States of Jersey

States of Jersey.

Nov 22nd 2011.
How very sad for Jersey.
The public has been getting increasingly angry with our government, chiefly because ‘it doesn’t listen’ and most had high hope that the elections of October would bring change.
Well, we have eight new faces out of fifty one, and first signs were encouraging.
Our previous Bailiff, who, to much surprise stood as a senator (and topped the poll) didn’t get the job of Chief Minister. That went to Ian Gorst, a more inclusive politician. Had Bailhache won, even though in his election campaign he was offering ‘change’ there’s little doubt he would have surrounded himself with ‘the old guard’ and nothing would have changed. More about that in a moment.

Having been elected to the States again for three years, I too was eager to sort out the ‘machinery of government’ – ie the system of government. Indeed, it was a main plank of my campaign.
However, my vision was completely different from Bailhache’s. I wanted a more inclusive Assembly, where, instead of ten ministers running the Island whilst other members are excluded from decision making and have to do their best on Scrutiny, I wanted more members involved in decision making and a reduced scrutiny which, despite the enormous effort put in by members, is largely a waste of time as their Reports are routinely ignored by ministers.
Bailhache, on the other hand, either appears not to understand the problems – or has a covert agenda.
As far as I can determine from the longish telephone conversations we have had, he wants to reduce the number of members (his insulting excuse is that ‘many have nothing to do’)  and substantially reduce the number of questions allowed to be asked of ministers.
In other words, he appears to want to crush any opposition to the Council of Ministers and turn it into an effective dictatorship. That does not surprise me, though some members of the public don’t appear to have cottoned on yet.

The driver for change in the States is the Privileges and Procedures Committee who, amongst their long list of responsibilities, have a remit to bring forward proposals for changes to the machinery of government.
For that reason I was hoping to become the Chairman of the Privileges & Procedures Committee. Sadly, I didn’t get it. The two front runners (Gallichan, Connetable of St Mary and Crowcroft, Connetable of St Helier) were unlikely to make any real change so I’m doubly disappointed, as the chance to reform, get government working properly and regain public support has been thrown away. The Connetable of St Helier finally won the ballot. As he never turns up to meetings, it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.
My fear is that it will be such a shambles that ultimately there will be calls for the UK to take over the running of Jersey. I can see a vote of no-confidence being required in the not too distant future.

Sadly, too, the States are again being belittled by journalists who are either not up to the job or have an agenda of some sort.
Recently, two have been making much of the ’spoilt papers’ that were in the ballots for the various positions (ministers, chairmen ,etc). If only these journalists understood politics and stopped whipping up public anger over trivial matters we would all be better off.
They tried to make out that States members are so incompetent they can’t even write a name on a ballot paper without getting it wrong. It’s actually the journalists who are thick. I’m told the ballot papers were spoilt because on a couple of occassions a member had written ‘neither’. So I ask these semi-intelligent hacks – what would you do if you were faced with a ballot between two people and you had not the slightest confidence in either? The only alternative – as I did on one ballot – was to put the ballot paper in the waste basket.
However, I – unlike those journalists – can understand a member’s frustration when there are perfectly capable members available for a position but either they haven’t put themselves forward – or, in the case where I dumped my paper – have been excluded early on in the balloting.

And now for another moan – because our ministerial system is such a failure, scrutiny is a waste of time. The scrutiny panels spend much time and effort producing reports only for these to be dismissed by ministers in moments. Which is why this time I won’t be accepting any position on scrutiny. I want to do productive work, not waste my time and effort.

And now for a warning – if members think that by voting the Connetable of St Helier in as chairman of PPC will ensure ’business as usual’ I have bad news for them.
The phrase ‘p*ss*ng into the tent instead of p*ss*ng out’ springs to mind.

                                                                                       ———————