Guernsey Press

There’s a difference between moral authority and status...

... and our top politician has worked hard to develop both both qualities, says Horace Camp. But does that mean we should accept the future vision of just one man?

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DECADES ago, I remember meeting Deputy Heidi Soulsby for the first time. It was about the same time I met Deputy Gavin St Pier. In the gloriously unpolitical correctness of the day, I mentally filed Heidi under the heading of ‘Bossy’ and Gavin as ‘One to watch out for’.

I have since then changed ‘Bossy’ to ‘Bossy, but effective’ and underlined ‘One to watch out for’ twice followed by three exclamation marks.

Perhaps because I have experience of working with them both in the real world as well as six years of observing them as politicians, I have come to the conclusion they are both politically ‘Bossy, but effective and ones to watch out for’.

They aren’t cut from the same cloth, but they are both visionary pragmatists in that they can imagine a better future but also come up with a plan that they believe will make it happen. They also understand the difference between moral authority and status.

Status is conferred by others. Being promoted to manager and being appointed head of a department is an award of status. But how many of us look to the supervisor or assistant manager who we know really runs the place because they have earned the moral authority we have placed in them? In the perfect office, the one with the status also has the moral authority.

Possibly we may look at the last Education committee as one where status and moral authority did not sit together, with potentially disastrous results for our children. We could also consider the plight of Deputy Ferbrache’s Economic Development being in the main due to his department having the conferred status, but Deputy St Pier’s Policy & Resources holding the moral authority?

Deputy St Pier has spent six years attempting to turn his deliberately emasculated position, which has status but zero authority, into a role where the status is greater than the considerable moral authority he has won for himself.

Deputy Soulsby has transformed a high status, but low authority, role at HSC into the high status, high moral authority role Deputy St Pier dreams he as president of P&R will one day enjoy. Their vision may have been similar, but the pathways they have chosen have been very different.

Heidi was open from the beginning that the HSC board would have clout and that it would make a difference. She correctly identified getting spending under control as the way to establish credibility for her political team, because by doing so she would gain support from Gavin’s team, which controlled the purse strings.

We have ideological deputies who would do much more, they say, for the many, not the few, and they could be right, but without Gavin’s gold all they have is more hot air to add to already overlong debates. But not a pragmatist like Heidi. Prove you can handle money and that you don’t need to be put into ‘budget detention’ like the former Le Pelley/Meerveld’s ESC, then you are free to run the show.

And that’s what she is doing. The Partnership of Purpose (which I always read as the Partnership of Porpoises) is well under way. Her colours are nailed to the mast, and, if her ship sinks, she will be long remembered as a bad captain. If, more likely, she leads us into the Nirvana of Health, then she will forever say it was entirely down to her team.

With Heidi Soulsby, you get what it says on the tin.

Deputy St Pier operates differently. He is a more covert operator and perhaps the system has forced him to act in that way, but I think it’s a combination of nature and nurture. A word here, a suggestion there, a meeting by invitation only, a controlled radio session, all appear to be his preferred modus operandi.

In his first terms he added considerable ‘power’ to a ceremonial role as president. This power wasn’t conferred on him by his peers but established by his own efforts, built on his considerable intellectual prowess. I’m sure he felt he had to amass it because there was a void in the new system of government crying out to be filled.

The 2012 Assembly gave him little opportunity to make use of his moral authority because it wasn’t until almost the end of his mandate that he had become established enough within the civil service and among his colleagues to make his voice count above all others. I suggest the three-school model delaying motion, which morphed into the two-school model, was the first real example of his auctoritas.

I also believe the loss of a political ally with a more down-to-earth approach may have escalated the drive to a P&R-powered States of Guernsey. Electors of St Sampson’s, why did you sacrifice Kevin Stewart to give us Deputy Meerveld?

I voted for Gavin in 2016 and will most likely vote for him in 2020. He is our most able and talented politician by a country mile. He will deliver a vision of Guernsey and he will deliver it quickly if he is actually running the place. And strong, long-serving leaders are making incredible strides in the world today.

Presidents Xi and Putin obviously stand out from the crowd and have the intellect, ability, talent, experience and authority to change their countries.

The question for us as we ponder whether we need political parties and strong and effective leadership is: are we willing to accept the vision of our leader?

I think we have a collective vision for Guernsey that cannot be encapsulated into the thoughts and deeds of a single man. And I put it to you that the best way to achieve a 50% best fit for Guernsey in the future is to govern Guernsey in our own way.

I don’t want us to be like China, Russia, or even Jersey.

We, the people of Guernsey, have different opinions on almost everything. Let’s embrace that as an essential part of our culture and embed it in our government by electing an Assembly of independents in parish elections and let them debate the options and, by consensus, implement them.

The alternative of presidential rule will work, but may not give us what we desire. If we go down that route, then Gavin is our man. But what if it isn’t Gavin?

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