We think, therefore we are never wrong

There’s opinions we hold strongly in the face of all reasoned argument to the contrary (this cold weather is ridiculous and has got to stop), opinions we have but can see the other side of (the States should buy Plemont), opinions that feel unshakeable (someone, anyone, needs to do something, anything, about Fernando Torres), opinions we’ve come to recently (the £350,000 spent on the kitchens at the Highlands College Academy of Culinary Arts was a tremendous investment in a sensational asset), and opinions we have but don’t like to admit (capital punishment probably makes a bit of sense, but don’t for God’s sake mention it out loud or write it down because everyone will think you’re nuts).

But they’re difficult things to write about.

Not your own, obviously, that’s easy. Writing about your own opinions is what the internet is for – countless aimless, meandering opinions fluttering around a few lonely facts. But other peoples’ opinions are a tricky business –you can never really know about they’re thinking. You can tell what someone has done, and on a good day you can even tell what it means, or what it’s going to mean. You can even know what they say has motivated them. But the real opinions and views behind the act? Inscrutable.

Who’s to say if cranking up the old booze duty this week was to raise a bit of cash, or out of a deep-seated conviction that it’s the best possible way to improve the health of the Island?

Who’s to say if breaking off pay talks with unions and imposing an effective pay-cut that no-one has agreed to is a calculated risk on the basis that a court won’t overturn it and that the resulting strike won’t matter, or a bold and provocative statement that ministers aren’t going to be pushed around over reductions to States workers’ terms and conditions?

Who’s to say if the four States Members voting against the Budget this week (Deputies Geoff Southern, Montfort Tadier, Trevor Pitman and Mike Higgins) actually don’t believe that anyone should pay any tax next year at all – a curious position, given that they also seem to be against any public sector cuts – or whether they just throwing their toys out of the pram? Not me. I’ve got no idea.

Fortunately, this has been a week when we have learned a few things about politicians’ opinions. We’ve learned that UK Chancellor George Osborne shares a few with St Clement Deputy Gerard Baudains. Not the crank ones about Mossad and the Twin Towers, presumably, but the ones about reversing a three-pence-per-litre price hike on fuel being a good idea. We’ve learned that Senator Philip Bailhache thinks that the £16 million price tag for Plemont is ‘fantasy’, and that it’ll actually cost around £3 million, but that the owner doesn’t seem to agree. We’ve learned that 50 out of 51 States Members (everyone apart from St Saviour Constable Sadie Rennard) had no intention of doing anything at all to block the £818 pay rise that was coming their way. And all that’s fine.

But we actually learned about a few more opinions, held by a group of people that we don’t get to hear from nearly as much as we hear from politicians. We heard about the views of the public, and they had some interesting things to say.

They think, for example, that the States have found the perfect level of public spending for Jersey – with 67% agreeing with the current balance, 16% saying it’s too high, and 16% saying it’s too low. I hate to say it, but that’s a pretty strong endorsement of the job that the Council of Ministers is doing.

They also think that the top priority of the States should be to control immigration (but then, they said that in the JEP election survey last year, and no-one’s paid the blindest bit of notice), and that 77% are concerned at the rate that newcomers are arriving in Jersey.

That concern doesn’t seem to be having too much of an effect on them, fortunately, because 90% of them would describe themselves as ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ satisfied with life – a pretty impressive figure in the midst of the worst recession in living memory.

We’ve learned that opinions of the police seem to have gone up markedly in the last few years, with 79% saying the boys and girls in blue were doing a good job, 11% up on the figure just two years ago – and that the proportion of people who fear being threatened or verbally abused in the street has almost halved in five years.

They also think – bless their little hearts – that the JEP is the top source of local news, with (and this was the most shocking statistic of all) almost two-thirds of people aged between 16 and 34 looking at the paper at least once per week.

And yet – if you believed everything that you heard in the States every other Tuesday, you wouldn’t believe any of that at all, you’d probably assume that they’re talking about somewhere else entirely.

All you hear is that the Council of Ministers are doing an awful job, either spending too little or taxing too much, with loads of rhetoric about swingeing cuts that have gone too far into essential public services, and taxes that are squeezing Middle Jersey.

You’d also hear a load of questions about tax policies that no one really understands, a bit about Plémont, some stuff about Jurats, and probably a bit about a former police chief – but probably not a single word on immigration, despite the fact that it’s the single biggest concern of Islanders.

And would you hear politicians say that 90% of Islanders are satisfied with their lives, with 38% describing themselves’very satisfied’? Would you hell. They make it sound like a rough night in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

And the idea of someone praising a States department for doing a good job? Do me a favour. If it’s not cover-ups and wasting money, it’s core services being torn apart by cuts and incompetence.

And as for the JEP… Rubbish, say politicians. Biased, they claim. Dying, like all print media, they announce.

Well. Turns out we’re trusted by the public, but disliked by politicians. I’m touched. That’s exactly how it should be, in my humble opinion.