Sorry, Constable, but owner of Plémont did nothing wrong

To suggest, or at least imply, as apparently he did in the Big House

last week, that Plémont landowner and potential developer Trevo r Hemmings is somehow responsible for a fist fight breaking out at a wedding reception really takes the biscuit.

He told his colleagues – and the world at large on the wireless – when they were debating one of the many, varied and often confusing issues associated with pursuing a greedy ‘we want it all’ philosophy rather than accepting with good grace a gift of two-thirds of the holiday camp site:

‘A fight broke out at a wedding reception over this very issue. I’m sorry, but I believe the developer has driven a deep wedge between Islanders.’

What a load of pure, unadulterated, 24-carat rubbish. As I said earlier,

Mr Le Troquer really ought to know better than to seek to create a link between two wholly unassociated issues – a link which quite frankly would make adding two and two and getting five seem perfectly reasonable.

In case the St Martin Constable didn’t get out much while burning the midnight oil at the Kremlin in Rouge Bouillon, or perhaps – as is quite common in such professions, so I am told – was so wrapped up in that work environment that he remained blissfully unaware of what else was going on in Jersey, can I add to his political and general education by making two points?

The first is that for centuries, and particularly so with the sweeping reforms in post-war years, issues (rather than people, be they developers or otherwise) like social security, land reclamation and subsequent development, water storage, compulsory purchase, financial help for industries such as agriculture and tourism, the provision of proper health care, putting fluoride in water supplies and immigration have all, to put it a little less aggressively than he did, polarised public opinion and given rise to heated and often acrimonious debate.

To imply that a landowner legitimately seeking to pursue his investment through wholly correct procedures in the face of some pretty hostile opposition – oh how easy it is for them to be high minded with other people’s money – has somehow done something wrong simply isn’t fair.

The second point, as Mr Le Troquer knows perfectly well, is that family gatherings in general and wedding receptions in particular can be occasions of immense joy and pleasure. However, occasionally, and usually because of drunks rather than drinks, they can develop into something which is decidedly nasty, and if he is not aware of that then he really has led an extremely sheltered life.

It goes without saying that I have no knowledge at all of the function at which the scrap referred to took place or, indeed, any information other than what he chose to impart. That said, I’d risk a small calvados in a bet that suggests that a, one or both of those involved in fisticuffs may well have allowed something stronger than water to pass his lips prior to thinking he was Henry Cooper, and b, other issues of perhaps a family nature may be lurking in the background.

Perhaps in future the St Martin Constable and others in the Big House like him might care to reflect upon premature articulation and come to believe that it serves little or no purpose to muddy waters with irrelevant trivia when important issues are being debated.

AS I write – with the better ear listening to the wireless, so who says men can’t multi-task? – I have just heard that our elected representatives have decided not to approve the acquisition of Stan Parkin’s old holiday camp site by compulsory purchase.

Although my opposition to such a move is well documented, I’m not particularly elated about the decision, simply because with all the other pressing matters our government has on its plate right now, spending three whole days debating this issue and coming within an inch of shelling out millions when the Island was offered two-thirds of the area for nothing is not the best possible use of politicians’ time.

As for those who claimed that the money for compulsory purchase could be found, perhaps they would now like to consider where precisely they can find the few million quid needed to bring Les Quennevais School up to date and fit for purpose.

That would be a far wiser investment, in the short, medium and long term, than would a protracted legal battle to keep dog walkers and tree huggers happy.

Looking through the list of voters

– who went which way – there are some very strange bedfellows indeed among both groups. Stranger than that, however, is the fact that Senator Alan Maclean missed the vote. Could it be that he was in a cold sweat somewhere, terrified in case his ring binder once again developed a mind of its own and decided to give the western parishes a town park of their very own?

AND finally … I see that the bully boys of Whitehall are at it again, and the distraction (from their own massive problems) this time is the demand for everything bar hat size and inside leg measurement to do with United Kingdom citizens who have bank accounts here.

Although I disagree with Sir Philip Bailhache on Plémont, I hold similar (and probably less polite) views to his about British demands that we touch forelocks.

No doubt this piece of news will please a couple of regular inhabitants of this newspaper’s letters columns – one who left and one who returned! I strongly suspect that their joint stance in putting the boot in to this place wherever possible stems as much from their own relationship with Jersey as it does from any high-minded economic philosophy.