Don't panic, Chief Minister. Take your time and do it your way

THERE is a reason why Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’ consistently tops polls to find Britain’s favourite poem. It strikes a stirring chord with more or less anyone who has ever done more or less anything and, right now, its famous first line should be of particular comfort to Jersey’s new Chief Minister, for all about him there are people losing their heads and blaming it on him.

Senator John Le Fondré might also take heart from the immortal advice of Corporal Jones: Don’t panic!

That, it seems, is exactly what his rivals and detractors would be happy for him to do. Within days of his convincing victory in the election for the top job in Jersey politics, the sniping began in what has since begun to look increasingly like an orchestrated campaign to undermine his authority before he gets a chance to exercise it in refreshing new ways.

First there was the knee-jerk outrage at his early decision to strike an agreement with the left wing of the new States Assembly. As scandals go ‘Politician makes deal with other politicians and fails to shout about it’ is not exactly Watergate but it was greeted with opportunistic howls from quarters curiously silent about the previous six years of government behind closed doors.

What’s more, the critics of this slight tactical clumsiness under pressure were missing the far more important point of his deal with Reform Jersey, which is that the government of Senator Le Fondré set out from the start to promote a new spirit of unity and consensus. To continue the White House theme and bowdlerise a pertinent quote from LBJ, he wanted the Island’s only registered political party (so far) inside the tent looking out and not outside the tent looking in. With the experience of a dozen years or so of the divisive and unresponsive ministerial system behind us, who would argue with his thinking?

And then along came Senator Kristina Moore, a politically ambitious member of the old Council of Ministers obliged to content herself for the time being with a reduced role chairing the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel. There are plenty of complex, important issues that body could choose to examine but her first target was Senator Le Fondré himself, with a scornful attack on the non-appearance of a fully formed policy agenda for his Council of Ministers on Day One.

This outburst managed to miss any number of points, not least that the new Chief Minister has inherited a mind-boggling mess from his predecessor, of whose arrogantly out-of-touch regime Senator Moore was a leading member. It will take a long time just to pinpoint and prioritise what needs fixing first, let alone to work out how.

Senator Le Fondré has the right to take that time, up to a reasonable limit. It was conferred on him first by the all-Island electorate on 16 May and then by his fellow States Members when the new House convened and invited incumbent Chief Minister Ian Gorst to rethink his future, along with the many members of his cabinet who had already jumped rather than risk the push.

An honourable exception in that exodus was former External Relations Minister Sir Philip Bailhache, whose principled but unsuccessful stand against Senator Gorst’s assault on political accountability under the guise of public-sector reform was a shining light on a dismal day in a demob-happy States Chamber just before the general election, and who had more than earned his retirement after almost half a century of public service.

The Chief Minister will probably have to endure, or ideally ignore, more of the carping that has formed a background buzz to his first low-key weeks in office, some of it from other politicians, some from business lobbyists ever vigilant for exploitable signs of weakness.

He’s too quiet. He has no plan. He has failed to ‘hit the ground running’ or some other such piece of corporate cheerleading jargon.

Based on his past record, John Le Fondré’s best friend would not describe him as an inspiring leader. It may even turn out that he is merely keeping the seat warm for the 2022 showdown between Senators Kristina Moore and Tracey Vallois, and possibly dark horse Susie Pinel, to become Jersey’s first female Chief Minister.

On the other hand, similar things were said about such quiet men as Clement Attlee and John Major, now widely recognised among the best of Britain’s peacetime prime ministers, and the Jersey public is long overdue the relief of a similar change of political style.

Let’s give Senator Le Fondré the benefit of the doubt and, instead of worrying about the absence of any premature grandstanding, welcome the probability that he is thinking long and hard about the way ahead before plunging deeper into the jungle of overpopulation, creaking infrastructure, nerve-shredding traffic congestion, disastrous medical waiting lists, rising poverty, inadequate skills training and succession planning, widening social divisions, unaffordable housing, unfair tax policies and looming public debt for generations to come. And that’s just for starters.

As a St Lawrence Deputy, John Le Fondré has already been in the States for 12 years or so but for several reasons, including a Treasury spat with ex-Senator Philip Ozouf, comes late to executive office. He may take some time to locate the levers of power, especially as most of them have been shuffled, disguised and handed to unelected civil servants in a disgraceful parting act of anti-democratic hooliganism by his predecessor.

Like the rest of the new States Assembly, only more so, he has also had to deal with the consequences of moving the elections from the autumn to the spring. The change might have been well intentioned but the long politically inactive gaps either side of the election campaign, the first a legal requirement and the other caused by the imminence of the summer recess, created a gaping open goal for Senator Gorst and new States chief officer Charlie Parker to exploit as their ill-considered power grab was first forced through a supine States Assembly and then refined while the political classes were looking the other way.

Probably no one would dispute the desirability of improving Jersey’s public services and financial oversight, as Mr Parker has so theatrically set out to do. However, anyone with the slightest concern for the principles of democratic representation must surely hope that the new Chief Minister’s first job will be to identify any points at which Mr Parker has exceeded his mandated authority by taking political decisions as well as administrative ones or, to put it another way, might be forcing Jersey’s elected representatives to tailor their political activities to the tune of his radically and confusingly restructured civil service. The first major test of Senator Le Fondré’s authority will then be how effectively he can insist that, in Jersey at least, the elected dog still wags the unelected tail.

For a number of reasons, the 2018 elections promise a significant break with the remote, dogmatically business-centred government style of the past. That can happen only if Jersey’s senior policymakers insist on being more and not less accessible, open and receptive to all members of the public, if necessary dismantling any part of Mr Parker’s unilateral revolution likely to get in the way.

The chances of that actually happening will start to become clearer after 11 September, when the States resume and Senator Le Fondré rises to answer Questions to the Chief Minister.

As with the rest of his daunting brief, he should hold his nerve and do it his way. Jersey has had more than enough of the alternative approach.