Forget blame, just make things better

TAKE anything at all away from chief minister Peter Ferbrache’s rather surprising letter in these pages a couple of days ago and I’d suggest it should be this. Firstly, how difficult it is in a small community like Guernsey to have honest discussions and, secondly, how fundamentally broken our system of government has become.

Nothing wrong with our number one political leader setting out a mid-point assessment of where we’ve reached ahead of the next general election in June 2025, of course. But it is rather unsettling when the most feared courtroom litigator in the island starts by complaining that everyone – this newspaper in particular – is being beastly to him.

Being on the receiving end of a Foxy legal broadside (yes, I have the scars) is a bruising experience and not for the faint-hearted. Equally, the ‘Nothing personal old boy; it’s what the client wanted…’ hat-tilt after savagely expensive courtroom retribution is negotiated away explains why we remain on amiable terms. You go hard to do the job that’s required.

It’s why I can say he is wrong to suggest, as he did in his letter, that some seem to think ‘all the ills of the Bailiwick world started on 16 October 2020 when I was elected president of P&R’. The rot set in way before that, rooted in political complacency that the world owed us a living thanks to finance.

It was highlighted in the expectation (fortunately countered by public outcry) that the taxpayer alone would make up the £100m. revenue shortfall caused by scrapping tax on businesses under zero-10 and reinforced by the Great Recession of 2008. I say reinforced because we had ‘a good recession’ and deputies and civil servants alike decided, unlike governments elsewhere, that nothing needed to change. Complacency rules, OK.

There’s ample evidence (available on request) supporting that view and it’s no coincidence we’ve now had three Lt-Governors all advising, in varying terms, drop the good old days shtick, decide what sort of society you want and work out how to get there.

Suggest, however, to politicians, especially some of the chief minister’s colleagues, that they’re doing the wrong thing at the wrong time and deep offence is taken. No matter how much you try to focus on policies, outcomes and what the island really needs, the slightest hint of criticism is taken as personal. A visceral reaction is triggered, enmities are made.

A consequence, and another first for which this Assembly is responsible, is the breakdown of Guernsey’s fabled consensus government. Previously, there was at least an attempt to reconcile political differences and reach agreement on a way forward. Now we have rank tribalism and sensible compromise is shot down because it comes from the other side. This is a sad day for progressive government but inevitable when critique is actively discouraged.

Equally revealing, however, is Deputy Ferbrache’s solution for resolving the chronic and decades-long housing shortage: by forming a task force. If I read him correctly, the initiative would succeed where the States has not by reducing the influence of deputies and populating the group with people who know what they’re taking about – sector experts. Detached, nimble, prepared to break eggs to make the omelette.

As he said of the think-tank, ‘…we just in the States need to think differently.’ Well, yes. But back in the day when our leaders exposed themselves to something called the Annual Independent Fiscal Policy Review of external scrutiny on how well – or not – they were looking after your money, Professor Geoffrey Wood and Dr Andrew McLaughlin had this to say:

‘Alderney is already suffering some of the problems which Guernsey may face in the future. These include a strongly ageing population and the cost inherent to providing traditional services to a small and remote population.

‘Solutions for Alderney’s difficulties may provide the Bailiwick as a whole with examples of the type of structural changes to service provision that may be necessary if Guernsey is to meet these challenges on a larger scale.

‘The persistence of the deficit, underfunding of the capital account, and pressing sustainability issues in areas such as Health… all point to the need for even tighter discipline on expenditure and an open and effective dialogue on longer term economic growth.’

Burning platform, think differently, practise on Alderney or… go under. That was eight years ago and despite this starkest of warnings, we’ve continued to do exactly the same things as before, changed nothing, and the situation is, unsurprisingly, much worse. By the same token, the time and space to do something about these structural issues is greatly reduced.

Just as the GST debate has highlighted the difficulties of reaching consensus in the name of islanders, so the risk of taking hasty, ill-considered action has increased. Nurses’ homes in an agricultural valley, for example.

So no, the wheels didn’t fall off when Deputy Ferbrache was elected president of Policy and Resources. Far from it. But the other political fact of life – famously illustrated by Labour’s ‘I’m afraid there’s no money…’ note as they lost to the Conservatives in 2015 – is that whoever’s in power inherits the problems. Which, naturally, means the new lot are judged on their solutions to old problems and the new ones that inevitably come along.

This means Deputy Ferbrache and his colleagues on P&R get all the blame while having little real power to change much. Ultimately, that’s down to the States, but islanders rarely see it that way. Just as they did during the Covid pandemic, islanders look to the president of P&R for guidance and a sense of hope in bleak times. The pandemic was well handled. The current ‘crisis’ of Guernsey plc having lost its way less so.

When Deputy Ferbrache says, ‘I am a States member because of what Guernsey has done for me and what I want it to do for so many more in the future,’ it’s from the heart and genuine. Equally, ordinary islanders are now very worried for that future, faced with higher bills, unaffordable housing, the threat of GST and a sense that their island home now really only cares about the better off.

Deputy Ferbrache caused none of that but people do look to him to make things better. Two years isn’t long to do that and secure a political legacy, particularly in the current them-and-us States that needs to come together to deliver anything.

Personally, I’d use the remaining time to try to heal some rifts, restore consensus and deliver negotiated progress. But then, I’m no politician.