On 1 April – and the date is significant for the wrong reason – around 44 self-employed business people will face ruin if the States accepts a proposal from Public Services to slap a charge on airfreight.

The reason is that airlifting national newspapers into the island will become uneconomic and the cheaper sea route will get the papers here a day late – and who wants yesterday’s news?

That loss of income will cripple the newsagents because the viability – and the resale value – of their rounds depends on the combined income from the nationals and the Guernsey Press.

In addition, the PSD proposal, forced on it by a 2009 States decision, will add a further £100,000 to an already-struggling Guernsey Post’s costs and which will have to be passed on to its customers, who are already complaining about the cost of a stamp and looking for cheaper alternatives.

In short, if government was looking for an opportunity to inconvenience the people it supposedly serves and make itself look foolish in the process, it could not have picked better.

This suggestion is as stupid – but potentially far more serious – as that to close the Castle Emplacement toilets.

It won’t go through because it cannot be allowed to do so. The £170,000 it will raise will be more than offset by the loss of tax take from the agents, decent folk who provide an excellent service day in and day out because islanders want a daily newspaper delivered to their doors.

What will baffle islanders is why this level of folly is allowed to see the light of day.

PSD might be trying to prove a point about the misguided demand for it to raise more cash from the ports, but surely wiser heads on the Policy Council could see it as a non-starter.

Perhaps worse, PSD ‘consulted’ on its plan, was told of the harm it would cause – and has gone ahead anyway.

Doing daft things – like proposing doomed initiatives to destroy people’s livelihoods – does not endear politicians to islanders, who will wonder whatever happened to common sense and judgement.