CALL me a masochist if you like, but I do have a penchant for attending States sittings whenever there’s the chance of an interesting or controversial subject up for debate or discussion.

So, from the Public Gallery, I’ve become acquainted with the dynamics of the House.

I can identify which Honourable Members can fire a straight arrow; those who ask a cascade of oblique questions, tempted by the glow of the red microphone light and the lure of a soundbite in the next day’s JEP; those who suffer from chronic fact amnesia; and those whose powers of contorted oratory can empty the Chamber merely by standing up to deliver. I also have privileged information on which Members have a tendency to ‘rest their eyes’ deeply after 11.30 am and those who stow foil-wrapped biscuits and bundles of biros in their little wooden drawers.

If you discount patronage or megalomania, politicians generally stand for office on what they promise, not necessarily on experience. So imagine the dilemma if an enthusiastic, high-minded novice finds himself or herself thrust into the Assembly, freshly bathing in the glory of voter approbation, and then — under the current system of patronage — selected for a ministerial portfolio. Who’d dare turn it down? After all, it has to be an honour to be fingered by your peers.

Then the reality dawns. It’s your face that will appear alongside impossible and unpopular decisions. ‘Hanging out’ and ‘dry’ are words that come to mind. While anonymous civil servants will happily run the operation, you’ll be the one sniped at in the press, and there will be no friends in the House when the knives are out.

You’ll be the face of your department, and whatever muppetry they have delivered will end up on your facecloth. Of course, there’s always recourse to ‘operation sidestep’ to avoid putting your head above the parapet. ‘Don’t expect me to vote — I’m a pol-itician.’

Cleverly exercised, this will allow you to slide under scrutiny when the ‘content’ and ‘contre’ are counted.
Like Janus, Gemini and Libra of the astrological calendar, you can look both ways, achieve a balance and offend no one.

The luxury is called ‘abstention’, and in a party cookie-jar of 57 varieties, it’s used with consummate regularity by our Minister for Planning and Environment, who, with some justification, claims the conflicting focus of his ministerial portfolio.

But it means that the Chamber is deprived of his judgment, and, of course, it conveniently lets him off the hook.
And when you think about it, there aren’t really any robust mechanisms for holding our elected representatives to account. Put not your faith in a blunted Scrutiny apparatus crewed by their own shipmates.
Furthermore, without any form of party discipline, it’ll be a personal decision whether to do the decent thing when/if they’re rumbled or in the wrong.

So for the electorate, it’s a bit like saying ‘because I’ve had a bad experience with Jersey Gas, I’ll never use them again’. Fine, but where’s the sanction?

At least if you feel you’ve had a bad experience with gas fitters, you can claim some recompense, but what redress can be exacted from any blundering politician installed for four accountability-insulated years?

Now, if politicians can be ‘economic’ with their deliberation, voters cannot exactly claim the moral high ground. As we move closer to election time, the calls for greater public participation in the process will inevitably become more resonant.

Given the amount of vox populi braying about individual policies and decisions, you might expect that in a small community like ours, we would all be rushing to the ballot box to tell our elected representatives just what we thought of them. But that’s where the great disconnect appears. Last time, the overall turnout barely reached 30%. And no matter how trenchant the criticism, it appears little more than displacement activity.

In the ballot box confessional, voters demonstrate all the courage and perspicacity of a sheep pen. As a result, the threat dangled over any politician’s sinecure — that he or she can be seen off at the next election — rings about as hollow as the St Helier cavern during a summertime drought.

When it comes to image, and at the risk of summary incarceration in the Frank and Freddie Fortress on the St Heliersburg waterfront, it is impossible not to criticise the recent unseemly public falling out between senior members of the ministerial playpen. It may not have reached the level of a Prescott handshake, but it did nothing to enhance the reputation of those elected to high office. Nor did the rash of censure and no-confidence motions do anything to repair the damage. Let’s face it, had they all been voted out, we’d have been in an even bigger mess with chickens chasing any guillotine-resistant head.

Henry Kissinger — who knew a few in his time — wryly suggested that 90% of politicians give the other 10% a bad reputation. You have to believe that the majority of those who enter politics are positively motivated on behalf of their fellow citizens and are prepared to stand up and be counted. You don’t go into politics for an easy life, although there are indeed certain privileges to tempt the self-servers.

Maybe some do see the role as a full-time vocation, like the priesthood; others as a convenient cover for ‘bossing us all around’. But while we’ve witnessed a sea-change in the number of Members with experience in everyday affairs, there’s no denying the great gulf fixed between those on either side of the Members’ entrance in the Royal Square.
Of course, come the end of the year, this could all change. So will the real masochists please step forward?