Most – and least – talkative politicians revealed

IT’S often said that some politicians love the sound of their own voice… and now we know exactly how much.

New data has revealed who yaps the most (and who is the least talkative) in Jersey’s States Assembly, with one States Member clocking nearly 350,000 words – the equivalent of reading JRR Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring aloud twice over.

Top chatterbox was St Brelade’s Deputy Montfort Tadier, who has made 1,405 ‘contributions’ in this States Assembly term since being re-elected in 2022, while St Ouen Constable Richard Honeycombe sat in serene silence at the bottom of the list, speaking in the States Chamber on just nine occasions and uttering 1,019 words in total.

This marks a difference in contributions of over 15,000% between the two Members.

Ranked by participation in Assembly votes, however, St Helier Deputy Steve Ahier took pole position (466 votes cast) while at the bottom of the list was St Lawrence Constable Deidre Mezbourian (266).

The stats come from a new tool created by St Clement representative Deputy Alex Curtis called ‘digitalStates’, which he says is designed to make Hansard – the official name for States Assembly meeting transcripts – more accessible.

“I’m finding a lot of people are using it to search for those little nuggets [of Hansard] that are how they hold people to account or understand what was said,” he continued.

“It also means that in the run-up to the election there is a tool now so that the public can quickly see, for the last three years, what their States Members have said – or not – as the case may be.”

Deputy Curtis explained that the software to process the Hansard PDFs and turn them into a database had taken “hundreds of hours to write”.

“There’s a lot of data that people can now access that they couldn’t before.”

Acknowledging his own 21st place ranking on the contributions list, Deputy Curtis said: “I don’t think I really want to be on the top or the bottom – I would rather be known for the quality of what I say.”