What does the island really want from its political leader?

So with each term comes a new way of looking at the job, tip-toeing through, pulling strings to try and set a course while not overstepping the imaginary line and alienating so many colleagues as to become ineffective.

The island’s system of government leaves the senior position bereft of many of the tools a leader would traditionally be able to draw on – indeed it is designed to have as many hands as possible on the tiller just so that everyone feels like they are contributing, even if the sum total of all that guidance it to steer a course to nowhere.

Under an executive system it is simple.

The leader can lead, and can then also hire – and fire – colleagues to positions to which they are most suited.

Under the consensus model the definition is blurred at best.

The latest iteration has five members of Policy & Resources, headed by the president, in charge of the broad policy programme and the purse strings by setting the annual budget.

But whenever it, or the president, is seen as going beyond that, to step in for example when a committee is underperforming, there is a chorus of voices objecting that it is interfering and playing politics.

Performance management is not something this States, or its predecessor, has worked out.

While this system of government aspires to breaking down silos, to see cross-committee working for the good of the island, when it comes to the crunch, politically at least, it comes up short because States members do not like to be led.

The role of the P&R president becomes particularly troublesome when the incumbent actually wants to do something beyond representing the island’s interests on the international stage.

There are other members on P&R who have taken on much of that work in Deputies Lyndon Trott and Jonathan Le Tocq, which may be one of the reasons why Gavin St Pier has turned his attention more to the domestic stage than either did in their incumbencies.

Some of that has been circumstance driven too – what happened at Education over the misleading Facebook page, or the fall-out at Economic Development from the Public Trustee case, for example.

But some of it, and the assisted dying and impending drugs policies debate are prime examples of that, must be because of a personal desire to help drive social change before his political currency is up.

There is little doubt that part of the reason assisted dying was given credibility in the national media was because of the position he holds.

Deputy St Pier will be criticised by those that do not see how assisted dying fits into the Policy and Resource plan that he has promoted as being the guiding light for everything the Assembly does – one of the few tools the committee has to lead with.

There will be others who simply do not think he should have the time to be getting down in the political trenches to fight this battle.

Detractors will point to handling the fall-out from Brexit, for example, as being something that should be all encompassing for the P&R president.

There is something both unusual and destabilising about the States senior politician lobbying hard for such a dramatic change that would appear to be, for the moment at least, out of kilter with popular opinion.

That is not to say that it is wrong, or that popular opinion should always win the day, as in all likelihood this is something that will happen within the next decade, but that it is potentially damaging politically speaking.

Much of the president’s power, and that of the chief ministers before him, came out of earned respect and force of personality.

Getting tied up front and centre with divisive and potentially losing campaigns, however worthy they are, erodes that political currency, making it more difficult to lead.

So it is a bold and brave move, especially given how emotive the topic is.

The assisted dying debate should not be won or lost on personalities, on who is leading the charge.

It is a discussion that a mature democracy should be able to have based on its merits.

It is one that is likely to highlight a split in the senior committee.

All this exposure for Deputy St Pier shines a light acutely on the two almost invisible members of P&R. No doubt Deputies Al Brouard and Jane Stephens are diligently working away in the background achieving things, adding to the brain trust around the committee table, but the public really could do with seeing some of the leadership they are offering under their respective policy areas too.

Because for all those who like to paint P&R as an interfering ogre, there is a counter argument that would question whether the five-person committee really does wield the guiding influence that it was designed to do.

Those seats on the P&R table look a much more comfortable ride than leading the restructuring of secondary education, for instance.