Nice to have some fresh ideas, they said. Looking forward to reading it, they claimed. However, behind both pairs of eyes was a clear sense of apprehension about what this newbie might say about them. That and ‘what on earth have you let yourself in for?’
Well, here’s my promise to them and to the rest of you (politicians and members of the pubic alike). I will only ever say what I believe. If I think something is wrong, stupid or just plain weird I’ll say so, but I’ll also give credit where I believe credit is due.
I am not controlled by any higher force (sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists among you) and all views will be my own.
Sometimes I’m sure you will agree with me, many other times I’ll guarantee that you won’t. But one thing is certain – it’s going to be quite a journey over the next few months.
Now that’s out of the way, I’ll get right to it. This week the number of Senatorial candidates dropped from 13 to 12. Okay, so not exactly, but would-be politician Darius Pearce ruled himself out as a credible candidate in my view by vowing to boycott the majority of the forthcoming hustings meetings.
I mean, come on, branding an opportunity to answer the questions of the public as ‘a waste of time’ isn’t the best move.
Sure, as he points out, candidates are only given a few minutes for a speech and then a minute-and-a-half to answer questions – but how else can it be done?
And, if you can’t present yourself succinctly and clearly in that amount of time, then there’s no hope when it comes to debates in the Assembly.
Mr Pearce said he would prefer to see no speeches and just questions and has said he will spend the time when he should be at hustings knocking on doors so he can meet voters and answer questions in full. Apart from – wait for it – the three hustings where the BBC will be filming. (Enter your own outraged comments about publicity seeking here.)
I just cannot fathom why a candidate for election would even consider such a move. It is an insult to the system, to tradition, to voters and to the other candidates. Why not just grin and bear the 13 meetings (like everyone else has to) and present yourself as someone there for the public, no matter what ,and willing to do what it takes to make a difference in your Island.
I suppose the least that can be said for Mr Pearce is that he is honest and won’t put up a front just to get elected. And it will be one less speech for us to listen to.
IN other news, as they say, the States adopted the annual Business Plan, which sets public sector spending and budgets for 2012, in its entirety. At the beginning of the week I thought it was quite a big deal. But by Thursday, and after hours of listening to debate on the issue, I realised it wasn’t.
And that’s all because while it is, of course, a necessary and important part of States business and rubber-stamps the release of public money to the right budgets, the actual debate was a bit pointless.
Just two amendments were adopted, one which simply moved one thing from one budget to another and the other a token concession from the Council of Ministers to protect funding (and a small amount at that) for the Prison? Me? No way! scheme.
Everything else was done and dusted long before the papers were ever handed out to States Members and amendments like Deputy Daniel Wimberley’s to get almost £14m extra for States departments quite simply never had a hope.
Importantly, the debate also revealed that the plan is just that, a plan. It is not written in stone and things can, do and will change. Sure, it needs to be flexible, but its very nature rendered a detailed debate on it a bit of a pointless exercise.
Take, for example, Deputy Geoff Southern’s attempt to delay a number of cuts to the Health department until they had been fully thought through.
Members, you see, were being asked to OK an extensive list of cuts to variety of areas without any detailed information about how they would pan out.
The Deputy made this very point as he urged Members not to let the cuts go through. However, to have stalled the process would have meant the department would not have been able to achieve its savings targets as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
So it was a bit of a Catch 22. OK something and trust a Minister to make the right decisions and bring it back to the Chamber if needs be, or delay it and risk one of the biggest public sector departments missing its savings targets.
I mention this simply because it is important for us, the taxpayers, to know what was really going on when those decisions were made. And it was made very clear last week that it was a plan, a budget plan, plain and simple. There were no guarantees that things wouldn’t change.
And it is worth bearing in mind that very soon we will have a whole new set of States Members and, importantly, a new Council of Ministers who will get to do with that plan as they wish.
Until then (29 days until election day, to be precise) I shall be anxiously awaiting a knock on my door from Mr Pearce so he can tell me why he should be one of those decision-makers. I can’t guarantee I’ll give him longer than four minutes, however.
