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“Should Jersey businesses be scared of the Discrimination Law?” In our new Viewpoint feature on page 40, you will find five answers to this deliberately provocative question. That’s what Connect is here for: to give you the information you need on which to base decisions – but to do that in a fresh, lively and stimulating way.
I think that’s important as we come into election season, and we yet again fail to spot the connection between cynicism and a perennial low turnout. Once again the old-stagers will dress up their “nothing ever changes” mantra as sagacity which the rest of us are just too naïve to see; they will point to the recent ignored referendum as evidence that the entire democratic system is shot, and on that basis, refusing to case a vote is somehow an effective action.
Don’t listen to them. Nod, and pat them on the shoulder. Smile sympathetically if you want to, and walk away. But don’t listen.
Because the belief that “nothing ever changes” is self-perpetuating – believe it, and it will happen, and you can then take comfort in your own foresight. It’s a neat trick.
Or you can break the cycle; but as ever, that requires a bit of effort. Whatever your political persuasion, there is a wealth of information across traditional and new media about the activities (or lack thereof) of our politicians. It really is very easy to be informed.
Take this particular issue of Connect: in these pages alone, you’ll find Deadly Diary (page 61), Here’s the Thing (page 54), our lead article on the recent bond to pay for social housing (page 20), the Fool (page 44) and Unplugged (page 34).
All of them deal directly with issues that shelter under the broad (and often unwieldy) umbrella of politics.
Agree or disagree with the points of view expressed in those articles, it matters not a jot.
Base your decisions next month entirely on what you read here, or reject their words utterly; the point is that the actions of our elected representatives really do matter (say it very quietly, we’d hate them to know), which means when ‘x’ marks the spot, its location on the ballot paper really matters too.
I hope Connect drives you to put pen to paper.
