As usual, Deputy Sloan’s article you published on 25 June was lucid and to the point. However, how many voters and fellow deputies bothered to read, let alone understand, the pertinent points he made? The same question applies to the points raised in S Crowder’s letter of 21 July. How many of our deputies have the perspicacity to be able to deal with the multitude of problems facing our island? The fall-back modes of many of them – procrastination and temporisation – i.e. deliberately delaying, avoiding a firm commitment, or playing for time – indicate that few have the qualities required for effective government.
I realise that there is no word in our States’ lexicon to express the urgency of manana but surely there must be an increasing proportion of voters who understand that this attitude cannot produce the radical changes that are needed in our public life, within a time frame needed to halt the continuing degradation of our society?
Guernsey continues to be ‘governed’ by a States which is structured in an archaic way. A way that absolves deputies of personal responsibility and has been repeatedly demonstrated as being not fit for purpose in the modern world. It is tolerated by the electorate because too many remain wedded to the flawed concept of (imagined) consensus. How many more decades of governmental failure will it take for it to dawn on the electorate that this concept has been, for many years, a moribund concept?
Are not the latest fiascos relating to IT, tax and now the protracted public farce over GST enough to show electors that our current method of being governed finally became obsolete decades ago? How can Guernsey politicians continue to peddle the fiction of consensus when their only response to rejection of their views by fellow deputies is often an appeal to the mob on the streets.
Since 2002, when the diligently researched Harwood Report was neutered by vested interests in the States and its bureaucracy, this ephemeral consensus has continued to degrade the island’s financial resources, the island’s facilities and its public life, only showing its face when it comes to increasing deputies’ remuneration. How many Guernsey taxpayers have seen their basic pay increase by 145% since 2014? Why are the silent majority content to remain silent by not voting, whilst their hard-earned pay is squandered by politicians who accept pay to ‘debate’ hundreds of propositions, including requetes, that are never acted upon and then accept more money to debate the cancellation of them. Is this Guernsey’s understanding of perpetual motion?
Until the Guernsey electorate bites the bullet to force deputies to set aside their personal interests and ambitions and force the States to restructure itself, those deputies who use their knowledge of the real world and commercial finance and, dare I say it, common sense, to seek to add to the public good will continue to be constantly baying at the moon.
Much is made of the democratic rights of all islanders but we never hear demagogues defend the rights of that important group of islanders who bear the costs of our profligate society – our taxpayers. It is time such islanders organised themselves into a Taxpayers’ Alliance, so that the people who pay the piper have a counterbalancing voice to those who claim the right to determine how this island is run when so many of them do not contribute to its upkeep or are too lazy to vote.
It is only by voters banding together in such an Alliance that it may be possible to force change to Guernsey’s way of government. Too many deputies proved in the early 2000s that they will never vote for Christmas. In the meanwhile, I am sure that one of our artistically-minded deputies could design a new emblem for Guernsey – a hybrid donkey/ostrich.
Michael A Ward
Torteval
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