THE governments of Jersey and Guernsey – different as they are – share the shortcoming that voters “never know what they are getting until after the event”, according to former Guernsey Press editor Richard Digard.
Writing in today’s JEP, Mr Digard (pictured) considers the relative merits of the two very different systems of government in each Island – the ministerial approach introduced in Jersey in 2005 and the committee-based system that Guernsey has retained – both of which have displayed signs of strain in recent months with the toppling of the islands’ two political leaders.
Mr Digard comments: “Today, Jersey is more used to the concept of ministerial government, but the calls for a return to pre-Clothier days and the old committee system shows that it still sits uncomfortably with a lot of Islanders. Guernsey, on the other hand, is desperately fed up with a States that goes nowhere, cannot take a decision or even balance the books, but really doesn’t want anyone truly in charge.”
While the islands “tick along quite successfully”, Mr Digard believes that neither is fully providing what its citizens want, need and expect, highlighting housing and standard of living challenges common to both.
He says the goodwill and consensus on which both systems depend have been in short supply recently.
“Vote as much as you like, but you never know what you’re getting until after the event. As electors, we have a total inability to ballot for a particular direction of travel or for the individuals to carry it out,” he writes.
There is, he concludes, no clear winner when it comes to weighing the competing merits of the two systems but it is what they share that is striking. Quoting the words of fellow columnist Gavin St Pier – former president of Guernsey’s Policy and Resources Committee – he says: “The dominance in both Assemblies of independents without policy bonds to others, means that differences in personality rather than policy inevitably become a – or even ‘the’ – key differentiator.”
Mr Digard’s article, “Jersey or Guernsey: who does government best?”, appears on pages 18 and 19 of this weekend’s JEP.
