By Lindsay Ash
ONE of the major topics of discussion in Jersey is the government in all its guises, so it’s interesting to reflect on the survey into the handling of Covid, which included the following…
‘We have concluded that, overall, the government did a good job’ – nice to hear but hardly reflective of the mood at the time or indeed of the electorate at the 2022 election. Maybe this was better explained by another conclusion that Jersey people ‘have high expectations of government’.
This could be construed as report-speak for ‘the Jersey Public are quality moaners’. Is that fair?
Yes, they probably are but there are mitigating circumstances. Firstly, they are no worse than other jurisdictions such as the UK where moaning is top class and France where not only are they top class but recently extremely violent.
But let’s look at Jersey. We reside in a nine by five bubble where often little things become massive problems. This is made worse by social media where, to put it bluntly, a complete load of rubbish is allowed to mutate into fact. ‘I’ve heard from a woman at work all the new housing built on the Waterfront has been bought by Russians. She knows because her husband works at the Airport and says private jets arrive every day from Moscow, one Russian bought 50 flats in an hour and flew off again!’ Plainly rubbish but on Facebook people exchange this nonsense and, more importantly, believe it. This fuels mistrust and increases criticism.
Another mitigating factor that feeds discontent is that very few have any idea of how the government operates. Eager-to-please person that I am… here goes.
The government consists of two parts: the States Assembly, which has over the years largely been filled with a combination of well-meaning people who have served in the parishes in various capacities, ego maniacs, and career politicians (mainly socialist ones), interspersed with people who have no need to work or are retired and wish to help the Island.
The second part of government are the ‘civil servants’ who, like many large organisations, are a combination of talented people, hard-working people and chancers, some of whom are a combination of all three.
So let’s get the civil servants out of the way first. They do a job that ensures the Island functions. It is multi-faceted and, without them, Jersey would grind to a halt. It could be argued that if they were left alone to run the Island things would operate more smoothly and with more financial acumen. Are they all perfect? No, of course not. In an organisation of that size not everyone will be. This is the same in banks, trust companies, law firms etc but, by and large, they are pretty good at carrying out a difficult task and do so in an honourable fashion.
So, the politicians. Where does one start. Is it like Yes, Minister? Well, to an extent it is, although Charlie probably lacked the verbal loquacity of Sir Humphrey Appleby. The reason it’s like that is the civil servants have way more experience than a newly arrived politician, similar to the Army where the sergeant has seen a lot more than a young subaltern just out of Sandhurst and thus it’s worth listening to what he has to say. If this happens it can work very nicely, the politician will be given a number of options as to how their policy can be enacted and make a decision based on the facts. Where it falls down is where the politician feels they know all the answers already. This can result in some disastrous scenarios.
When I first arrived in the Treasury, I asked why red fuels were not taxed at the same rate as petrol. Surely that would generate additional income? The answer was that it would produce about £7m a year but had always been lower to help the farmers and fishermen, plus many households are on oil heating so it would put their costs up substantially. It could, however, be done very easily and it was up to me if I wished to do it. Now, being very good at listening, I took this on board and decided things were best left alone. I could have said: ‘I really don’t care about heating costs, it’ll encourage them to go electric, just get on with it’ and plunged a lot of people into difficulties.
I hope that gives just a small insight into how it works when you are a team, but, as I say, the problem comes when people think they know it all. The recent erroneous and costly belief that a hospital could be delivered at half the price being a classic example. It also demonstrates how the officers will do as requested by their political masters or mistresses, even if it is perhaps against their better judgment.
One of the complaints against government in Jersey is that nothing gets done or takes ages to be done. This is partially down to a lack of party politics which means the public cannot see a coherent political path as, quite simply, there isn’t one. The main problem the Council of Ministers face is the Troy rule. The what rule? You may well ask. The rule was brought in by a Deputy Troy back when Jersey changed to ministerial government and it basically stipulates that the Council of Ministers has to be in a minority, that is to say that the number of ministers and assistant ministers has to be less than the rest of the Assembly. This guarantees that the Council of Ministers is always in a position of weakness, it also generates a them-and-us situation. This makes it very difficult to pass controversial or unpopular decisions purely because the majority are hoping to be re-elected and will not wish to be seen in a bad light. Perhaps more worryingly is they wish to be seen in a good light, so will pass all sorts of weird and wonderful things to demonstrate their caring credentials without looking at the consequences or cost.
So next time you ask why don’t the government do XYZ, the reason is often they can’t as the populist majority will block it.
Enormous time is wasted in meetings as to ‘how do we get this through the Assembly’ and in the end so much policy is watered down it becomes worthless.
For examples of how difficult it is to rule with a minority government you only have to look at Theresa May, who was completely hamstrung. That contrasted with the governments of Maggie Thatcher and Tony Blair (of whom I concede many may have certain views) but they got things done and were strong on policy implementation.
This weakness may change, of course, if Reform continue to strengthen and establish an overall majority. Then people will really have something to moan about.
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Lindsay Ash was Deputy for St Clement between 2018 and 2022, serving as Assistant Treasury and Home Affairs Minister under Chief Minister John Le Fondré. He worked in the City of London for 15 years as a futures broker before moving to Jersey and working in the Island’s finance industry from 2000. Feedback welcome on Twitter @Getonthelash2.
