'Jersey power rests behind closed doors'

JERSEY'S political system 'is little more than an elected dictatorship' according to a member of Guernsey's Policy Council.

Housing minister Dave Jones condemned Jersey's fledgling executive government system as a failure.

'Jersey went for a form of executive government that clearly is not working, nor does it have a general election in the true sense of the word. It has a series of elections for officials, deputies and senators.

'Guernsey has a system which gives the people government from the bottom up, not the top down, and the real control over policy remains firmly on the floor of the assembly, not, as in Jersey, behind closed doors by a handful of ministers.

'To be blunt, the Jersey system is little more than an elected dictatorship.'

Deputy Jones made his comments in response to statements by a Jersey senator, Stuart Syvret, urging Guernsey voters to embrace a party political system akin to the UK.

People would then know for what they were voting, claimed the senator.

'I have seldom heard a bigger distortion of the truth,' said Deputy Jones, an outspoken critic of the UK government.

'The British people did not vote to go to war in Iraq, nor did they expect to be cheated out of the promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

'They didn't even get a say in who is their present prime minister.

'So the idea that democracy is better served by a party system is inherent nonsense.

'The whole system is flawed.'