This States is broken and not fit for purpose

The amount of back-biting and general moaning about each other would do justice to any soap opera or school playground.

And it all began on day one.

When Gavin St Pier was elected top of the poll in the first island-wide election and the first post-Covid where a lot of people felt he handled it very well, a lot of voters thought he would be a shoo-in for chief minister. That wasn’t the case. If that wasn’t surprising enough, he wasn’t put on any major committee – that was shocking.

The Guernsey electorate had voted in someone top of the poll that was figuratively now consigned to the back benches with no practical role for the next five years. This was clearly a personal, not a political decision. Old scores were being settled and from that moment on it was a house divided.

To paraphrase the famous quote, ‘Hell hath no fury like a politician scorned’, and from now on with nothing to hold him back he was free to hold members and committees to account and the political missiles started to fly, mostly directed at Peter Ferbrache.

And the battle of personalities over politics began.

The States has also failed in other areas, tax being the main one to tackle. GST is clearly the one favoured by the States and pushed tirelessly as the only practical solution to the financial black hole – in fact pushed so forcefully that no real back-up was considered.

The States has always suffered from one-dimensional thinking backed with an equal lack of moral backbone to carry unpopular policies through.

The incinerator was a clear example – millions spent on plans only to run scared as soon as they thought they’d lose their cushy jobs and, pardon the pun, bin it, chucking all that money away with it.

Education was another – people that voted for one policy suddenly backtracked, chucking certain members to the electoral wolves to save their own jobs, but not thinking about all the time and money wasted so they could get another term in office. This is just moral cowardice at best or just fraud as that person just changed their minds to potentially save their jobs at worst.

I’ve always said about the old States – the first three years was about work, the last year was just about slagging other people off to get you noticed and back away from any potential bad things that could cost you your job. The ass-saving year, I called it.

This States is even worse because the slagging off started from day one – the main thing it wanted is dead at the moment and now we just have politicians being paid it seems to take cheap shots at each other and this parliament lasts five years.

This States has failed. It’s failed on policy, it’s failed because many members refuse to put grudges aside and work together and it’s failed the Guernsey voter that put them in office.

They call Guernsey States consensus government – perhaps they should look in the dictionary as the definition is ‘general agreement’. Can members honestly look at themselves and others and say they abide by that? I doubt it.

Martin Bishop