From Brexit to buttergate...

BACK in 2016 the second routine States meeting of the new political term took place on 28 June, just five days after the UK had voted to leave the EU.

In Guernsey, as elsewhere, this unleashed on the heads of those of us who thought that an independent, self-governing UK might not be the end of the world, a deluge of scorn poured by those for whom patronizing condescension is a way of life. We were dismissed as a bunch of Neanderthal thickies who didn’t know how to use a knife and fork, let alone understand what we had done by voting to leave that glorious EU Nirvana. The sooner we crept back to our stone-age dwellings at L’Ancresse and reflected on the wonderful gifts bestowed on us by Europe – you know, that lovely anti-tank thingy donated by that nice German bloke with the funny moustache and a jerky right arm – the better for Guernsey and all right-on people everywhere.

Well, it was something like that.

Anyway, this had brought our then chief minister to his feet to deliver what is known in the political trade as an urgent proposition, the message of which was clear: Brexit posed both dangers and opportunities for the Anglo-Norman islands and Guernsey’s government would be manning the political radar screens to identify them and prepare for them.

So it was with a degree of reassuring familiarity I normally associate with settling into a comfortable chair in the evening accompanied by a tot of my favourite malt whisky (Port Charlotte since you ask) that I listened as Deputy Le Tocq, lead member for external affairs, repeated much the same message more than four years later at the beginning of the States meeting on 25 November.

For four years Deputies Le Tocq and St Pier represented the Bailiwick well where it counts – in London and Brussels and occasionally in Paris – and I have high hopes that the Ferbrache/Le Tocq partnership will do so, too. Post-Brexit – deal or no-deal – the francophile, bilingual Le Tocq’s well-cultivated relationship with our cousins in Normandy and Brittany may well enhance the prospects of bilateral commercial arrangements at a regional level, even if the national scene is grim. His two statements to the new Assembly were not all about Brexit but extended to constitutional issues, for which I hope the editor might allow me space for discussion at a later date.

We also heard a general update from the president of E&I. It included confirmation that sale of new vehicles powered by the internal combustion of petrol and diesel will end here in 2030, as in the UK.

Whatever our views on this, Guernsey has little or no choice but to ‘go electric’ on our roads when manufacture of these vehicles stops, but I do hope to hear less virtue-signalling on this issue and a more even-handed debate. There are significant moral and environmental downsides to the production and running of electric vehicles: moral, because child labour and corruption are endemic in the mining of cobalt in the Congo; and environmental, because recent research claims that an average electric car needs to drive 50,000 miles before the extra environmental harm caused by manufacturing the vehicle is off-set by the lower level of damage caused by its use on our roads. So it would not go amiss if owners of electric cars could feel a little bit less good about themselves. Anybody for hydrogen?

Deputy De Sausmarez mentioned in passing that several States members can’t do their basic sums. All right, she didn’t actually say that, but she could have and I will. On the issue of hard coastal defences, the E&I president warned the Assembly that although these are expensive projects, members should ‘beware the false economy of a half-baked compromise’.

Whom did she have in mind, I wonder? It couldn’t possibly be the signatories to the successful (just) requete in April 2020 that committed the States and taxpayers to maintain the eastern end of the L’Ancresse anti-tank wall for at least a further 10 years, could it? But that was the previous worst States ever at their worst, eh? Yes, but hang on, those requerants included the current presidents of P&R, ESC, Home Affairs, Economic Development and HSC. They had sworn blind that it would cost no more than £200,000 over 10 years, and yet, only seven months later we learn that it will cost £1m. in a best-case scenario and even more millions in less favourable scenarios. Whatever our different views of the anti-tank wall, the requete illustrated three elements of rank bad government: shoddy, sloppy analysis done on the back of an envelope; a cavalier disregard for public money; and populist flip-floppery.

Politicians getting their sums wrong by a factor of five over a relatively simple project is bad enough, but just think, we are about to give those same politicians around £300m. of public money to spend next year, including a whopping £135m. to the HSC president who provided the envelope on which the requete was written. Yipes! If we ever hear a member of the Profligate Five promising evidence-based decision-making, or preaching value for money or warning colleagues against flip-flop government, I suggest we whisper ‘Remember the wall’.

The ESC president also gave a general update. She warmed the Assembly up with some fluffy, feel-good stuff about the purpose of education, including the usual obligatory reference to promoting self-esteem, creativity, responsible citizenship and enabling all learners ‘to achieve their dreams’. And lest we forget, it should all be done ‘joyfully’ – no Wackford Squeers wanted here thank you.

It did get interesting, though, during questions from the floor. When asked about the review of secondary education, the committee president indicated – well we think she indicated, it’s not always easy to tell – that instead of benchmarking three models against the two 11-18 colleges model, which is what was directed by her own successful requete and by the resultant States resolutions, alternative models would now be benchmarked against the current model of three 11-16 comprehensive schools and one 11-18 comprehensive. If the review’s original intent has indeed changed, I didn’t hear an explanation for it; could it be that because the current model must be one of the most inefficient and inequitable models anywhere, just about any model you could dream up would shine by comparison? Much more challenging, and therefore requiring considerable courage, would be to benchmark possible models against the top 100 English comprehensives which produce superior educational outcomes at half the cost per pupil.

States meetings provide a theatre all of their own. I offer some examples.

It had escaped my notice that the public, having evaded Covid-19, was now close to panic because several hundred packets of lethal Guernsey butter were still at large. It hadn’t escaped the notice of Deputy Lester Queripel, who had some Rule 11 questions for the STSB president, Deputy Roffey. Supplementary question followed supplementary question till I finally lost count. The gist of the questioning was that at that very moment hundreds of Guernsey folk could be spreading the killer butter on their slices of Senner’s best and Deputy Roffey ought to do something about it. How many cases of salmonella poisoning had been admitted to the PEH? And who was going to pay their hospital bills?

Digging deeper and deeper into his well of patience, the STSB president repeatedly explained that tests had shown that the butter in question contained no harmful bacteria and there had been no reported cases of poisoning by butter. But Deputy Queripel was unhappy about the reliability of the tests, and was determined to remain concerned. Deputy Roffey, feeling the call for desperate measures, invited Deputy Queripel to the testing laboratory, and that is where ‘buttergate’ rests for the moment, with Deputy Queripel at the dairy, dressed in full PPE I hope, personally ensuring that the butter we buy is fit to eat.

If the public weren’t previously concerned, they probably are now.

Eventually, statements and questions came to an end and the Assembly addressed what little business remained. Employment and Social Security proposed to increase the minimum wage in 2021 by no more than the current RPIX figure. Of the 38 members present, 37 voted their agreement, while one, Deputy Vermeulen, dissented. Of course, he wasn’t obliged to explain his vote, but he missed the perfect opportunity to make his maiden speech and reap the customary applause. As it is, we were left to infer, perhaps uncharitably, that his isolated negative vote might possibly reflect his background in an industry where some employers – but far from all – get by on the back of paying low wages and thereby passing their social conscience onto the taxpayer in the form of Income Support.

But one new deputy did make his maiden speech, the very first to do so. Step forward Deputy Gabriel, who seized the opportunity to put himself forward as the States petrolhead champion, speaking passionately, even lyrically, of the contribution made to our economy and our culture by motor sport. Never before in the Assembly have snarling motors, fume-belching exhausts and the smell of burnt rubber received such adulation. The resultant applause was thunderous. Just like an episode of Top Gear.

Curiously, Deputy Gabriel is a member of what we previously thought of as a very ‘green’ E&I committee. What next I wonder? Jeremy Clarkson as patron of Living Streets?