Who should lead us?

First we need to ask: what is the role of CM in our consensus government?

The UK Prime Minister is the ‘top dog’ of government and their system is designed with the Prime Minister having personal authority over the ministers who form and implement their government policies.

Here the CM has no such authority. He is an equal member of Policy & Resources, the mandate of which is summarised as being: ‘To coordinate policy including leading the policy planning process, the allocation and management of resources, including the States’ budget and facilitating cross-committee policy development’.

This mandate accepts our structure, in which our governmental authority is either devolved to committees, or held by the States of Deliberation. It does not rest with the CM, nor P&R.

It is the States of Deliberation which is ‘top dog’ in terms of appointments and significant policy decisions. Unlike the UK, here the P&R leadership role is not to determine what should be done, rather to coordinate the efficient determination and delivery of States’ approved policies.

Leadership is unifying deputies and building a consensus. To do this the CM must be trusted. To gain trust he must be even-handed to all deputies, not biased towards ‘favourites’, respect the structure of government and apply high standards of governance.

Leadership by example.

So, who should be the next chief minister?

The first candidate has to be Deputy Gavin St Pier.

I agree that he is very intelligent and hardworking. He is also excellent at representing the island internationally. If the role was external relations I would have no hesitation in choosing him.

However, the majority of the role is internal to the island, and this is where I suggest his record is disappointing.

But, I hear you say, what about Covid? He has successfully steered us through the pandemic, so why not for the next four years? The answer is that Covid was exceptional and, while decisions were difficult, they were more pragmatic than political, short-term rather than long-term.

Covid-19 is still with us, but the nature of the issues have changed. The future will not involve the same trail-blazing, untested decisions of the past. Normal politics is returning, so we have to consider his leadership in the pre-Covid world to determine if he is suitable for the next four years.

He was elected CM on the smallest of margins, 20-19, after a number of rounds of voting, and was elected only when one deputy abstained. This set the scene for a divided Assembly.

Unfortunately, the first contentious issue served to embed this division.

I am, of course, referring to Education and the demise of the first committee. Obviously, he had to take a side but, according to some deputies, he was very supportive of the two-school amendment, both publicly and behind the scenes, in a way which exacerbated the already existing division in the Assembly.

Perhaps acting differently could have helped to heal the split in the Assembly.

I noted that one aspect of the P&R mandate is ‘leading the policy planning process’. Deputy St Pier did lead the development of a prioritisation process whereby all policy developments would be prioritised to determine which would be progressed.

Great, and credit to him for this. But he presented his ‘death with dignity’ proposition to the States in a way which bypassed the prioritisation process he championed.

Irrespective of the pros and cons of the proposition, he showed a lack of appropriate leadership in proposing a new policy workstream, costing tens of thousands of pounds, outside of the formal process he was championing.

In effect saying to other deputies: do as I say, not as I do.

This is fine in an executive system like the UK, but not in our consensus where the mandate of P&R is to ‘coordinate policy’. What he should have done is respect the integrity of the prioritisation process which he championed, and submitted ‘death with dignity’ through that process.

The nature of Boris’s role is to show favouritism by appointing ministers; here the States appoints committee members, so the ‘chief minister’ (and P&R) should treat all even-handedly, but has he?

Compare the treatment of Home with their governance review, which was published on the Sunday before the committee formally discussed it, with that of the Education review, which has taken an age to produce.

Most deputies support transparency. According to Jenny Kendall-Tobias it was Deputy St Pier who emailed P&R members dissuading them from the Sunday phone-in.

Probably the biggest scandal related to Education’s recruitment process, which it seems he was involved in – he didn’t support an independent investigation.

Hardly acts supportive of transparency and accountability.

We will, of course, never know the truth behind the infamous ‘make mischief’ email which was made public, but it was hardly unity-building.

I am not suggesting that Deputy St Pier broke any rules, or that he was all bad – in fact we need people of his calibre in the States. Just that those actions demonstrate that his style of leadership does not fit well within a consensus government. A CM needs to remember: just because one has the right to do something, doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.

It is easy to say who should not be CM, but who do I think it should be?

If not Deputy St Pier, then who? One candidate is Deputy Soulsby. She was rumoured to be forming a party with Deputy St Pier so would be unlikely to gain the trust of certain deputies.

As the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, she was in favour of giving more resources to Scrutiny, yet voted against funding a tribunal into the education recruitment process; so her commitment to transparency and accountability are questionable.

We are at a crossroads politically. This Assembly has been divided like no other and I fear that, unless we can have a CM who can unify the Assembly and lead it in true consensus, the trend will be set for future governments to also be divided and confrontational.

So, who has the skills to do the job?

I can think of only two people, in alphabetical order: former Bailiffs Sir Geoffrey Rowland and Sir Richard Collas.

Surprising suggestions?

Think about it for a moment. Both have great experience in the States and are well respected and trusted by deputies and the public. Having risen to the highest position in Guernsey, neither is driven by their ego and neither has anything to prove.

Either of them has the skills and experience to apply good governance and lead in a unifying way, which would set a firm foundation for future governments to build upon.

Sadly, I doubt if either will stand for election.

I suspect that Deputy St Pier will ride the crest of the Covid wave and be re-elected CM. If so, I do hope that he can change and lead in a true consensus manner, even if that means occasionally alienating his support on the ‘left’ and being statesman enough to support policies the Assembly approves, even if he personally does not favour them.