From John de Carteret.
I HAVE never understood why the Jersey voting public are not actually prepared to vote real change into the States.

Over many years between elections the public will whinge and moan but always re-elect the vast majority of States Members back for a further term. We will see two or three new Senators and a few new Deputies who, once elected, forget all the election manifesto promises or even worse (as in most cases) find themselves completely out of their depth or join the establishment.

Politics is the relief of great motivation fused with drive for achievement and the challenge of debate, sometimes against impossible odds or so it seems at the time.

The lack of will to change by the public must either be apathy or we must assume that the population by and large are happy with our current States Members and their performance.

If we break it down, Jersey has about 7,500 States employees, they in turn have a partner or dependants (15,000), 3,000 on pensions (plus partners) equals 6,000 so we can safely say that over 20,000 people are doing very nicely thanks to the Jersey States. No criticism, good luck to them, they took the opportunities offered.

Added to this a large part of our population are pretty well-off compared to the UK and other parts of Europe. This together does not lend itself towards change.

The only active political party in Jersey at the moment is the Jersey Democratic Alliance, whose leadership while politically bright will not in my humble opinion carry the Island, especially in the country parishes, to elect enough new States Members to make change.

So that leaves us, I am afraid, some 16 weeks from a general election with no organised opposition and a sure bet that at the end of this year we will all be, as voters, looking forward to another three years of the same as we are getting now, perhaps even worse!

Many years ago I spent four months researching and two and a half hours on my feet in the States Chamber as a Senator trying to toughen up States policies in pay and employment in the public sector. I was defeated and soon afterwards met with the then Senator Cyril le Marquand. I asked him how does one get the States to get tough and change unacceptable practices which would not last five minutes in private enterprise? His reply was, ‘When they run out of money, John’.

Now is this what we are heading for because at the moment the practice seems to be tax and spend, but for how long?

Finally, it is good to see at least one States Member with the courage to declare publicly that ministerial government is not working. We all predicted that Clothier was a total package and that the States could not just pick the recommendations that suited them and leave the difficult and unpopular out. They did nevertheless and now it’s a bit like a lifeboat with three drain holes and one bung.

On a more humorous note, it would be good to know if the £90,000 granted some time ago to investigate the feasibility of producing Jersey potato vodka was extended to the 29 delegates who went to France to explore the possibility of building a bridge. I suppose so as the fleets of trucks could have used it to flood the market in Russia.
Olivet,
Rue de la Presse,
St Peter.