Guernsey Press

Movementists might have caught the wave

You’re thousands of pounds worse off thanks to one States department, the economy seems finally to be picking up and the island’s emerging political Movementists seem to be onto something, at least with young voters. Richard Digard decodes the latest developments

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HOW do you feel about government throwing away about £3,800 of your money (if you’re a taxpayer, that is)? It’s true – and most of that was down to the Committee for Employment & Social Security which, historically, has been a bit pig-headed about how it looks after the cash we give it.

Had it let Policy & Resources manage it, plus other bits and bobs of public funds over the last five years, we’d all be about £150m. better off, which is nearly a third of the States’ annual income and a chunky old sum however you look at it.

I mention this as it’s a small – but expensive – example of how silo thinking by departments operates to our detriment and something that P&R is desperately trying to break down – and is making enemies as it does so.

To its credit, Social Security is now talking about a more pooled approach to investing the huge amounts of money ‘in the system’, but this has taken years to achieve.

Anyway, that was just one statistic in Chief Minister Gavin St Pier’s financial update to the States last week and which indicated that we might finally be exiting recession.

I say ‘might’ because although the key indicators are positive – earnings up, the number of people in work rising, companies paying more tax and local and open market sales lifting – it still doesn’t feel like the good times are back.

That said, however, government has had the equivalent of a 5.5% pay rise compared with 2016 because its revenues rather unexpectedly rose by £23m. to £430m.

The amount of income tax collected has increased, because people have also been enjoying pay rises, and there are now 1,000 more people in work than in March 2015, plus one local recruitment agency claims it has 731 jobs on its books.

As Deputy St Pier put it: ‘These are reasons to be cheerful; these are reasons to be confident.’

I think he’s right – tempered by what might be coming down the Brexit and the anti-‘tax haven’ tracks – but, unfortunately, we can’t spend more time on his upbeat and positive address (available on the gov.gg website).

And the reason is Charter 2018.

I don’t think I’ve ever been asked for my take on anything quite so often as the launch of the grouping that’s not a political party and that many have seen fit to dismiss or deride.

Agreed, it does look a bit odd. And you could argue that deputies Peter Ferbrache and Jan Kuttelwascher appear out of place with the rest of the charter members.

In addition, goes some of the thinking, since many of them have issues with Deputy St Pier, it’s more of a Get Gavin grouping than a serious political force.

The reality, however, is a bit more involved, especially having spoken to Deputy Ferbrache ahead of the formal launch, although when we spoke he didn’t specifically mention Charter 2018.

Instead, his concern was that the Assembly was split around 22/16 (give or take) on key issues and that the economy wasn’t getting enough of a look-in. As the charter document itself has it, ‘The group feel there is too much emphasis on spending rather than earning.’

Now, while Deputy Ferbrache and others might agree with some of the policies pursued by P&R, the feeling is the direction is a bit happy-clappy for more red-blooded pro-economists, hence the need for the grouping.

As Charter member Deputy Neil Inder put it: ‘Why are we discussing legalising dope, euthanasia and legal suicide and body parts when we should be discussing Condor, Aurigny, tourism and the economy?’

At risk of over-simplifying, vote for a charter member and get someone who’s more business-friendly and less likely to be seen cuddling a polar bear or supporting the ‘rights’ of blokes with beards demanding to use women’s toilets.

Seen that way, the apparently disparate individuals in the group become easier to understand, especially the involvement of the Alderney representatives, desperately fighting to keep their island from becoming an economic ghost town.

More importantly, however, there are real fears that the next election in 2020 could see the happy clappies in an outright majority, so a key part of Charter 2018’s activities is to encourage commercially-minded people to seek election.

At the same time, and separately, Deputy St Pier is also attempting to change politics by getting it more focused on policy development and making tangible improvements rather than on politicking. He and his supporters also want to ensure that Guernsey has a system that is rooted in values, ethics and integrity. And attracts the commercially-minded.

That movement, however, seems less advanced than Charter 2018, and I meanwhile struggle with the concept of a ‘grouping’ with no leader, no ability to whip members into a common voting pattern or even expressing a united Charter view on key issues.

That, I learned from political branding specialist Dr Chris Pich, a senior lecturer in marketing at Nottingham Trent University, is because I’m a dinosaur.

He was too polite to say that, but the work he’s been doing over here with focus groups of 18- to 24-year-old voters showed that what we might call the Movementists could be onto something.

‘Many participants highlighted they could see the merit in political parties, such as a clearer understanding of the position of deputies and any shared principles etc, but there was little appetite for political parties like the UK or other countries,’ he told me.

In short, young voters like the idea of a hybrid system of independent candidates with shared platforms. More tellingly, they felt disengaged from current deputies and had little or no relationship with States members because they seemed to focus their attention on the ‘older generation’ and never seemed to engage or communicate with younger voters.

Which would explain why so many young voters can name only John Gollop when asked to identify any of the 38 States members.

What also emerged from the research is that the new generation of voters would like more discussion about the political process here, such as voting, how the system works and compares with other jurisdictions. They also knew very little about how it currently works, or the upcoming referendum on island-wide voting.

‘I had to introduce and explain IWV to them,’ said Dr Pich. ‘Nevertheless, this highlights a number of opportunities for the States and deputies – these are really important insights that should not be overlooked.’

So there you have it – there might be rather more to the Movementists than meets the eye.

And finally…

IT DIDN’T get much airplay, but Deputy St Pier also had this to say in the Assembly last week: ‘We have started work in earnest across government on the Harbour Action Area, with a view to prioritising the delivery of some projects to commence by October 2019, in order to optimise the economic development opportunity which they can bring to the island.’

Good news – and you can expect to hear more in the weeks ahead about what I wrote here last time: that radical plans exist to transform the eastern seaboard – and that it could be done at no cost to the taxpayer.

Watch this space…