STATES Members took to last week’s four-day States sitting with all the decorum, emotional maturity and restrained calm of a screaming toddler on a long-haul flight.
Maybe it was the fact that it was the last sitting before September, maybe it was the rapidly approaching elections or maybe it was the curious list of subjects which included election expense caps, lifting the ban on bull semen imports and building homes for the elderly in green fields.
Predictably, it was the election expenses proposal that caused the most problems.
The proposals are fairly straightforward – setting spending limits of around £6,000 for Senatorial elections, and between £2,500 and £1,600 for candidates in Deputy campaigns.
They also ban anonymous donations of over £100, and force candidates to declare the value of any help they get from supporters.
The point being that if you’re a lot richer than your opponents, you can afford leaflet mailouts, adverts and posters that they can’t, and that’s not fair.
Pretty innocuous stuff, no?
‘These rules won’t work!’ bellowed Deputy Guy de Faye.
‘These are unscrutinised triennial regulations!’ shrieked Senator Philip Ozouf.
‘No one’s going to police it!’ roared Deputy Geoff Southern.
‘The proposals are full of holes!’ blasted Senator Terry Le Sueur.
The fact that the rules on election expenses got Senator Ozouf and Deputy Southern – who would generally appear happy to argue all week about what day it was when they started – to agree on something, tells a little story all of its own.
But the fact that States Members, some of whom were perfectly happy to levy a GST tax that no one wanted and that they had big enough surpluses lined up to make entirely redundant anyway, would pick holes in new rules on election expenses tells you just about everything you need to know about the States and how far in tune they are with public opinion.
Are the rules perfect? No.
Are there holes in them? Sure.
Will they have an effect on the elections? Probably.
But is it better to have something in place than nothing? Of course it is.
The amusing interlude in the election expenses debacle was Deputy Pat Ryan’s Corporate Services Scrutiny panel’s ‘will they/won’t they’ dance around whether they were going to stall the debate for a month to carry out a review.
They decided they would on the basis that the law could be debated at the next States sitting on 8 September, so it would come into force on the day of the nomination meeting for Senators and Constables on the 15th.
Then Attorney General William Bailhache chimed in to say that he would not count any money spent before the law came into force towards the totals -– meaning that as long as candidates signed cheques before the 15th, they could spend as much as they wanted.
Under what could be politely be described as ‘pressure’ from his States colleagues, Deputy Ryan relented, cancelled the review, and the debate went ahead.
The Deputy’s panel have been the success story of Scrutiny over the last two-and-a-half years, and they have normally been timely, balanced and efficient.
But if you had been standing in the right place in the Royal Square during the lunchbreak that day, you’d have been able to hear two people in a position to know what they were talking about saying that a) the panel didn’t have an officer free to do the work required, and that b) they didn’t have the time anyway.
On the subject of campaigning, the election expenses debate saw Member after Member loudly extolling the virtues of ‘going door to door and meeting the electorate’.
I’ve been on the electoral roll (in three different parishes at various times) since 1999.
In all that time, I have never once had a politician knock on my door during an election campaign.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.
But one of the Members who was so vociferously talking up his/her record of going out and meeting every voter and knocking on every door represents my district.
So I guess someone’s telling porkies…
So anyway, I had a month off from work. Didn’t read the paper, didn’t watch the news, didn’t talk to any States Members.
Put briefly, it was brilliant.
I felt recharged, refreshed and reinvigorated.
So how long did it take to wear off?
Exactly one day and 97 minutes. Because 97 minutes is exactly how long it took Tuesday’s States sitting to be suspended under the inquorate rule because Members found the coffee room and their e-mails more exciting than what was going on in the Chamber.
Without labouring the point about the inquoracy rule, there have to be 24 Members in the Assembly to carry out public business.
That’s 24 out of 53. And what that means is that a majority of our States Members have an attention span slightly longer than a football match. Great.
A dilemma - on Friday I saw a politician break the law. Not a big law, granted, I’m not talking about a murder or a carjacking.
But, by coincidence, it’s a law I’ve seen this same politician breaking before. And it’s a law that another Member – a minister no less – once advised me to break (unsuccessfully I might add).
So the dilemma is this – what do I do? Do I keep this guilty secret, or do I grass him/her up?
Answers on the back of a postcard, e-mail or web comment please.
