Elections belong to the voters, not to politicians

It could be, but it isn’t. The problem with politics in Jersey isn’t really about the systems, or the voting districts, or the policies. It’s not even about ‘the machinery of government’, whatever that’s meant to be. It’s about the politicians. Sort of.

And that’s why it was probably a bad move to put politicians on the commission which was set up to look into the whole business and sort it out. It doesn’t help that the evidence the commission has heard, and the witnesses who have given that evidence, have been dominated by politicians, ex-politicians and wannabe-politicians.

There’s something about that domination that doesn’t make sense at a really basic level, and it points to a misunderstanding of what elections are about, and, therefore, what the commission should be about.

What it’s not about, really, is how to make things better and easier for politicians – although there is no subject of greater interest to them.

What it is about, really, is how to make things better and easier for voters. The two things are not the same.

So while the debate on the reform of the composition of the States Chamber is likely to be dominated by those on the left (current, former and wannabes) trying to get rid of right-leaning Constables to make their own lives easier, and those on the right (current, former and wannabes) trying to keep hold of them for the opposite reason, it shouldn’t be.

It shouldn’t even really be about the dead-end argument about whether there should be a second Chamber or not.

What it should be about is how to organise Jersey’s politicians into political parties, as soon as possible.

Imagine a world where you can look at a set of election manifestos, pick one that makes sense to you, vote for it, and then see it work or not, based on how everyone else voted. That’s a process that works pretty seamlessly in most other countries, apart from here.

For whatever reason, that’s something that hasn’t happened organically in Jersey. And that’s why this curious notion that it’s not part of our ‘culture’ has emerged, and become a kind of self-sustaining argument – independent politics is part of our culture, and we should never do anything about it.

Applying the same logic to Jersey’s long-standing binge-drinking culture shows you that the argument doesn’t really stand up.

While it may sound daft to anyone watching the contortions of the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties in the UK as they all adapt to the idea of government coalition, what the party system provides is a mechanism for the general force of votes cast influencing the policies of the government.

It’s not perfect, and the parties are broad enough churches that, say, Ken Clarke, Boris Johnson, David Cameron and David Davis can all call themselves ‘Conservatives’ despite the fact that they would probably disagree with each other as much as they’d agree.

But none of that happens here. Instead, we have a strange situation whereby politicians are elected on manifestos that don’t necessarily cover the main issues, where voters can’t compare them to make sense of the differences, where the question of who might be running government departments is a complete mystery to everyone, and where the government comes up with a plan for the next three years six months after the election takes place.

None of that makes a huge amount of sense, but it’s the kind of thing – much like the States make-up of ten Islandwide Senators, 12 parish-based Constables and 29 parish or sub-parish Deputies – that emerges over time as various tweaks take effect.

Fortunately, we’ve got an independent Electoral Commission to deal with it. This commission has an unenviable job based on two sliding scales – the tamer their proposals, the more likely they are to be approved, and the more radical they are, the less likely they are to actually happen.

That’s a tough equation to crack, but fortunately, the commission has some smart people on it.

But if they get bogged down in approaching the problem from the point of view of a politician, they will struggle. Their job should be to try and approach it from the point of view of the voter.

It should be straightforward enough to change the law so that at the next election after the one in 2014, anyone standing for office will have to be a member of a registered political party. That would give the current Members the time they need to get sorted out. More importantly though, it would give voters a chance to see their votes reflected in government policy.

HERE is a different way to look at the summer lottery, which fizzled out last week. To recap, the plan was for a £1 million draw split between Jersey and Guernsey, but poor ticket sales for a variety of reasons (some probably down to organisers, and some not) meant that it ended up being for £150,000 instead.

Another mistake. Another States failure. Another error for which no one is held to account.

And the other way of looking at it is this: here’s something that went wrong, but which cost us nothing. A modest amount went to charity instead of the larger amount hoped for. Someone won £150,000 and is presumably pretty pleased about it.

Doesn’t really sound like the end of the world, does it?

Sometimes things just go wrong. Isn’t it better that it’s something like this, where no money is lost, than something big?

If we’re asking States departments to stop being so conservative, and to start thinking creatively, this is going to happen more. Let’s not over-react to it.