No consensus on future of Education

What exactly were the 17 deputies who voted for Deputy Carl Meerveld trying to achieve?

This was the same Deputy Meerveld who was forced to resign from the committee in December after his botched secret social media campaign showed a lamentable lack of judgement.

And it was the same deputy who attended the anti-two-school rally on Sunday and has vowed that, were he elected, he would bring a three-school model back before the House.

A vote for Deputy Meerveld was effectively an attempt to wreck the two-school proposals before they had even got going.

Bearing in mind that the three-school proposals were soundly beaten 26 votes to 13 less than a month ago it was bizarre, to say the least.

Who would vote for a two-school system then, weeks later, back a candidate who made no secret of his desire to destroy it?

It is inexplicable votes such as these which are the strongest argument to abandon secret ballots.

This election could have scuppered a key policy, yet islanders have no clue how their elected representatives voted or why.

We can only guess.

One safe conclusion has to be that a large number of deputies are unable to accept last month’s vote and will seek any means to overturn it.

The other less palatable inference is that, hidden behind a secret ballot, deputies are prepared to vote on personalities not policies. Rather than back the two-school system to the hilt they will put it at risk simply because a candidate is not to their liking.

All of which speaks volumes about this most divided of Assemblies where, for some deputies, the ‘why’ comes a distant second to the ‘who’.

Thankfully, it was to no avail. The Group of Four and their preferred fifth candidate were elected.

But in the difficult years to come, as the 11-18 model is mapped out and implemented, it is clear that this Assembly is anything but a consensus government.