I was sitting in a pub with a friend who was visiting from England and talk turned to Guernsey’s political system.
She works for a political party in England and was fascinated that we are mostly self-governing and have different legislation to the UK.
‘So,’ she said, ‘you have a population of what?’
‘About 65,000,’ I replied, struggling to remember exactly.
‘So that is about the size of a biggish town?’
‘Well, by definition, a medium-sized town in the UK,’ I replied.
I went on to tell her that we had 40 members in our government but only elected 38, as two were elected in Alderney. She thought that seemed fair. She marvelled that these 38 people were making the laws that governed the lives of everyone, not just the local issues, as per a town council.
Then she asked the big question. ‘Who are these people and what is their background?’
‘Anyone who has lived here for two years can put themselves forward.’
‘What! Anyone?’ she almost squeaked.
‘Yep,’ I replied, then lost confidence. ‘Although I’m not sure about prisoners… not so easy for them to get to the chamber and there might be a few other categories who are exempt. However, anyone else.’
We have the politics of personality here. To be honest, I think that if a well-known actor from a soap or popular television programme moved here, and after two years stood as a candidate, he or she would almost certainly get in even if they were a founder member of the KKC (Kicking Kittens Club) in their youth. Personality politics is not that fussy. At the last election there were 119 candidates for the 38 seats.
‘Wow that’s a lot – how on earth do you elect from 119 candidates, or even know that they can manage this role which impacts everyone?’
‘We don’t,’ I said, enjoying the drama. ‘We just sort of guess.’
‘It hasn’t always been this way though,’ I went on. ‘Until recently, candidates were divided by parish. There are 10 parishes, and we were allocated a number of deputies to vote for, depending on parish population. We were only choosing five to 10 deputies per parish, all of whom lived locally to us, so had a stake in our bit of the island.
‘There would be, possibly, double that number of candidates standing in a parish which meant that you had maybe 20 manifestos to read. That was a lot, but much more importantly, you did get the chance to go to the hustings and see the candidates perform in the public arena, seeing how they answered questions, what their views were and how knowledgeable they seemed about the community.
‘There have been many a time when I changed my mind about my vote after a hustings. A manifesto can only tell you so much but at a hustings, there is nowhere to hide.
‘But that’s all gone. There was a referendum in 2018 about changing to an island-wide voting system. I thought at the time – is this really something you want to ask the people about? How do we know? But the people spoke and island-wide voting it now is .
‘There were 119 candidates for 38 seats in the 2020 election. We had 119 manifestos. 119 for busy people to read. We struggled – and they were so boring because many candidates were keen not to promise anything or put forward any strong views when they didn’t know what the job entailed. And there is no rule that says that they must find that out before standing.
‘They also didn’t say anything that might be unpopular with the electorate.
‘Also, there weren’t any hustings, so there was no strong questioning of the candidates.
‘Some groups had a strange meet-the-candidates sort of opportunity. I attended the one for the island’s many charities. It was the weirdest thing. There were three rooms. Each charity sat at a small table and the rooms were full, with about 15-20 charities to a room. The candidates that had shown up, which was most of the 119, were then divided into three groups and directed to one of the rooms each.
‘Then started a sort of pass the parcel game, with one-third of the candidates moving round, spending three minutes at each table. There was time for two questions if the candidates kept replies brief, to which the answers were the same from 90% of the candidates. Those answers were vague and mostly professing to have a deep interest in whatever cause the charity was supporting. When I glanced around the room, it looked like a sort of middle-aged speed dating event.
‘There were also opportunities to meet the candidates on a one-to-one basis. I went to the largest of these at Beau Sejour. There was what looked to be over a hundred candidates sitting at small tables and giving me come hither smiles. I talked to a few people and gave a couple of forlorn, lonely looking ones a pity visit, but it didn’t help really.
‘We only had one candidate canvassing door-to-door. He seemed a reasonable sort of man so I gave him a vote for effort. After all, I had 38. But how do you canvass on your own over all 10 parishes without the machinery behind you that party-selected candidates in the UK have?
‘Anyway – the election day came, and I voted. Along with the rest of the island, I selected the people who were going to impact my life in so many ways.
My friend looked at me startled. ‘So, let me get this straight, going back a bit, some of the deputies had applied for a role, not knowing what it involved?’
‘Yes,’ I continued. ‘Do keep up. They don’t have to stand.’
‘Deputies are self-employed and there are very few rules about what they have to do in the role. I think the only actual stipulation is that they attend the chamber at least once a year. They can do as much or as little as they want. Some deputies work their socks off and are truly inspiring, most do work diligently but some don’t.
‘I think, though, they are offered training on how to be a deputy once elected. This time around, something of the sort has been offered before they stand.
‘I think that such training before standing should be mandatory – otherwise it seems to me a bit like employing an architect and, once you have signed the contract, the architect admitting to not knowing how to construct houses safely but promising to find out after being employed.’
My friend shrugged.
‘So how do you do it in the UK?’ I asked her.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘candidates are selected by the party’s select committee. Candidates in my party must have been a member of the party for at least a year and most serious candidates have a history of working for the party in some capacity. Minimum restrictions apply and those are mostly around residency in the UK, bankruptcy and length of prison sentence.
‘It is different for us because we have a party system. The candidate has to demonstrate that they will represent the people by following the party line because the electorate mostly votes for the party. The selection process means that the candidates on the ballot paper for the party will have had to demonstrate ability to govern and an understanding of the role. It is a similar structure in other parties too.
‘You can, of course, put yourself forward as an independent candidate, but unless you have a hook, you are a TV personality, Martin Bell for instance or, perhaps, you have already served your constituency as an MP, it is difficult to raise enough interest to be elected.’
We sat thinking about this for a moment. Then I asked her: ‘So does it work, does it produce serious strong politicians who lead the country with integrity, and should we adopt a system like that here?’
She smiled and said ‘I can sum that up in two words and leave you to make your own mind up.
‘Boris Johnson.’
