Whatever happened to the notion of decisions being binding on political heirs?

For example, what used to be called the Fort Regent Development Committee might well have given an undertaking that by a given date its president would bring to the Big House proposals to allow a casino in that great white elephant on the hill. I’ve deliberately illustrated the point with a ludicrous example as the religious mafia which knows what’s best for the rest of us would never allow it anyway.

It follows, then, that I am puzzled by the announcement last week that the present Council of Ministers appear to see fit to renege on an undertaking reached by a previous Council of Ministers, given through the then Chief Minister Frank Walker, that there would be a Committee of Inquiry into the Haut de la Garenne affair. Binding on heirs and successors is the phrase which springs to mind.

Indeed, people like me, who know nothing about the issue other than what we’ve read or heard through the media, had high hopes that not only would some light be shed on the allegations which formed the basis of the original historical abuse investigation but an inquiry would also examine the roles and public utterances of certain individuals.

The fact that statements such as ‘the full extent of brutalities inflicted on the victims’ and ‘the lengths gone to in attempts to cover it up’ – ignoring for now the absolute fact that no one but the victims and the perpetrators is in a position to make such a statement – have been made makes it imperative that as full and far-reaching an inquiry as possible really is in the public interest.

However, in the light of Terry Le Sueur’s statement that the Council of Ministers have decided there won’t be any inquiry, unless Francis Le Gresley succeeds in his proposal to force them to rescind that quite extraordinary decision, this deep wound will continue to fester.

It will also encourage those to whom this Island’s reputation and standing in the world matters not to continue their malign campaigns for years and years to come – a situation which those of us who care deeply about this place do not look forward to with anything but even further despair.

No amount of toing and froing to foreign parts by Philip Ozouf, Senator Le Sueur and others will even begin to alter the perception those who know little of the affairs which prevail in these 45 square miles will have whereas the results from a robust Committee of Inquiry would at least have provided something with which to answer critics.

They say that shooting is Jersey’s national sport. Too true. That’s yet another bull’s-eye straight in the foot from our elected representatives. And they do it so easily.

THE announcement in the Big House last week that 125,000 fireworks which were to have been used in a world record bid for charity at the 2007 Battle of Flowers have been destroyed by bomb disposal experts will no doubt bring big smiles of pleasure, not to mention a smug sense of satisfaction, to the small minded minority (aided and abetted, it seems, by equally small minded pinstripes who searched successfully for some legislation) who forced the event’s cancellation.

The only emotion I feel by this utter nonsense – and if the comments I’ve read and heard during the last three and a bit years are anything to go by, felt by an awful lot of others also – is that yet again I marvel at the sheer hypocrisy which exists in this place.

As I recall writing at the time Terry McDonald was told that he couldn’t open his box of matches, I’d bet my bottom dollar that those jumping up and down about pollution were in all probability going to watch and enjoy another fine charitable event – the Battle of Britain Air Display – which would drop even more pollutants over land and sea than any firework display.

If our elected representatives were hell bent on making public the fact that bomb disposal experts had destroyed the fireworks – out of interest, I wonder how much that cost, not that I’m suggesting anyone should work for nothing – it would have brought a smile to the faces of those like me, who thought Mr McDonald had been put upon from a great height by officialdom, if the announcement would also have said that the cost of the fireworks and transport costs would be given to him as an ex gratia payment.

It could have come from the slush fund that for decades has financed golden goodbye payments to pinstripes who – to use the phrase used by a red-faced politician when the fund’s existence was revealed by this newspaper – ‘had gone off the boil’. I’ve heard of some who’ve never been more than lukewarm at best but they’ve always seemed to come out of it all smelling of roses.

It’s the little blokes like Terry McDonald – and there’ve been more than a few like him over the years – who’ll never get anything out of anyone in officialdom because they refuse to tow the line, refuse to roll over, refuse to keep quiet and are generally classed as an irritating thorn in the side of the establishment. And I reckon I ought to know.

AND finally … Perhaps Sean Power does view finding a confidential email (which, it seems, had nothing to do with him) and forwarding it to a third party as simply a mistake. It might well be that he would view someone finding cash in the street and giving it to a friend as being a simple mistake. Both are deeds which are wrong and I seriously question how he can remain in the Big House.