A Week in Politics

Allow me to offer an opposing viewpoint, one that you are unlikely to see on a poster, hear at a parish hall or read in a manifesto: it is not. It’s just not.

In our terms, this is almost like the UK’s 2005 election – a big non-event in which even the main political parties didn’t seem bothered.

But if you are a politician standing in an election, it would seem odd if you were arguing that it wasn’t that big a deal. And that’s why every election candidate in every election will always hype it all up a bit: because telling the truth might give people the wrong idea.

Anyway, it’s all nonsense. The really big election is not this one, but the next one, because the 2014 election will be the one that takes place after the independent Electoral Commission’s findings are published and debated.

It is by no means a foregone conclusion that its recommendations will be adopted (although it is likely), and there is no way of guessing what they’ll come up with as a model to reform the make-up of the States Chamber.

But it is likely – very likely, given what has been said in past in MORI polls – that what they will come out with is a reduction in the number of States Members.

And that’s what makes it more important – because there will be extra pressure on incumbent politicians to hold on to their seats. As things stand, there is usually a sky-high incumbency rate with most States Members hanging on to their seats. That might get shaken up a bit this year because the higher turn-out from the same-day elections will mean more voters casting ballots in races that were previously uncompetitive.

But on the flip side, the ‘two bites of the cherry’ approach by which a candidate could establish him or herself in a Senatorial race before running for Deputy is now gone.

None of this is to say that the 2011 election is unimportant. They’re all important. They are how we tell politicians what we like and what we don’t like, and they are how we, from time to time, get to ‘kick the rascals out’.

They are also important because they tend to throw up an entirely new issue that the incumbent politicians and the media haven’t been focusing on: the 2008 one was depositor protection, which for a brief period, became quite a big deal.

And all that is fine and lovely. But just remember that by the time any candidate in the election has told you that this is a particularly significant election, bear this in mind: they’ve already fibbed to you once …

THE plot thickens, hardens and forms into the shape of a baseball bat to smack you over the head repeatedly in the curious case of the Lime Grove police station that never was.

Quite simply, the stories that we heard from various politicians last week don’t all add up.

Either the Treasury department were pointlessly procrastinating (Senator Ian Le Marquand’s version) or they were dealing with a hopeless project (Senator Philip Ozouf’s version).

Either the department knew about the initial £8.75 million bid (Deputy John Le Fondré’s version) or they did not (Senator Ozouf’s version). Either taxpayers have lost out on between £5 million and £8 million (Senator Le Marquand’s version) or they have narrowly avoided another capital overspend (Senator Ozouf’s version).

Either the Jersey Property Holdings department was doing a cracking job (Deputy Le Fondré’s version) or they had basically gone rogue and couldn’t be trusted (Senator Ozouf’s version).

It almost doesn’t matter who is right or wrong at this point – what matters is that at least one politician is going to have to give a very long and embarrassing apology at the end of all of this.

AS of this morning there were nine politicians not standing for re-election (there may be more who quietly don’t tip up at their nomination meetings tomorrow). They are Senators Terry Le Sueur (24 years’ service), Ben Shenton (six), Jim Perchard (six), St Ouen Constable Ken Vibert (17), St Martin Constable Silva Yates (five) and St John Constable Graeme Butcher (five), and Deputies Ben Fox (12), Collin Egré (nine) and Daniel Wimberley (three).

That’s a total of 87 years’ service. You would struggle to find anyone who agreed with all nine of those politicians on anything, but a record of service that stretches for almost nine decades is not insignificant, and they deserve thanks.