P&R yet to plot a course for four-year journey

THE political path being trodden by this States is heading for a destination unknown, via a route with few signposts.

So far it is doing so without a guide – or at least that guide is stumbling trying to find their feet and locate the compass.

To an extent that is inevitable.

The new system of government – and the internal elections to select it – was nothing more than a paperwork exercise.

Untried and untested, it has now been filled with characters and personalities all trying to navigate their way through it.

Some of those have never seen the inside of the debating chamber, let alone got the badge that says experienced politician.

Which is something of an explanation for what has panned out so far, which has been unusually shapeless.

Policy & Resources should be providing the guiding light in this situation, yet last week during the presidency elections it failed to nominate candidates for some key positions.

Read between the lines and that will be because it could not agree on who should get the post, or worse still, did not really mind.

Exclude Scrutiny from this, naturally – no one is suggesting it should be anywhere near that election.

Now this five-person committee is meant to be setting the policy agenda for the next four years and deciding where the funding will go.

Picking a candidate they wanted to work with should be one of the easiest tasks it faces.

It would also have provided some cohesion, alleviating those fears for some that the new system will create a 'them and us' scenario.

One of the great unknowns is how things will pan out when one of the main committees defies the priorities being set by P&R and the chances of that happening – of policy trickling up rather than down – have been heightened by what played out last week.

Some will argue that is a good thing. This is still a consensus system, after all.

The States should be the final arbiter and the power to elect anyone to any position rests with it anyway.

But it also has something of a wild west landscape about it so far – a characteristic that is in marked contrast to four years ago.

It is an open secret that the team nominated by P&R president Gavin St Pier was not his first choice. Some experienced hands could not see themselves working with other characters that he wanted.

That, added to the way the elections have unfolded, has left some big beasts out in the political wilderness for now.

The role that the likes of deputies Peter Roffey, Charles Parkinson and Matt Fallaize play from the outside will be crucial to the success or otherwise of this government.

You would be disappointed and surprised if any of them ended up as mere passengers on the trip.

The journey will be a lively one.

Heading up Education, Sport & Culture is Paul Le Pelley, so much of a quiet man in the last States that his election has raised more than a few eyebrows.

Yet he found his voice last week while the other three candidates floundered, either because they were too radical in their views, stumbled under the inquisition of their peers or got trapped by being aligned with the anti-selection viewpoint.

If the States continues to follow the pro-selection, anti-school closure route plotted out in this vote, it will be a direct contrast with the position adopted by the P&R president and the majority of his colleagues last term.

This only heightens the folly that was last term's rushed education debate.

So we have an immediate point of tension to put the new system to the test.

P&R is itself far from united on this issue.

Its vice-president, Deputy Lyndon Trott, nominated Deputy Le Pelley and also stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the last debate on an unsuccessful amendment to bring in continuous assessment to still select pupils at 11.

There were no surprises at Economic Development, with Peter Ferbrache, Employment and Social Security, Michelle Le Clerc, or Health & Social Care, Heidi Soulsby, all elected unopposed.

Not everyone is entirely clear what the Environment & Infrastructure job is about, although at least the successful candidate in Deputy Barry Brehaut had a good handle on its policy-heavy planning, traffic and housing brief.

The big surprise of the day was in the battle for Home Affairs.

Two former board members from the Vale slugged it out, with Mary Lowe taking the seat from Deputy Fallaize by 20 votes to 18.

Both clearly had a good handle on the brief, which was reflected in the vote – the deciding factor for the new candidates, at least, may well have been the wide experience Deputy Lowe brings.

Deputy Fallaize remains a very talented operator, who can direct things from the background – his hand was in many of the key moves of last term even if his name was not.

All in all, it makes you wonder if overall leadership will come from the front or things will be end up being manipulated from the shadows.

P&R will try to play down all these fissures as everyday politics, but it quickly needs to get a grip to become the dominant voice it was designed to be and start to plot the direction in which this States will go. Continuing to stand at the crossroads scratching their heads only adds to the possibility that others will come along to take the lead – and in the worst-case scenario, march off in four different directions with disparate groups trailing behind them.