Feeding the therapy addicts

I was intrigued by the annual report of the Gambling Supervision Commission (see

http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/gambling//20112012annualreportfinal.pdf).

Most of it is pretty dull and inoffensive – at least for a pointless QUANGO like this, though considering that a large percentage of what we used to call the Finance Sector is now devoted to online gambling it is frankly hilarious that it is as badly run as the FSC was before the OECD demanded better.

However, page 27 IS quite revealing.

Here we learn that:

“All online licence holders are required, by a condition of their licence, to make a contribution to the Island’s problem gambling fund. Contributions are collected annually and the funds are distributed between the Isle of Man Social Services and the GREaT Foundation, a UK based charity.

Isle of Man Social Services use these contributions to fund third sector addiction support agencies which provide local service and support to those individuals for whom gambling is becoming or has become a problem. The GREaT Foundation is a UK based organisation that provides help, support, research and education in the area of problem gambling. The Commission’s support of this cause has been recognised with the Silver GREaTer donor award, which stands as testament to the contributions and support provided by the Island’s industry to this highly valued service.”

In other words, as those dependent on  alcohol-dependency charities for employment could not pay themselves, and were the object of open derision even amongst those who recognise they need professional help (but could not find it because the Manx government closed down the facilities rather than pay the staff), it was necessary for their chums in government to find a new scam to subsidise them.

The answer, yet again, came from the UK government, who had set up Gamcare, a bogus ‘gambling dependency’ operation which creamed off income from the gambling industry as a condition of licensing and passed it to ‘therapists’ and ‘counsellors’ who (in theory) help anyone who thinks they might be getting in too deep to stop gambling. 

In practice, it keeps the new puritans off government backs, which is pretty funny considering that the puritans are the ones who spread the scare stories in order to set their churchgoing mates up as ‘third sector therapeutic charities’ in the first place. Which is exactly what the puritans did in the Isle of Man, with alcohol, drugs... and other issues of which they lack any practical, professional or academic knowledge.

If you like, you can see the latest local Gamcare scam at http://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_235878.html , and to find out more about how the UK is wasting both British money and the money it now creams off us, take a look at http://www.responsiblegamblingtrust.org.uk/index.html .

So do we have a gambling problem? Probably no more than anywhere less; in fact we have more chance of winning the lottery than finding evidence of addiction that would stand up.

But do we have a problem with underemployed parasites needing to justify their public subsidy? Yes.

The money currently creamed off by government from gambling companies to feed the therapy-giving addiction of a few disturbed people could equally well go to, say, schools or health. 

At most, only a one-off payment should be used to break their habit. After that, they really should seek private therapy and pay for it themselves. 

We can’t go subsidising these wasters from the public purse. If gambling really is annoying the over-sensitive sector of the populace - which I am not convinced is a large one – then let the gambling industry make some token annual donations to schools and hospitals and let us be done with the lecturing.

