fix what has been broken, which should be the trust in the SoJDC and the ministers responsible for the entire process behind the development. However, we can, with the benefit of hindsight, give some relatively simply ideas for preventing these problems in the future. The big lesson to learn from this is that public money should not be played with. There isn’t another government in the world that provides public money for development, or indeed leads development projects like this. Every financial building project is privately developer led, and that’s the way this should have been done. As we mentioned before, Dandara rejected a substantial offer to take on this project, and it was then that the SoJDC took control and plans were unexpectedly changed and tampered with without the knowledge of the public. They can make all the promises they like, but what has happened here is that the States have bet on a risky hand with public funds, with the promise of return being slim and growing slimmer. This is what needs to be changed.

If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard or read ‘global warming’, I wouldn’t need to spend my terms at university living off ASDA own brand food. In fact, with the amount of times the government have attempted to cover it, and get people involved, I should now be an expert in the field of environmental issues. I do, however, know that as an island we have the ability to access a wide range of renewable energy sources. For instance, we live on an island that offers one of the largest tidal movements on earth. This should mean that Jersey is a prime location to harness tidal power as a clean, green, renewable energy source. To put the velocity into perspective, our tides rise and fall by an average of 40ft (12m) a day. That’s the height equivalent of one giraffe standing on another giraffe’s shoulders. Picture that if you will.

Back to tidal energy though. Ignore the giraffes.  In case you didn’t pay attention in your science lessons, tidal power is created by a tidal generator which converts the energy of tidal flows into electricity. Greater tidal variation and higher tidal current speeds can dramatically increase the potential of a site for tidal electricity generation. Tidal power is practically inexhaustible and classified as a renewable energy resource because the earth’s tides are ultimately due to gravitational interaction with the moon and the sun and earth’s rotation. So essentially, all we’d have to do is set up the equipment and let the sea do its thing.

The potential our island has for this kind of energy was uncovered during a detailed study carried out in 2010. The States spent £65,000 conducting the report, with the help of IT Power. The report included resource modelling, technology reviews, an environmental impact assessment scoping study, development of a commercialisation strategy for the realisation of tidal power in the area, and site survey work to verify flow data. Two people from the company took two weeks to carry out the study, and recognised good potential for offshore wind farming as well as tidal energy in Jersey. Yet six years later, we’re still buying our electricity from France. I know, I’m baffled too.

To cure my confusion, I spoke to Dr. Louise Magris, Director of Environmental Policy at the Environmental Department in Jersey. She told me that the study “Showed that we have reasonable tidal currents that could yield the energy equivalent to about half of the island’s annual electricity requirements.” However, this doesn’t mean that we have taken advantage of this fact.  She went on to say that “ To date, progress has been slower than anticipated and the technology has not yet progressed to arrays of commercial availability”

Since the initial report in 2010, there has been no further progress towards the island harnessing tidal energy. This is down to the tidal energy industry still being in the “enhanced research and development stage”. The fact of the matter is, Jersey would need a ‘farm’ of about 150 tidal turbines on the seabed, known as tidal stream technology, to generate enough power that could be used domestically or commercially. Right now, there is nowhere to buy 150 tidal turbines to plant into the ocean, because none of the prototypes have been deemed fit for commercial use.

This doesn’t mean that an efficient amount of tidal energy can only be made through tidal stream technology though.  La Rance Tidal Power Plant in France, just across the water from us, has been using tidal energy for years. It’s a Tidal Barrage, which is a dam-like structure used to capture the energy from masses of water moving in and out of a bay or river due to tidal forces. It has been operational since 1966, making it the world’s oldest and second biggest tidal power station. The plant has an annual generation capacity of 540GWh. Electricity is fed into the 225kV national transmission network serving the needs of approximately 130,000 households every year. Something like this wouldn’t be manageable here in Jersey, as we don’t have the capacity to build a dam of this proportion, but it shows that utilizing tidal energy isn’t limited to the kind of prototypes being tested now.

