Looking for the value in travel
INTEREST in the travel plans of politicians has noticeably declined during and since Covid, for obvious reasons.
But now travel's back, soon it’s very likely that scrutiny of it will return. Last week alone, we had politicians in France and in Wales for meetings which, had they not gone ahead, it is unlikely that the island would be immeasurably poorer.
And why a call for increased scrutiny? Just as we were told that business travel would not return to what it was post-pandemic, so government travel should be considered likewise. Zoom, anyone?
Now a Jersey deputy’s concerned about ‘jollies’ – and he’s started off by calling a trip for nine Jersey politicians to Guernsey for a three-day ‘Crown Dependencies Network’ meeting ‘a waste of money’.
He may have a point. We’re told the meeting will ‘afford members from each jurisdiction an opportunity to discuss matters of shared interest and learn from the experience in other jurisdictions’. If mainly populated by back-benchers it’s very possible that they will never meet again, nor take much from the experience.
Some political travel is needed. Face-to-face ‘diplomacy’ with the UK especially, particularly in difficult times. The problem with building relationships in this way is you rarely know when a meeting may offer value, or when it won’t –until you need it.