Two-school model ‘cost me thousands of votes’

‘It’s always difficult to assume what is in voters’ minds, but the most likely interpretation is a lack of votes as punishment for my leadership of the two-school model,’ he said.

‘There may have been one or two other issues or a need for change, but I expect the two-school model cost me thousands of votes.’

He noticed that more senior members and better-known members who supported the two-school model were still comfortably elected, noting Policy & Resources members and Peter Roffey as a few.

Further down the ranking, lesser-known candidates who pitted themselves against the two-school model got in, which Deputy Fallaize said contributed to making the election a single-issue campaign.

‘There has been a shift to the right politically and I think candidates who were quicker to latch onto the pledges that a lot of people were seeking from them have done better.’

He called the debate superficial, saying, by and large, voters have backed candidates who reflected back to the electorate what they were hearing from voters.

‘Island-wide voting has not favoured well-known names in the way people originally thought it might.’

As an individual candidate, Deputy Fallaize was proud of the mesothelioma compensation scheme and as leader of the Education committee he was pleased to see the Guernsey Institute set up and the approval of the Plan for Sport.

‘Generally as a committee we have made quite a lot of welcome progress,’ he said.

‘But I think that that was over-shadowed by how unpopular the two-school model became.’

Late in 2017 the previous Education committee’s secondary education model and Deputy Fallaize’s were both in play.

‘We went a year and a half without substantial public opposition and teacher opposition.

‘Then a year ago opposition grew dramatically and we were already quite far into it by then.’

He said it became too late to reverse, but regretted that the opposition did not come up earlier.

‘The reality is that nobody is going to revive the two-school model in the next States, and we knew for the last few months that we were on course to identify the best three-school model – and I think that will be the outcome regardless of who is elected,’ he said.

However, he believed voters thought their vote would determine if the two-school model lived or died, and lots of candidates then put that at the centre of their campaign.

‘It became a single-issue campaign, as much by candidates as it did voters.’

Mr Fallaize expected to lose his seat, but felt he had to put himself up to be held to account, whatever the outcome.

Although he hoped to be further up the polls – as he had been very popular in previous elections – he thought thousands of voters wanted to punish him for the two-school model.

‘That’s not a criticism of the electorate, it’s just how it felt during the campaign,’ he said.

‘The States goes through patterns where there’s lots of drama around Health or Education, it just so happens that recently Health has been stable and Education has not.’

For the next Assembly and Education committee, a lot of the groundwork has been done, and Deputy Fallaize believes that the review of secondary education that is currently under way will bring the debate to a conclusion in 2021.

‘Voters do not want me anywhere near the States, so I don’t want to speculate about who might sit as Education president, but I hope they do not waver too much from our committee’s political agenda.’

He likened the roll of Education president to a poisoned chalice, saying through recent history few had lasted long in the States after taking the role, so he did not expect there to be a long line of people queuing up for the job.