The public is invited to an Open Debate at South Douglas Old Friends Association, Finch Road, Douglas at 7pm on Wednesday 14th January.

The topic to be discussed is “Douglas, the powerhouse of our Island. Do national policies help or hinder?” and Damian Ciappelli will chair.

Both East Douglas MHKs, Brenda Cannell and Hon Chris Robertshaw, are expected to speak.

Hopefully Douglas Councillor, David Ashford - former Mayor and current Chair of the important Council Housing and Property Committee - will speak too unless the Douglas Council meeting that day overruns.

Other speakers include Richard Butt, Editor of Isle of Man Newspapers.

As with the previous event all contributions are welcome, and the debate will be followed by an Open Forum.

Chris Thomas MHK (Douglas West), who launched the Isle of Man 2020 facebook page said:

“I would have been surprised if Mr Robertshaw had not accepted the invitation I made in Keys just before Christmas as the debate is in the constituency he represents and the Central Douglas Master Plan is something he is pushing. Perhaps I will get an invitation back?”

He continued:

“I offered during the same Keys exchange to share a platform with Mr Teare and Mr Robertshaw to discuss government’s new fiscal strategy, and Ci65 consultant proposals for the NI system. Might the official Big Debate be opened up so that all MHKs and others outside government can contribute on equal terms?”

Hon Chris Robertshaw MHK - the Minister for Policy and Reform - responded to a Keys question from Mr Thomas about whether the Big Debate had been a display of “Minister knows best”:

“You do not suddenly come out with a pre-set list of proposals that people are required to answer yes or no to; what you do is you engage people at the beginning in the process in the form of focus groups, which is what happens in the UK, for example, when a party is out of power. It spends years formulating its policies”.

He continued:

“People are used to going to meetings in the Isle of Man, identifying specific issues and getting specific answers. That was not the intention of phase 1 of the big debate. It was, despite what has been said, a listening process, where we effectively got a sense of how people were going to respond as we started to develop the architecture for policies going forward