By Anne Southern
Forgive me if I seem a bit weird at the moment. I’ve just left hospital with a shiny new knee, and an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world keeps intruding on my miasma of pain and painkillers in ways that would make sense if I were hallucinating – though I fear it is all too real.
Why have I had three calls from the bank’s fraud team when I tried to transfer money to another bank? One call would be admirable vigilance – two for extra security, even though I had forewarned them of my intended transaction. But the third call, in my post-op haze, looked like carelessness.
Then there’s the matter of the bats. We’re trying to get permission for a loft conversion, but we had to have our property inspected to see if any bats were going to be disturbed – fair enough. But now we have to have further, and eye-wateringly expensive, surveys done to see if any of the bats flitting about our garden this summer will notice what a des res we are offering and decide to take up residence. I’ve nothing against bats; we do our best to make our garden hospitable to wildlife, though, to be honest, I’d rather be able to house Ukrainians. But can’t we just incorporate a luxury bat hotel into the design and have done with it?
So what I hear about some people’s voting intentions are just part of this crazy reality I’m living in. The least logical statement is people saying they’re not going to vote. Surely it is better to vote for the candidate who most closely represents your views, even if in some cases it is about choosing the least worst option. I know that in many districts I would find it hard to use all my votes for candidates I found acceptable, but I would still vote for the one or two whom I really wanted.
This protest is often linked to the lack of the Senators. But what is the advantage of an all-Island vote? People are complaining that their favoured candidate (or one whom they really want rid of) may be standing in a district where they can’t vote, but this has always been the case. Of course there are certain ministers whom you may wish to spurn, or return, but ministers were not always Senators. In the last Assembly, the Treasury, Environment and Health ministers were all Deputies. There is an assumption that the Chief Minister would be a Senator, but this will not necessarily be the case. The last poll topper, Tracey Vallois, was briefly Education Minister but resigned when she felt she was disregarded, and Kristina Moore, who came second, received no ministerial post. The ability to vote for Senators has no bearing on who will hold the reins of power. There might have been a point to them when they sat for two terms of office, with half the Senators remaining in place to provide continuity– but those days, with government by the committee system, are long gone.
Joined-up and efficient ministerial government depends on political parties, with the leader of the most successful party becoming Chief Minister. This is the only way in which your vote can contribute to the choice of the most powerful member of the Assembly, and the policies that are put in place. A ministerial team that has a majority in the House can begin to implement their manifesto from day one, without the negotiations and jostling for power that would result in no action or direction of travel being established for six months. It’s a shame that so few people can see this, and a shame that so many still want pick-and-mix independents – bloke A because you went to school with him, Miss B because she’s a woman, C because they live in my parish, and/or are a ‘safe pair of hands’ and/or will shake them up a bit.
Look at their manifestos. They believe this, and support that, and think we must do the other, but without any hope of being able to achieve anything much unless they become ministers. A backbencher can sometimes get a proposition accepted if it is obviously advantageous, and an energetic grouping even more so, but usually the Council of Ministers holds sway.
It is a shame that no political party will have the numbers to form a government this time. The best we can hope for is that one of them will be a clear winner, so their leader can claim the support to be Chief Minister and recruit enough like-minded independents to support their manifesto and form an administration with a clear direction of travel. I would love to emerge from my fug and find that sense had prevailed, and we had a government with some joined-up thinking and a clear plan of action.
