States members fall out over where to sit

The cause of the heated discussion was the issue of ‘free seating’.

Since the formal winding up of the Guernsey Partnership of Independents – a 10-strong group of deputies that always claimed not to be a party – the Bailiff wrote to members suggesting that this would mean more freedom to sit wherever they liked, rather than among their fellow party members.

Some deputies took this to be a strong hint that they should mix things up a bit and that perhaps there would be less partisanship in the Assembly if they hot-desked their way through the present term of office.

Consequently, Sasha Kazantseva-Miller started the meeting on Wednesday sitting in Marc Leadbeater’s usual seat. He ended up sitting near the front, next to Deputy John Dyke.

Yesterday, however, Deputy Leadbeater was back in his customary place and Deputy Kazantseva-Miller was saying on social media: ‘Playground seating politics in Chamber today, deputies holding seats for others despite the Bailiff new ruling for free seating – did not think States Chamber would resemble lounge fighting at sunny resort.’ Her post was accompanied by a swimming-pool themed picture.

Alderney representative Alex Snowdon – perhaps reassured by the fact that he and fellow representative Steve Roberts have permanently allocated seats – was among those members to go to the media room and comment to media representatives on the degree of irritation evident upstairs.

Another was Lyndon Trott, who went to sit next to Mark Helyar, only to be told that Deputy Bob Murray had reserved that spot, which has been his position since the current term began. Deputy Trott told us he put his belongings down in the space normally taken up by another deputy and left the room. On returning, he found his stuff had been moved to that same seat at the front next to Deputy Dyke.

‘I’m going to take the unusual step of speaking to the Bailiff,’ said Deputy Trott, with a wry smile. ‘Either it’s free seating or it isn’t.’The ‘top bench’, consisting of the committee presidents, have their seats reserved, but even this was disturbed briefly yesterday.

However, there was nothing churlish or childish about Deputy Helyar replacing Deputy Jonathan Le Tocq for the afternoon session. This was a planned move to reflect the fact that he, as treasury lead, was presenting the session’s main debate – the tax review – on behalf of Policy & Resources.