The Manx show us that

independence means there

is no one else to blame

Alison Prince

For no better reason than its size – just a tad bigger than the Isle of Arran – I went off to the Isle of Man last week, for a potter around with a friend. The place was unexpectedly fascinating, and not merely for such tourist attractions as a busy steam railway and the electric trams that rattle their way to the top of Snaefell.
     Wherever you go, there are gentle reminders that the island is not part of the UK. The Manx post office issues its own stamps, and almost all the banknotes in circulation are printed by the Isle of Man bank. The Manx telecom network is cheap and very effective. The House of Keys (Tynwald) makes all decisions and Westminster has no influence on Manx policy, though the island makes an annual payment to be included in the defence of the British Isles. Everything else is locally run, and 'the government' means the Tynwald, not Westminster.
     The big irritation at the moment is the rise in VAT. Because this is a tax added to goods from their source, the Manx cannot opt out of it, and they are mightily annoyed. Quite a few shops are quietly on strike, displaying notices that say: 'No VAT increase on our stock'. Fiscal autonomy is of course fundamental to the way the island works.
     In 1960, the members of the House of Keys came up with the idea of attracting investment by abolishing supertax. The result was a steady inflow of national and international companies eager to take advantage of this financial freedom. Discreet office signs in Douglas speak of wealth management and asset control. Along with the Channel Islands, Man (or Mann, as it is usually written) is a tax haven, and it is hardly surprising that there are daily flights between Douglas and Jersey. The spin-offs for the Manx government resulting from this policy were immense, and not merely in terms of the luxury end of the market.
     Social housing is developing at a vast rate on the plentifully available land on the outskirts of towns, and there is no sign of a recession. Education forges links with business and industry to ensure that children move into employment or further study – though the unemployment rate at the moment is 1.8%, which they regard as unacceptably high. Pupils moving to higher education in the UK or at the Isle of Man College are supported with fee payment and means-tested maintenance awards.
     Admin apart, the island has a relaxed, friendly feel about it. Oddly to a Scottish ear, most people sound as if they come from Lancashire, with an occasional touch of Irish or Liverpool. Nobody seems in a hurry, so conversation is easy to get into – and the place is amazingly clean and tidy. I never saw a trace of graffiti anywhere, including the temptingly blank backs of buildings beside railway lines. Maybe any offender gets officially beaten to death with his spray can – but the cleanliness seems more likely to arise from consensus.
     There is no litter, probably because all towns have a litter bin every 20 yards or so, sensibly equipped with a perforated 'stubbing out' top that encourages smokers not to tread out butts on the pavement. With a population of 84,000, the local tax income presumably can easily support a cleansing service that keep bins frequently emptied.
     The Manx buses are also beautifully clean, with gleaming windows and bright floors. The service is so comprehensive that getting to grips with the fat timetable was tricky, but it worked brilliantly. An integrated service meant that bus-routes linked up, not only with each other but with rail services as well. It had its human quirks, though. On asking a driver what had happened to a bus that should have come 10 minutes ago, he asked for guidance by phone and said apologetically, 'It ran out of fuel. Be along in a moment now'.

 

     In the tiny village of Port St Mary, a bus roared past a stop nearly quarter of an hour early, leaving us to set off a bit glumly on a two-mile walk in a high wind. The driver saw us on his way back, and turned the bus round and took us where we wanted to go, with apologies. We might of course have made a fuss at Fat Controller level, but all the same, he was nice about it.
     An election was being held in the week of our visit, so posters for the various candidates were everywhere, none bearing any indication of a political party, for the simple reason that they don't exist. Liberal Vannin had nothing to do with the UK Lib-Dems, it was just a new group of broad-outlook Manx people. ('Man' mutates to 'Van' in Manx Gaelic genitive case, hence 'Vannin' – 'of Man'. And for anyone interested, Manx Gaelic is now being taught in schools, and one school is using it as a teaching medium.)
     In this election, all candidates stood as individuals, though I was told that anyone nominated must have at least £50,000 in the bank. There was some public cynicism. 'It's who you know, isn't it,' one woman said. But, balancing that, everyone did know the candidates, and had usually kent their faither as well, and much of the family history.
     In general, the Tynwald was respected as a hard-working and sensible authority that has emerged from long years of struggle. I went to an imaginative AV presentation in the Old House of Keys in Castletown, now a museum, where we were invited to 'participate' in several historic debates, and also to vote on a current one that would come up in the near future. The motion read: 'That this house should consider full secession from the United Kingdom and seek membership of the European Union'. Everyone in the museum group voted against it, agreeing that the EU was in far too flaky a state for any such move.
     The actor playing the chairman talked at the door afterwards as a present-day person. 'We are too close to the UK to abandon it completely,' he said. 'We need the supply chain and the markets. We recognise the queen as an individual sovereign but we have control over our own administration, and that's enough.'
     Several people talked of the future, recognising the probable need for increased self-sufficiency that may result from oil shortage and global economic confusion. The Tynwald is looking at tidal power generation and plans a big off-shore wind farm. It will mean a detour by the ferry from the mainland, since the seabed in most places is impossibly deep, but will secure a valuable additional power supply. At present, the island generates all its own electricity with natural gas.
     With wide acres of green farmland well suited to cattle and sheep, Manx people will never starve, though they were close to it in the brutal past when English landlords used them as slaves and left them with nothing. There is a head of psychological steam resulting from those days that powered the island's long fight for independence, and Manx people remain deeply proud of it. Living on the island now, in the hard-won independence, is a privilege, and the ultimate sanction against a wrong-doer from anywhere else is banishment.
     There is much in the Manx system that our Scottish government could well look at as we start to square up to the idea of severing the Westminster connection. We are too late in the field to offer tax breaks to rich investors, but we can well capitalise on our inherent practicality and common sense. A bit of freedom from pettifogging regulations wouldn't come amiss, either.
     Climbing onto the open car of the Snaefell mountain railway, it came as a wicked thrill to see that there was nothing at all beside the wooden seats to stop you falling out and tumbling down the steep slope to the sea. Hang on to your dogs, bags and children, or if it looks too scary, go in the closed coach in front. The lesson is clear. Independence means taking charge, for there is no-one else to blame.

 

Alison Prince is an author and editor in Arran