Island-wide voting under scrutiny

But, as it happens, the closing ceremony of the Island Games coincides with two potentially key political moments.

Two public surveys close tomorrow. One asks how the States could save up to £16m. a year. The other invites views on Guernsey’s election experiment of choosing 38 deputies from a list of nearly 120 candidates.

This newspaper has been critical of the savings survey. We will have been proved wrong if the survey results become a platform for a more informed and rounded debate about tax and spending than Policy & Resources has managed to achieve so far. But for now, the expectation remains that the senior committee wants to have another tilt at GST later this year.

The island-wide voting survey, more low key but perhaps more thoughtfully constructed, may in time come to have greater impact.

It would be a surprise if it did not reveal deep dissatisfaction with our ‘new’ electoral system.

The more its consequences are seen, the more the referendum vote to bring it about looks like our Brexit moment – hopeful but foolhardy.

The survey may not have been intended to rip up IWV ahead of the next election in 2025.

But its authors can’t control how other politicians and their voters react to the results.

Many deputies, particularly those with more experience, remain sceptical of IWV.

They worry that it makes it harder for voters to uncover and dismiss a certain type of candidate – populist, lethargic, superficial.

If the survey does indeed reveal that prevailing public opinion is also moving in that direction, there could soon be irresistible pressure to abandon ‘pure’ IWV after 2025, or possibly even sooner.