Guernsey Press

Opinion: We will get lost if blind faith is the only path to follow

A unified States with a common purpose is a laudable aim, but constructive scrutiny is essential for democracy, says Deputy Peter Roffey

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Deputy Inder, pictured right, doesn’t think deputies can validly hold opinions on ‘real Guernsey issues’ if they either ‘quaff wine’ or ‘listen to Dido’, according to Peter Roffey. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 29385873)

I HAVE now served in seven different States Assemblies and this one certainly is ‘different’.

The jury is still out on whether that difference will prove to be positive or negative.

If it really does become the ‘States of Action’ the president of Policy & Resources wants to see then that will be refreshing – always presuming that action is the right action. I’m an impatient bloke and have always been frustrated at the glacial pace of government.

Of course we haven’t yet seen ‘actions not words’. Rather we’ve just heard words about ‘actions not words’. That’s to be expected just five months into a new Assembly, so I am not criticising, all I am saying is ‘by their fruits you shall know them’.

I’m definitely staying positive but, to be honest, I can’t help being worried by a few traits of the new States.

For instance, wanting a new spirit of unity and common purpose is laudable but to paraphrase Aristotle, ‘moderation in all things’. So I find the reaction to any member questioning committees, or trying to hold them to account, a little odd.

It’s as if vigorous probing of policy is somehow thought of as personality politics, or undermining, or showing a lack of confidence in committees. Confidence should never be automatic. We should always be holding each other to account. Democracies definitely function best with oodles of constructive scrutiny.

So I wish the ‘new establishment’ would cut out its default ‘Star Wars response’ to vigorous questioning – ‘I find your lack of faith disturbing’. It is also passing strange that the biggest advocates of cutting out any dissent or questioning are exactly those deputies who a few short months ago were giving the ‘old establishment’ the most grief. Double standards?

Talking of the last Assembly, I think it is almost time for us to stop talking about them. Nearly six months into our term we need to start judging ourselves by what we are or aren’t doing and not by what the last Assembly did or didn’t do. I have never known a States so utterly obsessed with their predecessors. I only hope it isn’t displacement activity.

More specifically, I have worries about some of the naked attempts at populism. For instance, it seems Deputy Inder doesn’t think deputies can validly hold opinions on ‘real Guernsey issues’, such as fishing, if they either ‘quaff wine’ or ‘listen to Dido’.

Where does that leave me? Well, I fall down badly on the wine front – love the stuff – but actually I am not convinced that really sets me apart from my fellow islanders. However, my ‘Route Cred’ may be redeemed by my having no idea what or who Dido may be.

Anyway it seems passing odd to me that these apparent litmus tests of how ‘ordinary Guernsey’ deputies are was wheeled out by someone trying to make a criminal out of Mrs Le Poidevin for buying a few mackerel off her neighbour after he’s enjoyed a good Saturday morning off the Platte Fougere.

That battle will have to be re-joined when the proposed law comes back because I for one am not in favour of destroying our Guernsey traditions through completely overbearing legislation. Surprisingly, I say that despite loving a glass of Fleurie.

More pernicious are the constant references to how ‘Guernsey’ deputies may be in order to lend weight to their arguments or validity to their votes. That is a dangerous path. Of course we know one member found himself in hot water by making these sort of jibes online, under an alias, but it is happening more and more in the States too.

I really wish members would cut it out. The important thing is that every deputy has been elected by the people of Guernsey to be their representative. That is what gives us validity, not the purity of our local genes.

How would I measure up in the ‘localness test’ some of my colleagues seem to want to introduce? Mixed results I suspect. On one hand the Roffeys only arrived here in the 19th century on the back of the granite trade. However, my lovely gran was a Torode. Just don’t tell Mike that we are related as I am not sure his heart is up to it.

Actually, talking about failing tests – and earlier about ‘finding my lack of faith disturbing’ – it seems I am in real trouble with one of my colleagues for being secular.

Now I confess that I am an atheist and have been from childhood. But never before have my religious beliefs, or lack of them, really been questioned in relation to my politics. Actually that’s not quite true. A questioner once wanted to know candidates’ religious beliefs at a Vale hustings. But it hasn’t been brought up in the States before by fellow members.

All that changed in the last States meeting with both deputies De Lisle and McKenna finding fault with my atheism. The latter took serious and voluble exception to my desire for Guernsey’s Anglican rectors to no longer have an automatic seat in the States of Election.

I have no problem with him for thinking my policy in that respect is completely wrongheaded and misguided. But it did come as a bit of a shock to learn that he thought it represented a breach of my duty of loyalty to the Crown. In his eyes it seemed almost on a par with Guernsey siding with Parliament during the civil war.

Coming back to more serious matters, I really hope this Assembly can achieve great things but I am not going to take that for granted. Certainly I am not going to stop holding my colleagues to account, questioning them, and even opposing them when I see fit. I expect no less in return from them. It’s called democracy. It’s not a cosy club. So please can we stop regarding scrutiny as a lack of faith. It’s just a lack of blind faith.

How will the success of this Assembly finally be judged? It will be on how well it tackles the fiendishly difficult tasks facing the island just now. Certainly just ‘not being the last States’ is no measure of success at all. The jury is out.