Anyone not want strong economy?

They want a strong economy. Who is arguing for a weak one? They want a sustainable environment. Anyone disagree?

A sense of community, family values, culture, security, rule of law. It’s all good, uncontroversial common sense.

99% of the charter would struggle to raise an argument in an anger management therapy session, let alone in the broadly right of centre hegemony of Guernsey.

Even the few buzz phrases likely to get the last remaining Trotskyites spinning in their deathbeds, such as ‘free market’ and ‘small government’, won’t elicit much dissent from this island’s electorate.

So if all of Guernsey is queuing up to sign the charter, does that make the 11 signatories a powerful new political force?

Not exactly.

For what precisely is their USP? Or, to put it another way, where do they differ from GSP?

Policy & Resources president Gavin St Pier has clashed with most of the charterists this term. If there is another ‘group’ in the States outside of these 11 deputies, at its beating heart is Deputy St Pier.

Yet he would sign up to much of what they have written, from small government to a diverse economy with low taxes. Just last week Policy & Resources launched a major fund to support free enterprise, another charter bullet point.

Where the 38 deputies differ is not in their broad aims. We all want a well-educated, poverty-free society with a vibrant economy where tax pounds are not wasted.

It is how the broad principles are interpreted that counts. For example, the charter wants respect for ‘the diverse range of personal human relationships’. Yet three of the 11 voted against same-sex marriage.

And how exactly do you shift the tax burden away from low- and middle-earners without clobbering business?

The 11 signatories are keen to point out this is not a political party. It is just a group of like-minded deputies.

The test of that cohesion will come as soon as the platitudes are swept away and a real-world choice has to be made.