A friendship forged on the affair of Lime Grove

I’ll say it again: Senator Ozouf and Deputy Pitman are now mates.

Okay, so perhaps they aren’t quite on each other’s dinner party list just yet, but they certainly appear to have developed some kind of bond.

How and why exactly I cannot be entirely sure. You couldn’t really get two more different politicians. They sit at complete opposite ends of the spectrum – the economically obsessed Senator Ozouf on the right and the socially driven, anti-establishment Deputy at on the left.

Yet in the House on Tuesday, there they were, trading compliments, referring to meetings and conversations they had had in recent days and agreeing – yes, agreeing – with each other about real-life politics.

It was as if I had entered some kind of bizarre parallel universe where Guernsey was the superior Channel Island, where Ann Widdecombe had just been voted FHM’s sexiest woman of the year and England had the best football team in the world.

Of course, I am all for our politicians working together and being nice to each other and all that, but this was just a bit weird, because it isn’t usually like that. And it felt, well, uncomfortable.

There is no doubt that the pair had bonded over the Lime Grove affair and the criticism levelled at Senator Ozouf because of it. His decision to give a lengthy interview to a citizens’ media blogger about it all that was subsequently posted on YouTube must certainly have helped as well, given the Deputy’s unending support for such media.

But many will have been surprised to find Deputy Pitman firmly on the Senator’s side over the whole Lime Grove, should he go? / shouldn’t he? debate.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that most of us expected him to be one of the politicians giving their Treasury Minister the hardest of times.

However, the Deputy appears to have been in a different camp in the House over the whole affair – that being the one that thinks Senator Ozouf was fitted up by a Chief Minister and other senior ministers who wanted him out and someone else in.

Given the Chief Minister’s statement to the House on Tuesday backing his man, that quite clearly was never the case.

Then there are the two other camps: those who most definitely do want the Senator to be held accountable for the actions of which he is accused and are bringing a vote of censure against him (these being Senator Sarah Ferguson, Deputies John Le Fondré and Roy Le Hérisser and Constable Dan Murphy), and those who were probably going to support the Chief Minister whatever he decided, such as the majority of ministers.

THERE is, of course, another reason these two politicians have become unlikely allies: neither of them likes the JEP very much – neatly demonstrating once again that despite occasional spindoctoring claims to the contrary from both ends of the political spectrum, we are neither establishment poodles nor dangerous subversives.

Needless to say, it will be interesting to see how the whole Ozouf-Pitman friendship plays out. Will it blossom yet further? I think not.

What angle the Deputy will take in the vote of censure debate against Senator Ozouf also has me intrigued. But it would appear that really it is just a passing craze involving two men thrown together by a mutual annoyance of the system that will fade just as quickly as it appeared.

THERE was another interesting occurrence in the States this past week when Deputy James Baker gave his maiden speech just two weeks after being branded ‘lazy’ by fellow Deputies.

Now whether this was a result of that criticism levelled at him during the previous States sitting or whether he was always going to do it, I don’t know. But what I do know is that it was a pretty good speech – well thought out, clearly practised and with some strong points.

I say strong because I didn’t agree with what he was saying, but he made his argument very well.

Basically, it was during the debate over Deputy Pitman’s proposal to open up the votes for ministers and Scrutiny panel chairmen which was later adopted by the House.

Deputy Baker, who was elected to the States for the first time in October, was against the move because, put simply, he believes that the only true democratic vote is a secret one, so that people are not made to feel pressurised to vote a certain way.

However, the most interesting bit was what he alluded to rather than actually spelt out. This was that he was in the States to debate and make decisions about issues that really mattered, not to waste time.

There was no doubting that it was a clear dig at those who had criticised him two weeks before and a powerful statement that said: ‘Don’t mistake my silence for laziness.’