Stand and Deliver

Gone are the days of Jersey Robustness in our assembly. Although a political system should be representative there also needs to be a heavy hitter amongst the bunch to really home in on what the island needs to deliver it! Managing the civil servants through their vast expertise and ensuring both vision and deliverables like CEOs of companies giving direction like the heavyweights of the past Cyril Le Marquand and other notable politicians of that time. It is particularly heartening to see we will be marking our relationship with our king with a Bank Holiday and renewal of our standing relationship with the crown. Jersey’s British roots can be traced back to 1204 and a series of charters throughout the 14th century makes up its constitution. Fast forward 300 years and commerce boomed, shipbuilding, fishing, and farming the main industries of the day with Jersey boasting the oldest Chamber of Commerce in the English-speaking world.

Fast forward 200 years and the tourism industry started up and Jersey started its ascent to tourism becoming the Corfu of the English Channel. With a brief closure between 1914 1919, the industry quickly boomed again in the years before the Second World War. Then in the 1950s, it entered centre stage! Beaches to rival Hawaii, gorgeous sunsets and cliffside-walks guest houses/hotels, restaurants and bars with a vibrancy of entertainment, life was good for the little island of Jersey. I think it’s safe to say these were the days of much solidarity post-occupation and although there would no doubt be fierce competition we saw a genuine desire for joint prosperity.

Many years later as the tourism heyday tiffed off, presumably as more exotic locations around the world became more widely accessible and competitive. Jersey’s tourism industry waned and as such a new industry was required to take centre stage to continue the trajectory of prosperity for the island. This industry would be finance, utilising Jersey’s unique position as a Crown Dependency and independent jurisdiction and being skilfully architected by the late great Colin Powell, we’re skilful negations of Jersey’s relationship with the EU and being technically outside but grandfathered in through the U.K. further bolstered Jersey Appeal as a Finance Centre and the island saw massive growth in its GVA (Gross Value Add) up to the late 90s.

our island although our island and “our king’s island” is still performing well and “Punching above its weight” in many regards and continues to have a vibrant economy backed up by recent Jersey Finance figures from the Global Horizon’s event showing an increase in activity from family offices being set up and or using local service providers such as Stonehage Fleming etc. Further announcements by Senator Ian Gorst in regard to Zero ten and short-term realised gains are to be celebrated and hopefully put to good use but this is by no means Jersey's “Silver bullet” There does exist a stark reality since the late 90s GVA growth has been anaemic and being in a comfortable position financially, Jersey has lost the “scrappy Kid on the Block” Mentality of old. What we need is post-war resilience! Retrofitted for the modern-day challenges we face.

We’ve seen an emergency of this type of resilient thinking in the creation of the Jersey Cyber Security Centre an “overt listening security educational node” that really creates “community” of our “best line of defence” against cyber vulnerabilities. This islander believes it’s time to make things happen, methodical approach from vision to deliverable and the ability to comprehend and manage complex reporting lines competency is needed. Unfortunately, many of our politicians in the past few elections have lacked this ability to some extent. And So the time has come to start the Conversation of Stand and Deliver with some of our brightest and most savvy business people at the heart showing their commitment to the island, as we show our commitment to our King.