It may be an unpopular view but I feel sorry for Sir Keir Starmer. He may be a tad wooden as a communicator, and less than riveting or inspiring in his personality, but he seems like a decent enough egg. A bit like a Labour version of Sir John Major. So, while I can totally see why Labour might want to change him for someone who ‘cuts through a bit more’, for the life of me I can’t see why he seems to inspire such visceral dislike among a lot of people. But the reasons really matter not, his colleagues decided a tipping point had been reached, and he had to go. Personally, despite the emotion, I thought he did so in a dignified way.
Obviously, I have never witnessed a cabinet coup at close quarters, but I have watched quite a few votes of no confidence play out in the States of Guernsey. Or people falling on their own swords when they realised their own position had become untenable. But it usually takes quite a while for that penny to drop. Indeed, the person at the eye of the storm is often the last person to realise that the game is up.
Examples? The most recent one was the defenestration of the original Policy & Resources Committee in the last Assembly. Deputy Charles Parkinson brought a motion of no confidence after the committee had been defeated multiple times over its package of proposed tax reforms.
I think that occasion was a good example of how politicians’ fate can depend just as much on the mood music, as on whether colleagues agree with their actions or not. For example, I voted in favour of the motion, despite being full square behind the proposed tax reforms. Why? Well, I simply didn’t think it was tenable to have a committee in charge of the treasury function, which was repeatedly defeated over its landmark fiscal policies, but then just carried on regardless. After all no Chancellor of the Exchequer could survive multiple budgets being defeated. So, I felt we needed a fresh start – right or wrong.
Another example? I started my long tenure as Guernsey’s Health president after my predecessor, Deputy Brian Russell, was brought down by his own committee. He had to go. They had been briefing against him for months. Something I got quite tetchy about. In fact, during the debate I accused his committee members of ‘scurrying around the skirting boards’. I remember that Deputy Quin initially took umbrage at this, but later forgave me, and we remained good friends.
Usually, though, people leap before they are pushed. Even when they are convinced they have done nothing wrong. I suppose a classic example was the end of Deputy Carol Steere’s reign as Education minister. Deputy Jane Stephens asked parliamentary questions about GCSE results in local schools, Deputy Steere had to confess that those at La Mare were shockingly poor, Chief Minister Lyndon Trott asked Dennis Mulkerrin to review the States’ secondary education provision, and he was scathing in his report.
It was clear Deputy Steere didn’t accept those findings at all. She repeatedly said that it was ‘only one man’s opinion’. But the die was cast. From initially stating that she was ‘going nowhere’, she moved to saying she would stay in post for the remainder of the States term, but would not then seek re-election. When that wasn’t enough to pacify the critics she resigned, being enough of an astute political operator to realise that if she hadn’t, she would have been removed from post.
What about me? Fortunately I have never actually been turfed out of a political post by my fellow States members, but I have twice felt that I had no choice but to resign. The first was as part of Deputy Binnie Lincoln’s Housing Authority. A requete from the then Conseiller Berry gave an investigation, which was clearly within our mandate, to another committee to carry out. Although it wasn’t an actual vote of no confidence, we felt it amounted to much the same thing, and we walked. Although I was then elected to the replacement committee under Deputy Ben Lovell.
The only other time I threw in the towel had nothing at all to do with any pressure from colleagues. As States Assembly & Constitution Committee president I led the organisation of Guernsey’s first (and still only) referendum. It asked islanders to choose Guernsey’s voting system. They chose island-wide voting. I was genuinely proud of the efficient way my department had run the referendum. But as someone who was well known to have doubts over IWV, I felt it was better to hand over the implementation to true believers.
