I was recently intrigued by a headline in the Daily Telegraph which read ‘Birmingham becomes an ungovernable mess – and the whole country could follow’. This was describing the daunting prospect of six political parties jostling for power following the local elections, leaving no single party with a clear majority. Only six? I mused. Try looking at our assembly, where (discounting two Alderney representatives and consolidating the three party members into one), we have potentially 36 unique agendas. The article quoted a Professor Travers (an election expert apparently) who suggested: ‘There’s no doubt that people are electing parties based on national and international issues which have nothing to do with potholes, social care and street lighting, which is what local elections should be about.’
With the meteoric success of Reform – the new kid on the block – very much at considerable expense to the two dominant and historical parties, plus a rise in what certainly seems a more sectarian than environmental Green Party, it seems like the UK is entering a new and volatile political landscape.
Coincidentally of course, Guernsey has also had something akin to a ‘local election’ in our own recent by-election, and here I have to give credit to our local media organisations, without whose efforts we might well have had even less than the paltry 17% turnout by the electorate.
Apart from a hastily-prepared website, government promotion was conspicuous by its absence. Frankly, they were certainly under the cosh to save money on what for many islanders was an unnecessary exercise (evidenced by the turnout). But this was entirely self-inflicted having chosen to have one vacancy trigger a by-election, rather than three, as one of its first policy decisions.
Much of the rationale for that faux-pas was (apparently) to do with ‘respecting democracy’ and the irony is that it resulted in the by-election winner being elected on only some 15% of the votes needed by the lowest performing successful deputy last year.
There is also a further irony in that the president of the committee responsible for making the by-election happen (Sacc) together with encouraging the Assembly to reject the three-vacancies trigger, was that same deputy with the lowest votes in last year’s election. Life has a way of coming back to bite you.
For all that, it is probably fair to say that the by-election largely highlighted the same two key issues that dominated last year’s election, namely housing and taxation (remember all that manifesto talk around ‘fair tax’?) which I will return to shortly.
But with regard to housing and my erstwhile title of managing expectations, our newly-minted deputy claimed to have a plan which essentially appeared to be to build some high-rise units on the basis of them being more cost-effective.
Now while I would caution on the reality of that given necessary fire regulations and much else, the point that has to be made is that regardless of the merits of his plan, there are no vacancies on either the Housing Committee or the Planning Authority – the most logical places for any plan to come into being. Furthermore, all deputies only have one vote (see my mention of 36 agendas above), and Deputy Le Brun would therefore need at least 20 others to actually back his plan.
But this is the reality of our ‘consensus’ system – regardless of whether a candidate or a sitting deputy really does have a good idea they have no executive power to make it happen, especially when you are a ‘Ross come lately’, given committee spaces have all been allocated. That said, new vacancies have recently emerged on both ESS and P&R, so maybe he should dust off that housing plan. With no intended criticism of any individual deputy, but the public elect 38 local individuals with some impossible expectation that they will somehow all agree on the most relevant issues and deliver them as the term’s priorities.
In practice, this actually makes it more likely that it will end up with the lowest common denominators being agreed upon.
That’s not a recipe for addressing the very challenging problems that confront us, and I am not talking about potholes. But maybe the very poor turnout is a recognition by the electorate that no one candidate can actually deliver anything by themselves, despite best intentions in their manifesto?
Now let’s turn to the other key issue, that of taxation. It is notable that our new deputy made it clear that he is not opposed to the possible introduction of GST-plus, but is opposed to service cuts.
The runner-up however, was entirely opposed to it and put a lot of store by saving money. But there where only 62 votes between them. Is this an indication that islanders are entirely polarised on these issues and if so – where does it leave us?
Well, be that as it may, we have a further development in the form of P&R’s vice-president resigning. He had been expected to lead the much-publicised, forthcoming debate on taxation in July. But government does not revolve around any single individual – although Deputy Van Katwyk seems to have concluded that it might. In a recent Guernsey Press podcast he claimed that there was now ‘a real possibility’ of the States debate being pushed back for an unknown period and he and colleagues had been ‘having those conversations’ in recent days. Seriously? Is this not rather a case of a convenient development allowing a number of weak deputies to run away from an inevitably unpopular debate? He goes on to say ‘there are so many question marks around this debate now’.
Really? P&R have already told us that their proposals will be announced imminently on corporation tax – the basis of the ‘fair tax’ alternative supported by a number of the current members of the Assembly. So why wait?
Could it be that he and these colleagues have been spooked by the apparent total split in the electorate over GST-plus and savings, clearly indicated in the recent by-election? Deputy Van Katwyk has now come out in support of a rise in income tax.
All well and good, but as he admits, it is not a permanent solution (let alone the fact that it actually hits middle earners harder than GST-plus) or that some of us already have the T-shirt on trying that one last term with no success, even with an actual two-year sunset clause. It went the same way as territorial tax did then, and more recently.
He also claimed that as many as three deputies are contemplating standing down only 10 months into this new term. He didn’t stipulate if these were some of the newer deputies, but it certainly begins to sound like the heat in the kitchen has become too hot for some.
But did they think it was going to be easy – and are we going to have more ‘democratic’ by-elections as a consequence?
It might be appropriate here to return to The Telegraph and some more commentary on the new political landscape in the UK following those local elections. To whit: ‘A wave of largely inexperienced candidates from Reform and the Green Party is about to take over. What could possibly go wrong?’ The parallels with Guernsey are mounting up.
The Telegraph further reports that local authorities are taking on more debt and an unprecedented number are draining their cash reserves.
Sound familiar? I make no apology for again reminding readers that, without raising more revenues and continuing with the extent of the current capital portfolio commitment of nearly half a billion pounds (recently rubber-stamped by our Assembly), Guernsey will have exhausted its financial reserves by 2032. Yet here we have Deputy Van Katwyk and some unnamed colleagues contemplating a delay to what will probably be the defining debate of this whole political term.
It’s not obligatory that we follow the UK (seemingly) down ideological political rabbit holes or adopt the EU and UN policies that appear increasingly to be turning a once proud nation into a Third World contender.
Guernsey still has reserves and we do still have choices about shaping our own destiny. But do we have an assembly with the gumption, ambition and machinery to do so?
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