Illustration by Peewee.

Cher Eugene,

I suppose you’ve heard about all these banks and big companies that have gone bust in America and in the UK?

Well, there’s a bank gone down in Guernsey now, mon vieux, and the people who had their money in it, they could lose most of their savings, eh?

The bank was part of a big Iceland bank and the UK branch went bankrupt as well, eh?

But the thing is, when that happened, that UK prime minister, he straight away said he’d guarantee the UK savers who’d lost money and went off to Iceland to ask their government to help.

But our States, they didn’t even meet to discuss it, them.

The chief minister, he even went off on a trip to China, him, to tell the Chinese how Guernsey was a well-regulated finance centre and a safe place for them to put their money.

I suppose when he goes to those places some people ask what island he lives on, but there were a lot of locals here asking what planet he was on, eh?

And now he’s asked the UK Government to represent Guernsey in talks with the Icelandic Government. It’s funny how he can represent Guernsey on a trip to China, but he can’t represent Guernsey when there’s difficult talks needed with Iceland, eh?

And like I was saying to Jack Torode, if the UK are trying to get money back, they’ll look after their own people first, eh?  After all, they don’t like Guernsey being an offshore finance centre, anyway.

And now there’s people in Parliament able to say it’s not safe to put money in Guernsey.  Caw, I bet there’s some English MPs laughing all the way, but not to the bank, eh?

I have to say, I don’t understand all this international finance, mon vieux. It’s too bloney complicated for the likes of ordinary people like me.

Like Jack says, the only hedge funds he deals with come from his flowers by his gate, eh?

But these financial regulators, they’re supposed to understand it and control all the money in Guernsey, them.

But it turns out if you put money in a Guernsey bank for safe-keeping, they don’t put it in a safe like they used to. They send it off to their parent company in England.

So when this Financial Services Commission says there’s billions of pounds invested in Guernsey, most of it’s not here at all, eh?

And then if the UK bank goes bust and all its assets get frozen, that includes money belonging to Guernsey people, even though they’re locals who don’t live in England and they didn’t put any money in the English bank, eh? Caw, I reckon they’d accuse us of money laundering if we did that, eh, Eugene?

I was saying to Jack, it comes to something when you put your savings in the bank for safe-keeping and they give it to someone else who won’t give it back, eh?

There’s people now saying they’ll go back to the old days and keep their money under the bed, because it’s safer.

Jack said he was going to go one better, him, and keep his flower money under his Alsatian’s bed.

The trouble is, the States haven’t got a scheme like they’ve got in the UK to guarantee people’s savings if a bank goes under.

That Treasury one, he says it’s not right to use taxpayers’ money, but I suppose he can’t even if he wanted to now, mon vieux. I mean, there’s not enough money coming in now they’ve allowed the banks not to pay any tax, eh?

When you think, the States voted in this zero-10 policy to keep the banks here, but all it’s done is give the banks more money to lose, eh?

And it’s the ordinary Guernseyman who’s having to pay with increased inflation and coal and milk going up and his money not safe even in the bank.

You remember, that Treasury one, he said it would take a year to see what effect the zero-10 had? But now they can see what’s happened, I don’t suppose they can undo it, Eugene.

And even if they did, the way things are going there might not be any banks or businesses left to pay tax, eh?

I was saying to Jack, even Alderney seems to have more idea about looking to the future, these days.

I mean, they’re making a fair amount out of this egambling already and now they say they could be exporting electricity from tidal power in a few years’ time, them.

But Guernsey’s let the growing industry go and the small businesses fold, and if they keep messing about with the dairy industry there won’t be much of that left either in an island that’s famous for its cows, eh?

I suppose they thought they could cream off the fat from the finance industry instead, eh?

And they’ve wasted the money they had on overspends, so now there’s not enough left for health and education or waste plants or runways, eh?

It was in the Press last week how that quiet jet made its last flight here, and the airline, it says it can’t use the replacement because of the runway, so it will have to use smaller planes instead.

Mind you, I don’t suppose that will matter soon, mon vieux. After all, there won’t be the bankers and the businessmen going back and forth so much in the future, except to take their money off somewhere else, eh?

And the Education, they’ve put in plans for Beaucamps school, them, but they’ve admitted they haven’t got the money.

Mind you, if the application takes as long as other planning applications, they’ll have plenty of time, eh, mon vieux?

And if things get worse, they’ll be able to change it and ask to convert it to greenhouses, for when we have to go back to growing tomatoes, eh?

Jack was saying the only idea the States seem to have to get funds these days is to sell off some of their properties.

But once they’re gone, they’re gone, eh?

And I’m not sure who would buy them now, mon vieux. After all, with local banks and firms going bust there will be lots of empty offices to buy instead, eh?

I don’t know if I told you, the latest building for sale is the Vale Mill? I said to Jack, perhaps the States should keep it, them. After all, they might need to put the sails back in the future to generate electricity when they can’t afford to buy it from Alderney, eh?

A la perchoi’ne,

Your cousin Emile