Bogus charity bingo night goes ballistic

Last November ( see http://clingingtoarock.blogspot.com/2011/11/another-day-another-parasitic-quango.html ) I prophesied that a Manx bogus charity was running out of government funds and would launch a new moral panic to stay in business. To recap, I said that Isle of Man Alcohol Advisory Service had “struggled for a year or two now to justify further direct government funding, or to use their relationship with government to demand ‘charitable donations’ from local retailers in return for not further infantalising the whole process of buying alcohol.” I then outlined how they would join forces with a similar British government puppet charity to talk up the ‘dangers’ of gambling until someone threw enough money at them.
Not only have I been proved right, but a report today (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/study_to_provide_insight_into_gambling_1_4133011 )suggests that (1) they’ll split the loot with their Brit ally and (2) in the process open up a process of back door taxation of Manx businesses to subsidise a Brit government ‘third sector’ initiative.
Funnily enough, this means the Brits get to tackle an entirely imaginary ‘social problem’ without having to spend a penny or employ a single public sector ‘professional’ or ‘expert’. Sadly, that doesn’t mean the problem of the imaginary social problem will go away too.
This all began when in 2007 GamCare received 80% of a £3.5 million budget set aside on government mandate by the UK gambling industry to ‘promote responsible gambling’. They were hoping to bump that up to £5.34 million in 2010 and 2011, but the latest accounts they’ve submitted to the Charity Commission suggest that the gambling industry told them where to get off, also that the ‘charity’ still gets no other income apart from their gambling industry hush money.
And on today's 'news', I should also say that the pseudo-survey is a classic marketing scam, and now a bog standard tool for the moral panic industry.
As I’ve explained elsewhere, the trick is to decide what answers you need, then set the questions and participant parameters so that you can get no others. It is ridiculously easy, as the full results and methodology will not be in the public domain, old fashioned rigorously neutral academics able or willing to find the time to take such nonsense apart are thin on the ground, and even cynical lay people tend to take such surveys at face value if they’re for a ‘good cause’ or concern a matter which decades of biased reporting lead us to falsely believe is a ’social problem’.
A classic example is the infamous regular ESPAD 'surveys' of ‘’under-age drinking’ which, here and elsewhere, have kept an entire bogus therapy industry in funds for over a decade now. But even right wing amateurs like the Mothers Union are getting in on the scam (I mentioned their scare tactics over ‘parenting’ some while back, and now it seems they have David Cameron’s ear, so keeping tweedy geriatrics with one foot in ga-ga-land off the backs of decent parents is going to be an increasing problem in the coming year).
If only such imaginary problems and the proponents of their equally imaginary solutions could go away or be forgotten as quickly as bad dreams.
Sadly, I would not bet on that any time soon. Not considering the amount of public money wasted dreaming them up, along with ever more pointless employment opportunities for the bogus therapists involved.

Youth facility? Don't bet on it!

A small item in this week’s Examiner has me wondering if local kids are about to get groomed by quite unsuitable adults. IOM Newspaper staff notoriously avoid investigative work which upsets the local elite, so I suspect the story only fills a hole on the page, but still curious.
The dreaded Living Hope Community Church (AKA 'the Southern Daft Cult') have a change of use planning application in for the old Lancashire House pub, a tumbledown dump out in the Santon wilderness. They want to turn it into a ‘youth social centre’, which is curious as there are only half a dozen houses within miles in either direction.
'The Lanky' was a handy watering hole halfway between Douglas and Castletown in horsedrawn days, flogged off by the brewery years ago as it hasn’t brought in drinkers for decades. It was bought by a local entrepreneur who made millions from contract services to the hospital and prison building schemes -always remarkably well informed and ahead of the contractor queue in such things.
He seemed to be on another winner, setting up a child day care centre on the main road halfway between two major centres of offshore finance activity. Despite family connections which should have brought in the richest rugrats on the island, that also failed. Again – curious.
But there’s something else – either again curious but a total coincidence or worth looking at.
A couple of miles away is Mount Murray, whose history is already rather eventful (see, for example, http://www.privy-council.org.uk/files/other/mount%20murray-final.rtf, and if you really have the time http://www.gov.im/cso/crown/mountmurray.xml and http://www.gov.im/cso/crown/mountmurrayparttwo.xml). Now Albert Gubay, the real figure behind Mount Murray, is talking of developing a casino there (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Major-holiday-development-planned-for.4793630.jp).
Of course, we already have an island casino, at the Douglas Hilton, owned by George Ferguson Lacey, who also owns the vacant Castle Mona hotel site and is therefore in a position to quickly develop another nightspot – whenever the heritage and other government grants come through judging by his previous record with other ‘heritage sites’ (Bishopscourt, The Nunnery, Rushen Abbey…).
And Ferguson Lacey is a keen sponsor of various local evangelicals, who even tells folk he once hung out with Billy Graham and Richard Nixon. Curious clash of interests considering the usual religious objection to gambling (and folk enjoying themselves in general).
Similarly, Gubay has been known to court religious interests once or twice in a career originally built on a supermarket chain which flouted the old Sunday trading laws. So take note of the statement in the iomtoday article that: ‘It would be his intention to give 20 per cent of the yearly profits from the casino to worthy causes. A committee would be appointed to decide which causes would benefit.’
I wonder. Could we be in for a bidding war involving two of the island’s most ambitious developers trying to buy off the ‘moral majority’ in the form of the island’s scuzziest religious racketeers?
Whatever happens, if local youth services cannot get basic government grants while six figure sums get thrown at fundamentalist throwbacks for ‘youth outreach’ it's a safe bet the immediate future for Manx youngsters is a bleak one.