Phone call or text? Deputies fall out over ferry complaint

Economic Development president Neil Inder accused Victoria Oliver of lying when she said in a radio interview that she had phoned him to complain about changes to the ferry schedule over Christmas.

In the email exchange, seen by the Guernsey Press, Deputy Oliver then clarified that she had meant to say that she had sent Deputy Inder a text message. She also explained more about why she was angry over a decision to scrap a Guernsey-UK sailing on 21 December, but her message left Marc Leadbeater unimpressed.

‘We get that you, Victoria, may be annoyed about Condor, but does that justify wrongly stating in the media that you had spoken to the president of Economic Development and given him an earful about it? I don’t think so,’ said Deputy Leadbeater.

‘He asked for a public retraction, which appears extremely reasonable given that he also has other avenues in his arsenal, such as the code of conduct process. If someone lies, misleads or similar, intentionally or otherwise, surely if they had an ounce of integrity they would issue a public apology. Or am I missing something?’

The row started last Thursday when Deputy Oliver was interviewed by the BBC about schedule changes which would require her to miss her mum’s birthday a few days before Christmas.

She claimed in the interview that she had ‘already been on the phone to Deputy Inder’ and said ‘he is going to get back to me’.

Within 90 minutes of the interview, Deputy Inder had emailed Deputy Oliver, copying in other States members, alleging that no such call had taken place, and asking her ‘to explain to me and members why you stated that untruth’.

In a reply the following day, Deputy Oliver apologised, clarified that she had sent Deputy Inder a text message complaining about the schedule change, and claimed that he had replied a few hours later saying he did not know the reasons for the change.

She also said it was ‘quite weird’ that Deputy Inder had emailed all States members about the issue rather than picking up the phone to speak to her.

‘Nothing strange about accuracy,’ said Deputy Inder in an almost immediate reply.

‘The claim you made to the media was false. There was no phone call. I didn’t say I would get back to you. Glad that’s cleared up.’

Later in the exchange, Deputy Oliver described the schedule change as ‘a complete disgrace’ which would affect countless families.

‘Do you realise how unfair this is for people who don’t even have enough holiday time? It’s an additional day and a half,’ she said.

‘If this were weather-related, fine, we could all understand. But just to pull the service outright?

‘It’s beyond unacceptable.’

Condor changed its schedules for Christmas just last month, with the Clipper seconded to Brittany Ferries, but said that it was confident that capacity had increased over the period and would meet the seasonal demand.