While the flame of hope flickers, win back our trust

WHAT if the States of Guernsey was infallible? What if the decisions made by the Assembly, although mysterious and hard to understand, were unanimously accepted by the people of Guernsey as the right thing to do? What if everything a deputy said was taken as gospel and we all had faith in those words?

Let's explore this further. Once we have accepted the above truths, will Guernsey become a better place?

Immediately we could reduce the number of deputies because we wouldn't need any form of scrutiny. Given that each and every deputy had the power to always tread the right path and make the right decision, then five-deputy committees would be totally unnecessary. But for the volume of work a single deputy would be enough, but one per committee makes more sense.

There would be no need to place deputies on committees which seemed most relevant to their leanings, experience or which held the budget most likely to fund his or her pet project. Committees wouldn't need a balance of political affiliations because there would be no bias or previously held convictions influencing any decision.

There would be no need to make Billets available to the public, nor would access to debates be necessary. Hansard would be a complete waste of time. They would just get on with the job and we would leave them to it, saving us thousands of hours' whingeing on social media.

I'm not quite sure how general elections would work, but I'm assuming the right candidates would be revealed to us in a dream the night before polling day.

How could we be certain the paragons we elected were performing their tasks and hadn't evolved into higher beings living on a different plane of existence? Easy – we would notice gates and cycle paths popping up here and there. We would notice the regular increase in taxes and other charges and the general lightening of the burden of our wallets.

We would embrace every extra, seemingly unnecessary, improvement or over-punitive increase in duty as all part of a master plan, the sense of which is beyond our comprehension because it is written in a language known only to the Chosen who support our infallible representatives.

In the worst of times we would never lose our faith, because we would know the plagues that befall us were just sent to test the resolve of those divinely selected to rule us.

The tragedy is that I believe the aforementioned will be read by some of our deputies, who will silently nod in agreement and despair that it isn't so. And the reasoning behind their despair will be evidence-based.

The States of Guernsey is infallible. Evidence to the contrary is very hard to find. Independent reviews of past States' decisions rarely, if ever, suggest the decision taken at the time, given the information and budget available, was the wrong one. Indeed, the States has spent vast amounts on consultants to ensure all decisions are the right ones.

The States is willing, driven by a policy of continuous improvement, to reverse decisions taken by previous States, not because they were wrong, but because times have changed. The 11-plus, for instance, was the bees' knees and the States reported for years how selection had benefited our island. The States of old were not wrong, just as this States will not be wrong in introducing its new system of education. It and future States will report that it is the bees' knees and is serving our island well.

Then, some time far in the future, the States will notice times have changed and will introduce a new system. Probably by shoehorning the educational and political philosophy of 2050 into the legacy buildings of 2020 in much the same way as we are doing now with our legacy buildings.

But each States, in its own time and subject to its own scrutiny, will always confirm its infallibility. The system is designed that way. We will measure the new school system against itself, not against, say, a better system that could have been chosen but wasn't.

We can't compare Tommy Tucker's outcomes in various systems because we only have one T. Tucker and one system.

When Tommy achieves good results in the super-king-sized new merged Grammar, the infallibility of the States will be proven once again. But if we could compare parallel worlds, Tommy's results at the old Grammar School, we would know for sure.

In short, within the Church that is the States of Guernsey, its decisions are always right and it will be able to provide reams of evidence to support that claim.

However, outside of the Church only those with absolute faith believe it is so. Year on year, fewer believe – and this a very dangerous path for Guernsey to follow at a time of great change in the real world.

Government and people must have faith in each other to be best able to withstand whatever is thrown at us and then for us to profit from recycling whatever it was we withstood.

For us to have faith in our government, we must first trust it. It is my belief that although we still hope the States is doing the right thing, we have lost our implicit trust that it is. Without trust, we cannot have faith.

How many of us are resisting the Beautiful New Bay Proposal by supporting Save The Tank Wall because we don't trust the committee behind the plan? I hope Environment has brought the proposal because it is the most pragmatic, low-cost option. However, I don't trust them enough to blindly assume that is the case. My lack of trust undermines my faith in them.

Environment is an easy target for many reasons, but the same lack of trust can be pointed at many States committees, including, unfortunately, Education.

My heartfelt plea to the States of Guernsey is that while the flame of hope still flickers, please win back our trust and ultimately restore our faith in you.

I would like to say I know you can do it, but that's a leap of faith too far.

• Horace Camp’s column moves to Fridays from 4 August.