All government decisions should and must be challenged

Over the past few months this term ‘team player’ has cropped up repeatedly and it seems to me to be a total nonsense. If all our deputies played for the same team, what could they achieve? Teams play against other teams.

I accept that in the UK you have party lines, therefore playing as a team is entirely relevant. Locally we still have, I believe, a group of independently-minded individuals other than when they align along committee lines – when team solidarity is required. I personally voted for deputies who I believed would generally vote along the lines of the manifestos they published and who, within reason, I could relate to. I couldn’t support any deputy who would vote against their beliefs just to be seen as a good team player, or worse still, not to rock the boat. Can you imagine the likes of Bob Chilcott or Roger Berry being referred to as team players?

There are a number of our present deputies who, in my opinion, would not wish to suppress their political or ideological beliefs in order to follow the herd – Peter Roffey springs to mind. This is of great concern to me in that I find myself agreeing with him far too often when my own political position is somewhat right of Atilla the Hun.

I’m afraid that the brave new dawn promised by Peter and Co. is taking too long to pop up over our eastern horizon. I am still hopeful however that lockdown might or might not have had an influence and that things will begin to gather pace. But, let’s kick into the long grass that awful expression ‘political correctness’ – let’s have heated debate, let’s have our deputies speaking their minds and not gagged by the Bailiff who seems to me to be there to kill off any sign of an argument developing.

Back to Big Gav – I only know of him through the media and he would not know me from Adam. He had the popular vote but as we all know he failed to win over the hearts and, more importantly, the votes of his fellow deputies. At the present moment he seems to me to be the only deputy who is prepared to challenge the new order – whether he is right or wrong, all decisions made by the government should and must be challenged.

I believe there are too many sheep in our present States and although we are a long way from the next election, most of the electorate do not vote for sheep. My challenge is that all deputies should and must stand up and argue for what they included in their manifestos and stop wanting to be seen as a team player.

BRUCE WALLACE