NEARLY 20 years ago I was a journalist for the Press – first on the sports desk and then on the news desk. I still love writing. And my defeat at our recent general election has done nothing to diminish my passion for politics. But I hesitated before accepting an invitation to write this political column, lest my commentary on the new States taste like sour grapes. Aware of this risk, I assure readers I will always try to be objective and fair and avoid criticism for the sake of it.
Before turning to the present and future, I want to thank voters whose support allowed me the privilege of serving our island as a people’s deputy for 12 years. I hope I was occasionally able to make a positive contribution.
My defeat was unsurprisingly emphatic and understandable because of my association with the ‘two-school model’ which proved too unpopular to be delivered. I accept voters’ judgement without complaint. I wish the new Assembly well and genuinely hope it is less fractious and more productive than the last.
I’d far rather still be in the States, of course. But I intend to make use of some of the additional time I suddenly have available to listen to others’ views about what I got right and wrong and to learn from those achievements and mistakes.
Enough about me. I want to mull over a relatively recent development which has a profound effect on elections and government in our island.
In democratic parliaments, popular representation is essential. The many and diverse voices of the people need to be heard and respected.
Equally, there are occasions when governments have to provide leadership and do things which at the time may not be very popular but are necessary and in our long-term interests. I’ll provide two local examples.
In the 1970s, the States developed Beau Sejour Leisure Centre. It was so unpopular that the politician most associated with it, the late Tony Bran, lost his seat at the next election.
In the 1980s, the States made it a legal requirement for drivers to wear seat belts. This was also hugely unpopular and the politician who led it, Mike Torode, told me that it provoked a petition in opposition which was hand-signed by nearly 8,000 people.
But who today would seriously advocate closing Beau Sejour or allowing cars to be driven without seat belts?
Most democracies recognise the need to distinguish between popular representation and leadership in government. Their parliamentarians try to reflect the opinions of the people they serve. But they also have ways of empowering their leaders to make difficult and unpopular but necessary decisions. Often this is through cabinet government, political parties and relatively safe seats.
Until 1994, the main way Guernsey did this was by most of the leadership roles in the States being filled by 12 conseillers. They had to have been elected by the people at some point – generally as deputies. But they were then elevated to the office of conseiller by the States themselves and there they remained, never again facing a public election, but continuing as our leaders for as long as, once every six years, they were re-elected by the States.
Today this seems anachronistic and anti-democratic. Between 1994 and 2004, the States first abolished the office of conseiller and then abolished the office of Douzaine representative, which was the other office in the States not directly elected by the people. Had I been in the States at the time, I am sure I would have been arguing for those reforms so that all States’ members could be directly elected by the people.
However, while on one level they were entirely correct, these changes have created a challenge almost unique to Guernsey: we have completely erased the distinction between leadership or the need to govern in the long-term interests of the island and the democratic requirement for popular representation.
It is no coincidence that the last really tough and unpopular decisions made by the States – such as compulsory health insurance, legalising abortion and company tax reform – date back 15 or 20 years. Since then, generally speaking, more emphasis and at elections greater rewards have been placed on the ‘having an opinion’ aspect of a deputy’s role rather than the ‘governing the island’ aspect.
At the recent general election, there was a clear correlation between the candidates who offered popular and often simplistic solutions and electoral success.
This matters because of the large number of complex and highly contentious challenges facing the States. They include the unsustainability of our long-term care model and the island’s pension scheme, secondary education, the need to repay hundreds of millions of pounds of borrowing made necessary by Covid-19 and existential threats such as climate change. None of these have universally popular or simple solutions. Many of them have been put off by successive assemblies which arrived with good intentions but frankly lacked the courage to deal with them.
In one sense our new electoral system was a great success.
Voter turnout was high. It was well run, for which the politicians and officials involved deserve credit. And the people’s impulse to remove deputies who had supported less than popular initiatives was largely fulfilled, which I always thought was the main objective of most of the supporters of island-wide voting.
Whether it has produced an Assembly of politicians who have the aptitude and temperament to confront and resolve the major, complex, controversial challenges which the island faces remains to be seen. I am cautiously optimistic. Optimistic because no Assembly has ever been elected with a stronger mandate or greater democratic legitimacy. Cautious because I’m not sure this Assembly fully grasps that the future prosperity of our island and the welfare of its people depends less on whether deputies remain popular enough to be re-elected and more on whether they can succeed in persuading us to accept the need for the modern-day equivalents of Beau Sejour and seat belts.
