Matt Fallaize: Keeping the show on the road

The past 12 months, 2023, made for quite a year in local politics.

A long-term tax and spending plan was decisively, if irresponsibly, kicked far down the road. The senior committee, Policy & Resources, which for the first half of the term looked almost unassailable, was first resisted, then defeated, and finally removed. And the so-called 'Blob', the uneasy but remarkably tough coalition which had effectively run the show since the election of October 2020, fractured over GST, education and whether it was excusable, at times of stress, to treat opponents like dirt.

It was a year of drama, certainly. A year of change. A pivotal year. But also a predictable year. None of those major events was a surprise, except possibly that they took so long. It was appropriate, therefore, that the year should end with the predictable elevation – or, as he might prefer to see it, restoration – of Lyndon Trott to the top job, as president of P&R, nearly 12 years after he had pushed the Assembly so far that it felt the need to relieve itself of his leadership, even though he was quite good at it.

The former P&R was bound to go. It spent its final year consumed by unpopular tax reforms which it went on presenting to the States despite knowing they were a lost cause, gradually uniting former allies with long-standing critics. Towards the end, P&R resembled Douglas Hurd’s famous description of a Tory government of the early 1970s, which he said was ‘wandering vainly over the battlefield looking for someone to surrender to and being massacred all the time’.

And Deputy Trott was bound to inherit. Gavin St Pier was too disliked by much of the old coalition. Peter Roffey was too liberal. Charles Parkinson was too preoccupied with company taxes. Mark Helyar was saying he wanted to quit politics. Heidi Soulsby, having reluctantly demurred from contesting the top job in 2020, was playing the long game. Jonathan Le Tocq, possibly the only candidate who could actually have defeated Deputy Trott, preferred to remain in his semi-detached but nevertheless vital role leading external relations. It should be noted, en passant, that Rob Prow did remarkably well to push the election into a third round and wind up only two votes short.

Last May, I interviewed Deputy Trott at length for the paper, and it was clear even then how things were likely to turn out. When I asked if he would ever do another stint in the top job, he said he would, ‘if there was a catastrophe, and we needed a caretaker… but the question I would prefer you to have asked is whether I would ever covet it again and the answer to that is no’.

I believed then, and still believe now, that he didn’t covet the job. But he was nevertheless preparing for it in the full expectation that, sooner rather than later, there would indeed be a ‘catastrophe’ and the need for a ‘caretaker’. In the months that followed he became more active from the ‘backbenches’, kept reminding colleagues of the importance of experience in politics and then, just as they were looking for a first among equals for the next 18 months only, he said he intended to leave politics at the next election.

A Canadian prime minister once said that the essential ingredient of politics is timing. Deputy Trott’s, not for the first time, was impeccable.

Behind the geniality, charm and good humour lies a politician more astute, even calculating, than any since the long heyday of his mentor, Roger Berry. This matters. Members of the former P&R, and their most loyal supporters, had a point when they claimed that replacing them wouldn’t make any difference because the States would still comprise the same 40 members, but they overlooked how the missteps of a senior committee can deplete the confidence of the whole Assembly. They were right when they claimed that, in our system, the senior committee has to rely on force of personality, but they overlooked that often force of personality is enough.

It has been already on the thorniest of issues, education, where in the space of less than six weeks Deputy Trott has forged a compromise amendment which is expected to sail through this week’s States meeting. A beleaguered Education Committee will get to build the long-overdue Guernsey Institute and, outwardly at least, maintain the appearance of momentum for its sixth form ideas. The exclusion, at least for now, of the sixth form centre from the Les Ozouets project will give Education’s critics the hope – albeit only slight – of revisiting a policy they regard as damaging and wasteful. Deputy Trott has got both sides exactly where he needed them – fearful of the alternative if they reject his compromise. Whatever one thinks of the policies, it’s undoubtedly good politics.

It also reveals much about Deputy Trott’s general approach.

He is tactical more than strategic. Faced with the grind of shaping unloved policies to avoid problems many years away, his lights go out. Faced with an immediate problem which a bit of ingenuity could solve tomorrow and there is no one better. He ducks and dives.

He wants to keep the show on the road. Most of the time he is more interested in reaching a solution than in the detail of the solution. Logically, his education amendment is full of holes, but it is designed not to be elegant or durable but to get an important capital project – The Guernsey Institute – across the line.

Deputy Trott has very few political principles. I don’t mean in the sense of being unscrupulous. I mean in the sense of being flexible about policy outcomes, perhaps with the exception of a small number of mostly economic issues.

The advantage of this, as president of P&R, is that he doesn’t have an extensive policy agenda ready to create new disagreements and divisions. The disadvantage may be a reluctance to back senior colleagues taking difficult but principled positions. I wouldn’t expect much movement on personal tax reform. If I was involved in the hugely contentious work on paying for long-term care, I’d be nervous about where the senior committee will end up.

I’m convinced he is also a lucky politician. His faith that zero-10 could unleash unreal levels of economic growth was never really put to the test because of the global financial crisis. At the weakest point of his previous period of leadership, he suddenly needed to save the island running out of fuel, and much else was quickly forgiven. He survived two general elections only by the skin of his teeth just before the era of rampant populism which would almost certainly have defeated him. And now, literally days after returning to the top job, the States finds out that company tax changes led thousands of miles away are likely to raise at least £20m. a year more than expected.

His predecessor, Peter Ferbrache, could be forgiven for thinking of that old saying about being born talented and hoping next time to be born lucky. This streak of luckiness sits well with Deputy Trott’s sunny optimism – and most of the time politicians talking things up tend to be more popular.

Unusually, given that the States term really has only 15 months to run, his greatest risk is probably not ‘events, dear boy, events’, but how much he has learned from his previous tilt at the top job and two long periods since on the ‘backbenches’. Last time, between 2008 and 2012, he sometimes overreached. He needs to show that he understands the limitations of the role – he is the president of the senior committee, not the prime minister. He needs to manage expectations while gradually fostering more optimism. Above all, he needs to channel his ebullient self-confidence into making this Assembly feel better about itself and the island feel better about it.

I doubt this will be dull.