A Week in Politics

But one of the problems with this job is that every now and then you have to make the leap from words to numbers — a very uncomfortable idea for most of the journalists I’ve ever known.

But even for people like me — ie the ones who can just about count — there’s some interesting stuff in the Business Plan which was lodged a fortnight ago.

Stay with me. That last sentence, I promise, is true.

The plan sets out how the States will spend taxpayer’s money, £569m of it, over the course of 2009.

That’s an increase of 3.2%, as set down in last year’s plan after an am-endment by Deputy James Reed.

Here’s the thing — the ministerial promise of ‘no new taxes until 2012’ hinged on one thing: no increase in States spending above the levels ministers proposed.

And here’s the problem — there’s absolutely no way that Members will stick to those spending limits.

You can bet the house on it.

For starters, there was Monday’s slightly embarrassing ‘you’ve been spending half as much as you ought to have done on property maintenance’ moment at the Public Accounts Committee hearing, which is a pretty-much instant £8m in additional spending required.

Then there’s the fact that ministers have scrubbed a range of, well, I guess you could call them ‘election-friendly’ proposals to keep the cash limits down.

These include free nursery funding, improved residential care for the elderly, more recycling and money to enforce the long-awaited Discrimination Law.

Maybe I’m being cynical, but I’ve got a sneaking feeling that we might see one or two amendments flying in to get funding for those projects set in stone before polling day. And again, maybe I’m being cynical, but I can’t see States Members voting against any of those things in the month before an election.

Which leaves the question — what happens to Treasury Minister Terry Le Sueur’s ‘no new taxes’ pledge when (not if) the spending limits increase?

IT’S good news that someone is going to challenge Treasury Minister Terry Le Sueur for the job of Chief Minister, if for no other reason than that it looked briefly like being a rerun of the Blair/Brown handover, only even less fun.

St Helier Constable Simon Crowcroft, if he decides to run, is probably the Member closest to being able to pip Senator Le Sueur to the job. And given that all election candidates are likely to be asked whom they’ll vote for in the hustings trail, we should have a fairly good idea after the Deputies election about who the winner will be.

Whoever wins (and there might yet be more candidates out there), Mr Crowcroft’s announcement has certainly livened things up.

A regret . . . if only there was an ‘anonymous’ section in the JEP’s Quotes of the Week.

I was chatting to someone the other week who let slip the finest possible epitaph on the Harcourt/ Las Vegas/Waterfront shambles.

Noting the sacking of Waterfront Enterprise Board chairman Gerald Voisin, Mr Anonymous said: ‘Well, it was never going to be a States Member, was it?’

Perfect.

A confession . . . Last week, in my haste, I made a mistake about the number of States Members needed in the Assembly to be quorate. I said that it was 24. It’s actually 27, as a cursory glance at the States of Jersey Law would have told me.

And 27, coincidentally, is about the number of times this has been pointed out to me in the last week, which is probably fair enough.

Either way, I stand by the (slightly amended) main point which is that it’s not a great sign if half of our States Members can’t concentrate on States business for long enough to get through the first 97 minutes of a four-day debate.

But there’s good news — you can expect Members’ motivation to skyrocket in the next couple of months with a steady stream of States questions, propositions, letters to the JEP, press releases and public meetings being called.

There’s nothing like the prospect of losing your job to focus your attention.

AND also following on from last week, I’d like to point out to Deputy Gerard Baudains that you have to turn left coming out of Snow Hill car park.