From Cliff Le Clercq.
FOLLOWING your publication of my letter of 30 July, I have received requests to expand on my ideas for improving the way we are led.
The reliance on the integrity or leanings of individuals to deliver fairness and good governance is clearly not working. The myriad political clangers and complaints bear this out and, although the old system was imperfect it was able to apply a handbrake effect on extremes.
In a new system, a constitution would set a standard and allow openness.
We have been asked to believe in deals being done behind closed doors and elitist cronies who won’t share information with the people’s other elected representatives. If the cry for transparency goes unheard only worse will come.
Some of our leaders speak of democratic freedom and choice but do not trust the common man with self government. They have perfected the illusion that voters determine their destiny while creating mechanisms for altering that destiny to suit their own agendas. Yes, it is easy to be an armchair critic, but we daily watch people we trusted with our votes hopping on and off boards of banks and directors of boards and cartels playing hide and seek all in the name of representing Joe Public. We need fresh blood, some rules to play by and a change we can actually believe in  rather than being conned again. There is an old saying which goes: ‘If you don’t stand for something … you’ll fall for anything’.
The following, if implemented, would, I believe, go some way to allow us to stand in dignity and serve as a protection against political skulduggery, both now and for our children, so that the most vexing political and social issues of the day can be  resolved in confidence and the outcome will be consistent with justice and freedom. I cannot claim credit for it. Anyone familiar with the classical treatises on freedom will be familiar with the principles which are offered as a suggestion and are from some of the greatest thinkers and writers of the past. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
-I believe that only individuals have rights, not the collective group, that these rights are intrinsic to each individual, not granted by the state, for if the state has the power to grant them, it also has the power to deny them, which is incompatible to personal liberty.
-I believe that a just government derives its power solely from the governed. Therefore the state must never presume to do anything beyond what individual citizens also have the right to do, otherwise the state is a power unto itself and becomes the master instead of the servant of society.
-I believe that one of the greatest threats to freedom is to allow any group, no matter its numeric superiority, to deny the rights of the minority and that one of the primary functions of just government is to protect each individual from the greed and passion of the majority.
-I believe that desirable social and economic objectives are better achieved by voluntary action than by coercion of law.
-I believe that social tranquillity and brotherhood are better achieved by tolerance, persuasion and the power of good example, than by coercion of law.
-I believe that all citizens should be equal under the law regardless of race, religion, gender, education, political opinion or economic status. Likewise, no class should be given preferential treatment regardless of the merit or popularity of its cause, to favour one class over another is not equality under law.
-I believe in the the proper role of government. That government is best that governs least. Clearly far too many senseless rules and regulations stifle trade and choke creativity and for years we had nonsense like you couldn’t hire a video on a Sunday or buy flowers. These stupidities were allowed to inconvenience people for the longest time. Not very important in the big scheme of things you might say, but it is the very mechanism that allows and causes such ludicrous nonsense that needs sorting.
The latest story concerning a majority of so called growth-supporting properties being sold outside the Island, when it is claimed that the finance sector needs more units, when we all know it is about profit and greed.
Now fuel prices are rising frighteningly. In cost of living terms, local government can’t help that but in the same week that over £100 million was spent on a questionable incinerator, a new type of waste disposal came out that produces 90 litres of ethanol fuel per single ton of waste. Will we now back-pedal and get one? The taxpayer is, in reality, paying people to actually impede him or her and the time for change is upon us.
6 Westview, Rue des Cosnets, St Ouen.