JERSEY’S beloved politicians are on day 13 of their 51-day summer recess, and I say good luck to them.

After three weeks of frenetic mammoth sittings, finishing all the business they should have put to bed months ago and spending far too many hours on pointless debates, who are we, the mere public of Jersey, to deny them such a well-earned rest?

Unfortunately, our leaders will still have to put in a few hours. There are departments to be run, civil servants to keep busy, planning applications to approve, constituency matters to deal with and parish meetings and business to attend to.

The ministerial holiday rota designed to ensure that when a minister is away, assistants ministers are on watch – and vice-versa – should keep the government ticking over while Jersey drops down a gear or two for Les Grandes Vacances. Just as Parisians flee the city every August, life in Jersey slows to an agreeable pace as thousands of Islanders pack a suitcase or two and head off on the traditional summer holiday.

A fair proportion of politicians will be among them. Gin palaces and yachts will be making full steam for France or more exotic destinations as reports and green papers may be found rolled in hotel towels reserving sun-loungers the length and breadth of the Mediterranean.

For some States Members it could be their last summer recess, either from choice or from the political lottery that is the democratic election process, because if the fickle electorate don’t tick their boxes they are out of a job. Forty-seven of the 53 members face imminent re-election – the Senators and Constables on 15 October and the Deputies on
26 November.

These elections will give Islanders the opportunity to express an opinion on how the Island has been run under the new system of ministerial government. And with four members of the Council of Ministers seeking re-election – Deputy Guy de Faye (Transport), and Senators Paul Routier (Social Security), Mike Vibert (Education, Sport and Culture) and Philip Ozouf (Economic Development) – there will be plenty of scope for voters to speak their minds.

Jersey’s first Chief Minister, Frank Walker, will be quitting politics this year. How will he and his ministerial colleagues be remembered? Moreover, with a tad more than four months left till the end of this House in December, and precious few States sittings in between, there is very little time for the Council of Ministers to do something really special to redeem their standing in public eyes and to inspire the people to believe that ministerial government is any better than what went on in the past.

Do they want to be remembered for the increasingly unpopular GST, a flying golden banana, the waterfront débâcle, embarrassing national press conferences or arbitrary decisions which fly in the face of open democratic government?
As Senator Walker looks forward to a life outside the goldfish bowl of Island politics, he must be pondering his personal political legacy, apart from going down in history as Jersey’s first Chief Minister.

American presidents establish libraries and play endless rounds of golf; former Soviet heads of State got the honour of lying close to Lenin in Red Square once they passed this mortal coil; and British Prime Ministers publish memoirs and hit the lucrative lecture trail. No such glory for Jersey’s political élite, other than a new lease of life once free from the procrastinations of Charlie Chuckle’s Laughter Factory.

No one can doubt the Senator’s and his fellow ministers’ sense of pride in Jersey – they bang on about it ad infinitum. What we ordinary mortals want is action, not words, and there is one thing the council could do that would be very special: buy Plémont holiday camp for the people of Jersey and return the headland to nature.

What better permanent monument to the first Council of Ministers? Like the American presidential tribute at Mount Rushmore (but please, spare us the carved heads).

The States have a tradition of buying land for the public of Jersey, even when it has planning consent – something the Plémont site does not yet enjoy, following the recent bold decision by Planning Minister Freddie Cohen to reject an application to replace the camp with 36 houses.

In 1985 the site of the old Bouley Bay Hotel was acquired and as recently as 2001 the House agreed to pay £800,000 for the former Bal Tab site above St Ouen’s Bay. Plémont may be worth far more, but as with the two previous cases of preventing areas of outstanding beauty being ruined by development, the owner is not adverse to doing a deal – if the price is right.

Jersey resident and multi-millionaire businessman Trevor Hemmings, whose family-run business owns the derelict property, responded to Senator Cohen’s refusal by making it clear that he intended to fight for his right to build on the land, whether that involved courts or not. However, he has also made it equally clear that he is not adverse to doing a deal in cash or kind, if it matched the investment potential. This could be somewhere between £5 and £7 million.

If not a direct cash deal or a land swap, why not give the Hemmings family a tax break over an agreed period until the value is met? Or use the profit from the Waterfront developments to save Plémont, thereby redressing the ruination of St Helier’s traditional maritime frontage by preserving the outstanding location on the north coast, if not the entire Island.

Senator Walker repeatedly says he wants to keep Jersey special and he would prefer to see the Plémont headland restored to nature. I do not question his sincerity. In the little time he and the Council of Ministers have in office, wouldn’t it be wonderful if he could put those words into action?

If he doesn’t, is there a champion out there, a sitting politician or an election candidate willing to take up the challenge?