THERE is no doubt who was the star of the 2008 Senatorial and Constable elections – the JEP’s very own Fly. Today, he talks about his polling day tour of the Island, and gives his thoughts on the three-week hustings roadshow.
IT was during the second week of the campaign that Fly took to wearing shades, even indoors. Like a fame-hungry teenager straight out of Big Brother, our once humble election busybody became consumed by his new-found celebrity status.
He ditched his old friends down at Bellozanne, refused to talk to ‘the general public’ and began protracted e-mail conversations with politicians desperate to associate themselves with a rising star. And so it was that on the morning of polling day, Fly announced that it was his duty to make a whistle-stop tour of the Island ‘to make sure everything was going to plan’.
In his shiny new Election Day suit, kindly supplied by the Incharacter shop in Colomberie, and charged up on a breakfast of sugar-cubes, the winged election spy took himself to several parish halls, just in case the confused electorate needed the mind of a Fly to help them choose their top six.
He has always had confidence in his small and over-worked brain, and often claimed to know exactly what would happen on polling day. He predicted, for example, that it would be a bad day for beards, and with Nick Palmer and Mark Forskitt languishing in 18th and 19th position, and Mike Vibert crashing out of politics in ninth, it seemed he was proved right.
Fly also rightly said that Deidre Mezbourian would nail the battle for the Constable of St Lawrence, and he was particularly pleased that she agreed to pose for a quick photograph. He also correctly predicted that milk-guzzler Ian Le Marquand would top the poll, and, as the night progressed Fly thought it was only right that he should pop around and congratulate the former Magistrate on his success.
If you’ve got it, flaunt it. That’s Fly’s motto. So he strongly believes that Deputy Peter Troy, who limped home in twelfth, could have done so much better if only he had made more of his Mensa membership. And Fly was also frustrated that Jolly Green Giant Daniel Wimberley and his running mate Burgundy Jumper only managed a disappointing fourteenth.
He was also generally saddened by the general lack of surprises. The only potential bombshell incident came late in the evening when, after repeatedly banging his head against a windowpane at the Town Hall (it’s a fly thing), he dislodged a contact lens and momentarily thought that lizard-spotter Chris Perkins had romped home in second place and adopted a northern accent.
Looking back though, the last three weeks was a lovely affair. Fly wants to praise the battlers – young Jeremy Maçon, tenacious Adrian Walsh and fighter Mick Pashley, who had apparently been fiercely defending 21st position for at least the last two weeks.
Fly loved Mr Pashley, but his support for a cruise ship harbour at St Catherine, extended drinking hours, and a casino were never going to be vote winners. However, it wasn’t all fun. The long and drawn out hustings circus has taken its toll on his relationship with Mrs Fly.
Some weeks they went days without talking, and last night she returned from bingo and announced that she and the girls all had a crush on ‘dashing Deputy’ Alan Maclean. That was hard to take. Being swotted out of Grouville parish hall on polling night was also an equally painful experience.
And so it’s time for Fly to say goodbye, to discharge himself from the JEP Election Team, pack his little case and take Mrs Fly off for a make-or-break holiday at a lovely little landfill in Guernsey. The madness is over, but it’s not the end. It will return in three years’ time and Fly would love to see you all again then. And if he misses the limelight, if he discovers that he just can’t live without those few column inches and his picture in the paper, you may even see him sooner than that.
FLY’S TOP TEN QUOTES OF THE CAMPAIGN
1. ‘Good evening. My name is Peter Troy. My website is www.petertroy.com. I have served the Island as a Deputy for nine years. I hold an HNC in business studies and I’m a member of Mensa.’
Peter Troy.
2. ‘I have a flair for making complex issues sortoutable, if that’s a word.’
Cliff Le Clercq, St Peter.
3. ‘The last time I looked I didn’t have two horns and a forked tail, though I did notice that one of my posters did.’
Mike Vibert, St Helier.
4. ‘I’ll even lend you my daughter’s pet cat to swing around (in a small new-build flat). No, I mean toy cat. Toy cat – not pet.’
Adrian Walsh, St Helier.
5. ‘According to the JEP’s Fly tonight I resemble the pirate from Tintin. Well, you can trust me not to plunder Jersey further.’
Nick Palmer, St Ouen.
6. ‘I’m afraid that I have been hiding my real name to you, but tonight I have been outed.’
Ian Le Marquand in St Peter after the hustings organisers wrote ‘Brian Le Marquand’ on his name plate. (His father was also called Brian and he uses Ian ‘to avoid confusion’.)
7. ‘Investment banks are very different from the likes of HSBC and Barclays. If they go down then we’ll all be growing cabbages.’
Deputy Sarah Ferguson, St Peter.
8. ‘So what about Senator (Terry) Le Sueur, is he really going to be the next Chief Minister? Of course not – he’s going to end up in the canal because there’s going to be a coup d’état.’
Nick Le Cornu, St Ouen.
9. ‘Trust? I don’t even trust the current Education Minister to use the English language.’ (Taking issue with Senator Mike Vibert’s description of GST as the ‘least worst option’)
Montfort Tadier, St Helier.
10. ‘Fish, birds and insects don’t lie.’
Daniel Wimberley in Grouville, talking about global warming.
• Picture above: Fly with the JEP election team of Richard Heath, Ramsay Cudlipp and Ben Quérée
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Fly, in conference with JEP editor Chris Bright, before his tournextpage