A Week in Politics
STATES Members took to last week’s four-day States sitting with all the decorum, emotional maturity and restrained calm of a screaming toddler on a long-haul flight.
Maybe it was the fact that it was the last sitting before September, maybe it was the rapidly approaching elections or maybe it was the curious list of subjects which included election expense caps, lifting the ban on bull semen imports and building homes for the elderly in green fields.
Predictably, it was the election expenses proposal that caused the most problems.
The proposals are fairly straightforward – setting spending limits of around £6,000 for Senatorial elections, and between £2,500 and £1,600 for candidates in Deputy campaigns.
They also ban anonymous donations of over £100, and force candidates to declare the value of any help they get from supporters.
The point being that if you’re a lot richer than your opponents, you can afford leaflet mailouts, adverts and posters that they can’t, and that’s not fair.
Pretty innocuous stuff, no?
‘These rules won’t work!’ bellowed Deputy Guy de Faye.
‘These are unscrutinised triennial regulations!’ shrieked Senator Philip Ozouf.
‘No one’s going to police it!’ roared Deputy Geoff Southern.
‘The proposals are full of holes!’ blasted Senator Terry Le Sueur.
The fact that the rules on election expenses got Senator Ozouf and Deputy Southern – who would generally appear happy to argue all week about what day it was when they started – to agree on something, tells a little story all of its own.
But the fact that States Members, some of whom were perfectly happy to levy a GST tax that no one wanted and that they had big enough surpluses lined up to make entirely redundant anyway, would pick holes in new rules on election expenses tells you just about everything you need to know about the States and how far in tune they are with public opinion.
Are the rules perfect? No.
Are there holes in them? Sure.
Will they have an effect on the elections? Probably.
But is it better to have something in place than nothing? Of course it is.
The amusing interlude in the election expenses debacle was Deputy Pat Ryan’s Corporate Services Scrutiny panel’s ‘will they/won’t they’ dance around whether they were going to stall the debate for a month to carry out a review.
They decided they would on the basis that the law could be debated at the next States sitting on 8 September, so it would come into force on the day of the nomination meeting for Senators and Constables on the 15th.
Then Attorney General William Bailhache chimed in to say that he would not count any money spent before the law came into force towards the totals -– meaning that as long as candidates signed cheques before the 15th, they could spend as much as they wanted.
Under what could be politely be described as ‘pressure’ from his States colleagues, Deputy Ryan relented, cancelled the review, and the debate went ahead.
The Deputy’s panel have been the success story of Scrutiny over the last two-and-a-half years, and they have normally been timely, balanced and efficient.
But if you had been standing in the right place in the Royal Square during the lunchbreak that day, you’d have been able to hear two people in a position to know what they were talking about saying that a) the panel didn’t have an officer free to do the work required, and that b) they didn’t have the time anyway.
On the subject of campaigning, the election expenses debate saw Member after Member loudly extolling the virtues of ‘going door to door and meeting the electorate’.
I’ve been on the electoral roll (in three different parishes at various times) since 1999.
In all that time, I have never once had a politician knock on my door during an election campaign.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining.
But one of the Members who was so vociferously talking up his/her record of going out and meeting every voter and knocking on every door represents my district.
So I guess someone’s telling porkies…
So anyway, I had a month off from work. Didn’t read the paper, didn’t watch the news, didn’t talk to any States Members.
Put briefly, it was brilliant.
I felt recharged, refreshed and reinvigorated.
So how long did it take to wear off?
Exactly one day and 97 minutes. Because 97 minutes is exactly how long it took Tuesday’s States sitting to be suspended under the inquorate rule because Members found the coffee room and their e-mails more exciting than what was going on in the Chamber.
Without labouring the point about the inquoracy rule, there have to be 24 Members in the Assembly to carry out public business.
That’s 24 out of 53. And what that means is that a majority of our States Members have an attention span slightly longer than a football match. Great.
A dilemma - on Friday I saw a politician break the law. Not a big law, granted, I’m not talking about a murder or a carjacking.
But, by coincidence, it’s a law I’ve seen this same politician breaking before. And it’s a law that another Member – a minister no less – once advised me to break (unsuccessfully I might add).
So the dilemma is this – what do I do? Do I keep this guilty secret, or do I grass him/her up?
Answers on the back of a postcard, e-mail or web comment please.
Article posted on 21st July, 2008 - 3.00pm