Stepping into the jaws of a politically-charged beast

WHAT a week.

We began with the absurd possibility that the new Policy & Resources chairman would be decided by pulling a name out of the Greffier's very fine hat, and ended it with a splintered States.

Deputy Gavin St Pier's election as Policy & Resources president, decided on a spoilt paper after two rounds of voting left it tied up 20-all with Deputy Ferbrache, leaves him having to lead an Assembly split down the middle.

The closeness of the result was a surprise, it shows that there is a desire by many to make a break from the troubled past of the last States with which Deputy St Pier is readily associated – be that the embarrassing £2.6m 'classic fraud' of the States of Guernsey by two men now jailed, the controversial bond issue, GST or the fractured schools debate.

Deputy Ferbrache offered little in the way of fresh policy ideas in his bid for the job, so members must have been drawn more to his personal qualities and his clean political record.

We will know more about that next week when the leaders of the main committees are elected, but Friday's vote for the four people that will join Deputy St Pier on P&R shows he has not cast a spell over the Assembly.

Deputy St Pier made it clear the States should back his choices as they created a balanced team across the financial, social and environmental policies it will be co-ordinating.

When he proposed Deputy Lyndon Trott, a former Treasury and chief minister, another former chief minister Jonathan Le Tocq, former disability champion Jane Stephens and the person with the green credentials, Lindsay De Sausmarez, the balance was clear.

It was also a mix of old and new, women and men.

But it was also a move that was more open to a challenge from the floor than if he had been able to persuade the likes of Deputies Peter Roffey and Matt Fallaize to join his team, and he was dealt the subsequent blow.

Instead of an environmentalist, he has been left with Deputy Al Brouard. More experienced, yes, but what qualities he brings in terms of covering the committee's remit that aren't already in there remains a mystery.

Perhaps there was an element of the old guard wanting one of their own in there, someone who had served out a long apprenticeship.

This was a vote too that shows that environmental policy will be put down on the agenda by this States – remember that P&R has to report back on environmental taxes as part of the desire to broaden the tax base, for instance.

Deputy St Pier will take the 'glass half-full' approach to this – he has to in public.

Four years ago there was little defiance from the floor to the chief minister's pick for his team at Policy Council. Some will say three out of four is positive and reflects that kind of history.

This is, though, a very different committee. The council was essentially a talking shop for the ministers – P&R is designed to lead and deliver co-ordination from a small team, so any imbalance or weakness will be much more readily exposed.

Now the P&R team is in place we move this week into elections for positions the public will more readily identify with – ones that carry much more political opportunity and threat than a seat on the top team.

The poor polling by Deputy Charles Parkinson in the P&R president election – he garnered just eight supporters in the first round of voting – shows there is no appetite for wholesale reform of the corporate tax regime, a platform he relied on alongside a bold idea of building a university.

But Deputy Parkinson remains a key player in the coming events.

He has announced his candidature to be president of Education, Sport and Culture and declared it should be a vote on secondary school closures after saying he would keep all four open.

Will the States take that bait?

It's unlikely, especially as members will not want to be seen making such narrowly-focused choices when the mandate will be much wider than that.

School closures and the future of selection will define much of the early period of the States.

A vote for Deputy Parkinson would be fractious given Deputy St Pier's stance on this issue, he was the prime mover in getting school closure on the agenda.

There should be healthy contests across the board for the different roles.

By the end of all of this there will be calls for unity and focus.

There always is.

Those at the top of the States will want to move quickly away from the divisions these elections create and expose. For a while that will work, at least outwardly, but it cannot last.

This Assembly is already much more of a politically-charged beast than its predecessor. That can be healthy, especially if that also brings with it heightened levels of scrutiny and accountability.

Coming out of the departmental elections four years ago there was a sense that the States was too placid; it's all-for-one, one-for-all spirit a product of its naivety rather than a portent of effectiveness.

Healthy tension is needed in government, this States needs to be careful that, as time moves on, that doesn't become disruptive or even destructive.