2020 REVIEW: January, the calm before the storm

Sunday 20 December 2020

2020 was destined to be a taxing year if January is anything to go by – but back then it wasn’t all about covid.

In fact, looking at our Bailiwick story-viewing stats, articles about the mysterious virus from Wuhan were not that popular. On the same day in January that we reported that the World Health Organisation was about to declare a global emergency, more people clicked on a story about two guinea pigs being stolen from a pet shop in St. Helier.

In fact, tax – or the complicated collection of it - was the hot topic that opened the year, after Revenue Jersey introduced a new system, complete with early glitches. Complaints on social media about wrong assessments prompted Comptroller Richard Summersgill to suggest that islanders may simply be confused, which seemed to stir people’s ire further. 

One story that was guaranteed to hit the headlines at the beginning the year, as it was at the end, was the new hospital.

Now, we know it’s going up Westmount, but back then, Health bosses were searching for some winter sun, and also a hospital designer, in Madrid.

Pictured: Health bosses beat the January blues by jetting off to Spain to meet hospital builders.

Back then, Health were narrowing down a shortlist of contractors and also setting up the Citizens’ Panel to decide the criteria on which the potential sites would be whittled down. These 17 anonymous individuals would have a significant impact both on the island’s open spaces and public finances, prompting some to ask who they were.

In these more innocent pre-Covid days, our focus was nonetheless still familiar: Government spending and UK appointments into top civil service jobs. In January, we reported that more ex-colleagues of Health boss Caroline Landon had taken up senior roles in the department less than six months after the recruitment of two former UK workmates as interim staff sparked outrage.

It also seemed that Government officials didn’t know how they came to employ a Health consultant behind one of their most expensive supplier contracts, who was once criticised in national papers for taking a fee three times as high as the Prime Minister.

Pictured: Constable Chris Taylor stepped down from his ministerial duties after being charged for dangerous driving.

In the political world, St John Constable Chris Taylor stepped down from being an Assistant Minister after being charged with dangerous driving, in relation to an alleged motoring incident in June 2019. In his letter, he said he "strenuously” denied the allegations, but nonetheless offered to “step aside temporarily” from his Ministerial duties “in order to avoid any unnecessary distraction for the government”. It was a distraction that was to plague Mr Taylor the rest of the year.

Finally, in one of those “little did he know” moments that hindsight affords, Chief Minister told islanders that 2020 would be “a year of action”, as he promised that a Hospital site would be finalised (success) and a migration policy would be in place (fail).

Soon, however, a bigger problem would arrive from the Far East...