Island in danger of becoming an irrelevant waiting room in the backwaters of the world

I refer to the above because if there was the same comedy sketch about our current States the answer would be: zilch, nothing at all of any practical utility. The only thing that would be funny – if it wasn’t so serious for the island – would be the absolute shambles that has been visited on the island.

We have the most systemically dysfunctional and incompetent States that we have ever had.

But let’s put the utter shambles into some context.

The collateral damage to the island from the scientifically unproven experiment on the island community called ‘lockdown’, with its raft of severe restrictions and human rights abuses was immense, whether it be to children’s mental health and their education – especially and most disgracefully of all to poorer families, where there is scarring and also missed life opportunities for children that will reverberate through future generations – or to health outcomes as excess premature deaths continue to accelerate because Covid rules and signalling dissuaded many people from seeking help, or to the catastrophic economic consequences from the huge debt incurred – all done with no cost benefit analysis at all.

Even when it was obvious to anyone with a grain of common sense that huge collateral damage was piling up ahead, that a small number of people driving it all forwards with incredible myopia never took their feet off the autocratic accelerator peddle. Common sense was jettisoned. Anyone who dared to speak out and cautioned against the excessive nature of what was being imposed, and the long-term damage it would cause, was attacked, and the vast majority of deputies said not a word about what was happening or even asked a sensible question.

The architects of the experiment should have resigned a long time ago and made way for a new crop of fresh minds unencumbered by that awful legacy, who could bring sense to the table and jump-start the clear-up operation.

The report into lockdowns recently published by the Centre for Social Justice, made up of cross-party senior MPs and others including Lord King, the ex governor of the Bank of England, concludes that lockdown ‘blew the gap’ between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ wide open with shocking statistics attached to prove it, including the terrible impact it has had on education and on mental and physical health. It is shattering – as is so much else in the report, all of which is backed up by statistics – or at least it is for anyone with a social conscience. I urge people to read it.

With that dreadful legacy one might have hoped that the States would dispense with their petty internecine squabbling, and work together to try to repair the unprecedented damage that was inflicted disproportionately on certain groups in Guernsey – but not a bit of it. Instead of sober joined-up thinking we see over-inflated egos, bickering, back-biting and petty point scoring, and the net result – stasis. Nero ‘fiddled while Rome burned’, and many States members do something similar in Guernsey as they bicker.

In addition to the above issues, the States has failed to address any of the myriad other important issues that left unresolved will sink the island. The exorbitant cost of housing leaving most young people unable to afford to get on the property ladder (and that is why so many of them are leaving the island); immigration regulations that leave many essential services and other businesses without the employees they need; an education system that once worked rather well, but has now been harmed so badly by politicking and left-wing prejudices. This States has in fact achieved nothing that benefits the island. But they have of course scored a spectacular own goal by agreeing to dispense with the one Aurigny jet that kept the island tentatively anchored to the real world. In future, as people stand outside on the apron at Gatwick in the cold wind and rain waiting to board a cramped propeller plane to lumber over to Guernsey, those travelling to Jersey will continue to walk down a covered walkway to board modern jets operated by two major airlines, and do all this while paying lower fares than we do. Where do you think the new business and money will flow to now? It won’t be to Guernsey.

The rot normally starts somewhere around the top echelons of an organisation, including in governments, because that is where the culture and the standards of behaviour are set. If it is toxic it can spread and infect the entire body politic. I think this is what we are seeing in this States. In that regard we read about allegations of bullying, we hear the boasting, and we see the grandstanding and the pathetic out of control egos of big fish in a truly minuscule pond.

Someone needs to say, as Sir Leopold Amery said to Neville Chamberlain in 1940, Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.

Democracy only works in Guernsey now in the narrow sense that people are elected but not in the most important sense of all, that it produces anything remotely resembling competent government.

I believe that the States should be dissolved because it is now seized up, it is not fit for purpose, and with a few clear exceptions it does not appear to have the skill sets, experience or qualifications to manage the island and its economy – which is not dissimilar in size to that of a FTSE 100 company. The difference is that with the latter there are motivated, qualified and knowledgeable directors, who work as a team and who understand what they are doing. Maybe the island should appoint experts from outside the island to come in and run the island as if it were a company, or return to the system of government of unpaid conseillers, who often brought genuine experience to the job and fulfilled their roles diligently and in the best interests of the island. It certainly worked a lot better then than it does now.

We should in my view dispense with the ridiculously grand sounding title of ‘chief minister’ which can foster a rampant ego, and that in itself is inimical to good government. People should remember that in population terms Guernsey is like a rather small town in UK, such as Littlehampton – where of course no one would ever be bestowed with such an inflated title.

Unless something changes the Guernsey ship of state will continue sailing towards the rocks, and as that happens even more young people – the future – will jump ship. At that point the island with its demographics becomes an irrelevant waiting room in the backwaters of the world.

Tim Chesney

Editor’s note: We have been asked to clarify by the author that this letter was received for publication last week, before the vote of no confidence in the Policy & Resources Committee and the election of a new committee.