For Jersey to invest in anything on the market currently would cost millions, apparently. The states would be making a risky investment, purchasing a product that is still being developed that comes with no 100% guarantee that it will work and last long enough. Traditional energy such as coal and oil based fuel has a set cost, but if energy is being created with a prototype, it could cost up to three times more. Thankfully though, there are others who are investing in what is essentially the future of energy, who we can learn from.

“The States of Jersey works with the other Channel Islands, the UK and France in closely monitoring advancements in the tidal sector.” Dr. Magris said. “ Jersey is keen to monitor the progress of ongoing projects in the Alderney Race for example. We are keen to investigate the opportunities that early adoption of tidal technology could offer when the sector advances.”

This means that essentially, Jersey is now playing a waiting game, with places such as Alderney acting as their guinea pig. Alderney’s project, which plans to reach full scale development by 2020, has a potential annual energy output of up to 6 Terawatt hours, which equates to the annual demand of 1.8 million homes. So hopefully when their project becomes commercial enough for us to invest in, we can follow on and use the same thing.

Even though it is easy to see why Jersey is reluctant to invest in something that is not fully commercialised, it doesn’t mean that sitting on our hands waiting for tidal energy to play catch up will help our carbon emission.

The states published the ‘Pathway 2050: An energy plan for Jersey’ document on gov.je in 2014, which lays out their plans and policies to combat the island’s carbon footprint, both commercially and domestically. Predictions were made about how, if we continue as we are, our habits will affect our carbon emission. It showed a projected c.39% rise in energy demand by 2050 if nothing changes.

This is a situation where slow and steady does not win the race, because the longer we wait the more money we waste. A little bit of speed and urgency to utilise our resources efficiently is what is needed to better our carbon footprint, not a list of things for people to do which will be forgotten by the end of the week. Perhaps a faster paced approach is needed to save our planet; just a thought.

Modern life in a developed country, when compared to almost any other era of the human species, is extremely weird. It’s not so much the idea of reality television or the British electorate voting to leave the EU because they are worried about the shape of bananas, but the novel concept of a daily existence where extremes of danger and hunger are mostly absent.

Instead of war and sharp-toothed predators, many of us are just paddling about in a consumer economy that thrives by thinking up new, largely unnecessary, ways to spend our wages. For the first time in history, we have created so many non-essential things to buy or do that some humans are getting quite upset about not being able to do them all. 

Imagine trying to explain that concept to somebody born in the 19th Century. Throughout history our ancestors stayed busy raising children and growing food before they got bitten by scorpions, shot up with arrows or caught the bubonic plague, not suffering from anxiety attacks because they didn’t have enough time to catch up on box sets of The Walking Dead. Aside from a tiny number of kings, nobody in mediaeval Europe needed help deciding what to do on their one day off from digging turnips, but in today’s world you can’t move without being told what to do with every minute you aren’t earning money or sleeping.

Fail to plan, plan to fail?

Do we really need to plan this much? It is natural to prepare for the future, but if you take a good look at your life you might realise that much of our present unhappiness comes from diverting that instinct into the compulsion to acquire things and have experiences. It makes sense to prioritise some experiences to a certain extent, but you need to be very careful what starts to constitute a priority. Educating yourself and spending time with elderly relatives is probably quite important; watching every episode of The Big Bang Theory might prove to be less valuable in the long run. If you ever get worried about ticking enough items off your “bucket list”, remind yourself that you really will be okay if you reach retirement age without having visited every country who entered the Eurovision Song Contest, but perhaps less so if you forgot to save for a pension or look after your joints. Ideally you would manage to do both, but if not, you might need to just live with the satisfaction that you have fond memories of camp discos in Finland rather than any money to buy slippers or pay the gas bill.

