States has taken a leap backwards

While I have a vested interest in the matter, I cannot begin to understand Kevin Stewart's assertion during the milk distribution debate (year 11, series three, episode two) that a changing marketplace and changing shopping patterns are not the fault of government. Twenty-four hours earlier, Deputy Stewart had successfully steered through a proposal to deregulate Sunday trading.

If that is not an act of government designed to affect shopping patterns, what is it? Besides, the various supermarkets and UK and international chain stores (and non-Guernsey born persons without loyalty to the local businesses now living here) haven't arrived without government permission.

Thirty years ago we probably had the choice of over 100 local convenience stores and a couple of supermarkets to shop at.

Now we have three or four supermarket chains and the number of convenience stores remaining is quite possibly in single figures.

So, more choice arising from competition?

I don't think so, not in the long term. As most people can see, the distribution of wealth is now so distorted that in any industry you care to name, a free-for-all will result in the 'big boys' cleaning up and undercutting the competition, resulting in a private sector monopoly. You only have to look at the situation with the local ferry service to see what that can mean. Deputies Hadley and Domaille, and indeed Stewart, have all said recently that the States is powerless to correct that particular situation.

Global capitalists sell the line that the move to the 'big society' is a natural 'happening' or evolution of human society. I agree that it is a natural progression of free markets, but the power vested in free markets is entirely the fault of, driven and encouraged by, government. Government is supposed to protect the people who elected them, not expose them to rampant profiteering and powerful international forces, or in some countries, the greed of their own palm-greasing pals from big business or the Mafia (the latter now probably being preferable to the former).

As Michael Mansfield said in 2009, 'The much-acclaimed victory of capital, and the demise of union power, has been a hollow and short-lived affair. It heralded unmitigated privatisation, untrammelled deregulation and the growth of a society built on asset stripping, self interest and a culture of unashamed bonanza bonuses. The damage is immense and is wreaking havoc among the working population with ever-rising levels of unemployment.'

Yes, unemployment.

On 30 October 2008 Deputy Al Brouard warned the Assembly that the ending of exclusivity would 'sound the death knell for the milk retailers'.

While various opinions have been expressed about the rights and wrongs of who benefits from the different suggested milk distribution systems and the level at which the milk retailers should be compensated if the recently agreed changes go ahead, little mention has been made of this. Twenty local jobs will be lost as a result of the proposals of the department responsible for employment. At what social and financial cost to the electorate and at the behest of whom?

As for the Sunday trading debate, it was reminiscent of the zero-10 debate and 1973 Cup Winners' Cup final in terms of the unfair methodology employed to ensure success.

It is the duty of government to consider all relevant available information before making a decision.

How can that happen if the debate is truncated when less than half of the deputies have had a chance to speak? However, to the deputies who are rightly moaning about Executioner Kuttelwascher's guillotine, I ask, 'If, as you claim, those who did not have the chance to speak could have changed the outcome, where is your requete?' I suspect there's a bit of toothless rhetoric (AKA electioneering) going on here.

What I have found particularly disappointing from the current Assembly is that in spite of all the statements of intent prior to the election, it has, through apathy and ineptitude, managed to take a leap backwards when it comes to accountability for its own actions and especially bringing rogue elements within it to account.

In the light of this I would suggest that the electorate takes more responsibility for its own destiny, but unless regular referendums are allowed, that's not going to happen. My understanding is that Guernsey is about the only place in the civilised world where there is no room for a referendum on anything at all.

MATT WATERMAN,

Flat 2,

3, Burnt Lane,

St Peter Port,

GY1 1HL.