It all went wrong when Assembly voted for a wage

Although I don’t totally agree with her opinion of Deputy Roffey, but as I understand it he is president of two committees and with the money he must be on, you would expect him to come out with sensible comments some of the time.

In Jill’s letter she quoted a question that was asked by John Neale: ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ Well, I will tell you where it all went wrong, the day that the States voted to pay politicians a wage, and along with the abolition of conseillers. This is where it all went pear-shaped. You can say what you like about the conseillers system but at least we had continuity of government during elections etc.

With regard to our deputies receiving a wage, what that did was to encourage ‘barrack-room lawyers/pub lawyers’ (good talkers with no substance) to have a go, as they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

In the days before all this happened, the island was run by business people who knew how to run a business, and knew how to run the island.

They did get their expenses paid, and as I remember it they were paid for attending committee meetings. Also it did attract some retired professionals. So collectively these people did this for the good of their island with no hidden agendas.

This is why we have to consign the disastrous island-wide voting to the bin. All that this system did was to mobilise minority groups to put up candidates sympathetic to their cause, and then leave it to their disciples to vote them in, hence a dysfunctional government.

Before you start saying that this was a democratic vote when we had the referendum, and that it was the majority who voted in favour of IWV, that was not the case, because the organisers watered down the ‘no’ vote by having several other options.

So you see there were more against IWV.

The referendum should have been: ‘Are you in favour of island-wide voting – yes or no?’

M BOURGAIZE