How to juggle a family, a career, a creative hobby and learn five languages

Our angst over trying to do everything is made worse because we are also being pressured into life choices that are obviously incompatible with each other. There is a subliminal message throughout our society that you can’t possibly be happy unless you have a proper career, own a home and have at least a couple of children, whilst also finding time to educate yourself to postgraduate level, immerse yourself in foreign cultures and do enough exercise to look like a beachwear model. Congratulations if you do manage to juggle these things without having a nervous breakdown, but most people are going to have to choose a path that rules a few of these options out. If you have children young you could miss out on at least five years of a career, perhaps some music festivals or a few years backpacking, but by the time they’ve grown up a bit you can learn a second language and concentrate on earning enough money to age disgracefully. It’s equally fine to put breeding off to focus on your career (or music festivals, or backpacking), or just not to breed at all. You just need to recognise that you’ve made a choice for yourself, and that choosing one thing means not choosing several others. If life is like visiting a restaurant, then you should remember that if you attempt to try everything on the menu you’re probably going to spend the next morning stuck on the toilet.

Don’t let other people tell you what your priorities are

The most irritating manifestation of our anxiety about not being able to do everything, is that many people will try and justify their own choices to themselves by giving you advice on yours. This is most obvious on the part of those people who think the experience of raising a child makes them a universal expert on life, but exists to a lesser extent in anybody who gets a bit too smug about having narrowed down their own options. Sanctimonious parents are the absolute worst, but it’s common to receive the same passive aggressive lecture from people who think they’ve achieved enlightenment because they’ve “travelled the world” – which is just a coded way of saying they’ve been middle class tourists. It’s the same from people who’ve mastered some obscure aspect of culture, or those who don’t realise that talking about your gym routine is only slightly more interesting than telling people whether you wipe up or down.  I honestly don’t care if you think I’m missing out because I’ve never been skiing, have never seen The Phantom of the Opera, or haven’t planned my daily diet around kale enemas. It really doesn’t matter if I die before hearing the first Oasis album, or seeing the Grand Canyon. If these people were, deep down, satisfied with every choice they’ve made, it is unlikely they’d find the motivation to be so judgemental about somebody else’s decisions.

Instead of worrying, trying to fit too much in, and bullying other people with advice, it would be much healthier for our society if we spent more time being thankful for being able to make those choices at all. Most of our ancestors were preoccupied with eating, breeding and avoiding an untimely death, and in fact this is still the daily existence for a significant proportion of people living around the world. They don’t worry about what to do with their excess leisure time because they don’t have any, and there’s no time to stress about a fulfilling career when you’re lucky just to have enough of an income to provide food and shelter. We would probably be better off if we thought about how fortunate we are, and tried to remain thankful for the choices we can make. I admit this does sound like the kind of advice you get at the end of a yoga class, but in this instance the hippies have got a point. You’ll be much happier than people who try and do everything and end up enjoying nothing. Just live a good life, be happy you have a choice of things to put in a sandwich, and be grateful you haven’t been eaten by a grizzly bear.

Car adverts are careful never to depict the everyday reality of driving, because unless you live on a long road in the middle of nowhere, the ad would just be depressing footage of your new motor idling in commuter traffic, maybe the odd action shot where you scrape some paint off in a car park. Jersey would be an especially grim pitch, as there are few places where the aspirations of vehicle ownership are so completely divorced from the realities of what it’s like to actually use the roads.

A map of our traffic network looks like a diseased lung; a tarmac pentagram of narrow, unlit lanes scattered with blind crossings and unpronounceable signs. The smooth lines of the ad-man’s fantasy autobahn are replaced by muddy squiggles winding towards dead ends, bordered by steep banks made from granite and cow excrement. Jersey driving is like a sadistic video game, where the difficulty swings at random between deadly fog mode and the boredom of the school traffic, and you can’t find the menu that determines whether your opponents will be angry businessmen, tractor-driving psychopaths or doddering grans who’ve left their glasses at the off-licence.

Not-so-Smart cars

If you’d credit us with enough sense to purchase appropriate vehicles, we should be pootling around in something designed for use in a Japanese city: a cute little two-seater, probably powered by renewable electricity and unicorn farts. It would have a top speed of 30 MPH and come pre-loaded with soothing ocean sounds and an air freshener that smells like kittens. Instead, our roads heave with gigantic 4x4s, chromed executive fantasy wangs and turbocharged rally cars driven by small men with thick necks. Even if you own a vehicle that isn’t actively murderous to other road users, our MOT-free second hand market means there’s a chance it’s a diesel powered rustbucket that coughs up more tar than an 80s darts player. Unlike advert fantasy world, few people drive for pleasure here – and in fact anybody who does is should probably be forced to take the bus to improve public safety for the rest of us.

