Racing cars or clotted cream?

A RATHER binary question was asked of Jersey’s movers and shakers a few weeks ago. It’s now been picked up and posed over here. It’s an odd mixture between a polite inquiry concerning your personal vision for Guernsey’s future and a more aggressive demand to know ‘Are you with us or against us?’.

The question? ‘Would you prefer your island to be more like Monaco or Cornwall?’

Of course anybody who believes it’s a straight choice between two such extremes is a bear of very little imagination. But I’ll leave that to one side and tackle the question head on.

I think the ‘right’ answer is presumed to be Monaco. After all, don’t we want Guernsey to be exciting, thrusting, go-ahead and lively? Surely that is much better than aspiring to the Cornish realities of being a bit of a sleepy backwater with significant economic travails? So we are led by the nose to support the principality as a better role model than the duchy.

I profoundly disagree. Not because I prefer ice cream, clotted cream and scones to whining racing cars – although I do. Rather because I want Guernsey to be a characterful, traditional, green and beautiful island and not some garish playground of the uber-wealthy.

However this is not the real choice. Previous generations of deputies and business leaders managed to make Guernsey successful without selling its very soul. If today’s successors are claiming that simply isn’t possible, then they are not up to the job.

I think lying behind the headline question is another one. ‘Are you willing to see large scale population growth to buy economic success, or are you a small minded so-and-so who cares about stuff like over-development, congested roads and constant loss of biodiversity?’ Yep, you’ve guessed it. I’m a small-minded so-and so.

I do believe that Guernsey can thrive without either prostituting itself or drowning under new development. I admit that it’s harder than achieving economic growth by just throwing people at the problem but eventually it is the only sustainable route.

What puzzles me is that those who tend to favour the ‘let it rip’ policy of population control also, by and large, oppose stuff like encouraging lower car use. What on earth is their vision for Guernsey – gridlock?

I’ve dwelt on population a fair bit in recent columns so I will skim over it now. But suffice to say that an older demographic is the new normal, both in Guernsey and throughout the developed world. The only lasting solution is a cultural revolution where we go back to everybody, whatever their age or ability, who can be useful in some way being useful.

That’s been the normal human condition throughout most of history and we simply have to return to it. Not just to secure our economy, but to make sure everything which needs doing in our community gets done. We also need to warmly embrace automation, robotics and AI. The original Luddites were worried about job shortages but we face labour shortages.

What else to reflect on as we move into 2022?

Firstly the environment. We can’t let Cop 26 just fade from our memories. Energy transition has to be one of the biggest themes of the coming year. To succeed, that has to be driven by reason and not by grand gesture. I have lots of ideas to lob into the pot and I’ve no doubt others do too. So bring on the big debate on the ‘electricity strategy’ so we can chart an urgent but sensible course towards net-zero as soon as possible.

Secondly, there’s the States’ social policy agenda. Or, more to the point, am I in a minority in believing it should have one? Governments around the world, almost without exception, consider social policy to be pivotal to the success and happiness of their communities. Oddly, in Guernsey there seems to be a school of thought which confuses ‘social’ with ‘socialism’. The two are utterly different. Remember it was a Tory PM (albeit one guilty of calling a wretched referendum) who coined the term ‘the big society’.

We really need to take everybody with us. That requires the States to confirm their support for things as diverse as the long overdue anti-discrimination law to secondary pensions. It’s not difficult. Just about every other jurisdiction in the developed world did it donkey’s years ago. But here some of my colleagues like to pretend that it is all very cutting edge and dangerous. Maybe that’s because there is no anti-discrimination law in Monaco but there is in Cornwall?

Of course, equality on the basis of innate characteristics is one thing. To achieve it based on wealth is far harder. Particularly when the cost of housing is devastating so many households on modest (and not that modest) incomes. It is tragic and is one reason why I am determined any package of tax rises must be progressive, with the wealthy contributing more.

The housing crisis is motivating me more than just about any issue in recent years. I agree with those who would ideally like to see the States encourage widespread home ownership. After all they helped me through the, sadly defunct, homes for workers loan scheme. But I also have to realistic.

Given the overheated state of the housing market the best way to get far more Guernsey households well accommodated, in homes they can afford, over the short to medium term, is by a very significant expansion of both social rental and partial ownership provision. I am determined to see this and if other deputies try to block it I will call them out.

Finally I think 2022 will be the year where the control freaks in the ‘new establishment’ try to further crush any democratic challenge or dissent by seeking stifling reforms to our system of government.

More power in fewer hands and cracking down on questioning and alternative agendas. All, no doubt, under the guise of greater efficiency. It can’t be permitted of course. After all, there is nothing more undemocratic than a ruling executive who have no direct mandate from the public for their governmental programme. But looking at the bottom of the page getting ever closer, I will have to park that subject for another day.

Happy 2022 everybody. May you live in interesting times.