The re-vengabus is coming

The fact that our morning traffic is terrible is that rare thing that everybody can agree on, whether they are Clarkson cultists in stone-washed denim or quinoa-powered vegan bicyclists. The problem is that none of us can really agree who is to blame, or whether they should personally do anything to make the situation any better. I’m well aware that it isn’t doing the planet any good when I commute to work on my own, but I live so far into St Ouen that walking back from the bus at night threatens to turn into a scene from Deliverance, even assuming I can find a night bus that travels further than the Parish border. By the time I’ve walked to the stop in the morning, dodging green lane death from distracted mums on the school run, I am definitely not in the mood to compress my kneecaps for the benefit of fellow passengers who smell of stewed onions and won’t let me open the window. After I’ve absorbed 45 minutes of their second hand music and inane phone conversations I’ve reached the point where you could power most of St Helier with my barely suppressed loathing for humanity. Consequently I think anybody who lives within safe distance of a bus stop should be forced, at gunpoint, to use them exclusively, whilst I am allowed to carry on driving with special dispensation for being a countryside-dwelling misanthrope. I also propose dealing with school traffic by fitting each bus with a treadmill and fining any parent who doesn’t let the bus company use their offspring as a source of cheap power.

Two wheels good; four wheels bad?

The obvious solution for somebody who loves the planet and hates the company of other humans is to switch to the bicycle, a form of transport which I (theoretically) support 100%. Cycling makes me slightly less fat, costs very little and allows me to look like a continental cool dude by wearing Lycra and waxing. The only air pollution generated from a bicycle comes from my armpits. The downside is that there are stretches of road where the traffic is so dangerous that I’ve had safer journeys going down cliff paths on my mountain bike, in the dark. If you can survive the blind corners and sudden narrowings of the Jersey roads, you’ll still have to deal with the active desire of other road users to murder you. I’ve had people open doors onto me, edge onto the white line so I can’t overtake their stationary vehicle, or just leap out of the car and run after me. I don’t get it. Although I loathe all other drivers (who unlike me are responsible for traffic), I don’t understand directing that rage at somebody who is getting to town slightly quicker because they’ve taken the risk of being rained on. This intolerant attitude is even adopted by some cyclists, those who think that owning a £5000 bike made out of space carbon allows them to treat people on lesser bikes like obstacles. I can see why people want to run those guys over, although as a driver I can honestly say that I’ve never killed a cyclist out of rage or carelessness – only because their magnificent thighs are delicious in a casserole. They have the advantage that most of the hair has already been removed, and unlike meat from the corner shop you can guarantee it’s free range.

Thinning the herd

I’ve considered walking, swimming to work or just moving slightly closer to town, but have come to the conclusion that my problem is not really the mode of transport but Jersey roads, and specifically the other people who are allowed to use them. I think that even if we were all forced to commute to work in hot-pink mobility scooters or the Fort Regent bumper cars, Jersey people would still find a way to be hostile about it. If we must accept this dickery as a fact of life, then I would propose we take a lead from a great little documentary I watched recently, called The Purge. It has some smart ideas about managing society. So, I suggest we deal with aggressive drivers by having an hour in the mornings and one after work where there are no traffic laws and you can drive as fast or dangerously as you like. We can encourage the Jag-driving macho men and vicious mums to stick to those times by dropping the speed limit to 15MPH the rest of the time, and offering TV coverage and a prize to whoever can achieve the highest speed going down Trinity Hill. The idiots would love it, and there would be a lot of spare car parts going around afterwards. It would be a tough, gory couple of months at first, but once we’ve unclogged the viscera from the drains and cleaned the people-jam off the avenue, natural selection would have done its work and Jersey would be a much nicer place. Green lanes = red lanes. You know it makes sense.