IT must be an awful long time since Don Filleul first dipped his toe in the often dirty water of politics but if his recent letter about the possible future of the Haut de la Garenne building is anything to go by, he’s lost little of his ability to spot a possible deal on the horizon.
His plea for the building to be returned to its immediate past use as a youth hostel once the police have released it echoes one I made when it was first suggested that Haut de la Garenne should be demolished.
As Mr Filleul points out, what good would that do other than to deprive those who might have enjoyed a holiday there – and many of those (of all ages, I understand) would probably not be able to afford to stay elsewhere in the Island – from doing so?
The danger for people like Mr Filleul, and me, if it comes to that, is that by not swimming along with the tide of emotion that this investigation has unleashed we run the risk of being accused of all sorts of things by some people, not least that we are in some way contemptuous of the feelings of victims. As far as I am concerned, and I’m sure Mr Filleul feels the same, nothing could be further from the truth.
Indeed, so wrapped up in political correctness have some people (and organisations) become that I sometimes think that if journalists fall into the age-old trap of describing a stolen bike as ‘a black man’s bicycle’ instead of a man’s black bicycle, they will be hauled up before some court or tribunal accused of racism.
If I can be accused of being ‘a nasty little bigot’ because I express the wish that people being recruited to the police force have an excellent command of the English language – after all, people’s liberty often depends on what they are alleged to have said to the police – then it seems to me that we are not that many light years away from such star chambers.
I have probably disagreed with Don Filleul’s views more than I have agreed with them, and particularly so over the flooding of Queen’s Valley. That said, I have never doubted his sincerity and still believe that he is the best Constable St Helier never had. It may surprise him but on this occasion I totally agree with the contents of his letter and, furthermore, if his forecast of cheque books being at the ready to turn the building into another Radisson is accurate then we really do need to know what the Prime Minister and his Cabinet have planned for the building.
After all, they must have discussed its future unless they’ve spent the last few months doing nothing but contemplate either retirement or re-election.

While on the subject of elections, I read with interest, and some considerable dismay, the letter published recently from Trevor Pitman. Leaving to one side the emotive rhetoric about the collective dimwittedness of the electorate, I have to say that I am appalled by his disclosures about the barriers being put up to make life difficult for public employees to stand for office.
Mr Pitman claims, and who am I to doubt him, to have been told that if he wishes to stand for election he must not only take time off during the campaign – which he does not appear to argue with – but it must be unpaid leave. In other words, he cannot use the time to which he is legally entitled as holidays and nor can he use time owing to him because of the extra hours he has worked.
Quite frankly, that is outrageous. My interpretation of the ruling that the States ‘can’t have individuals campaigning for election while on the public payroll’ is that what that lot in the Big House (or the high-salaried minions employed by them) have said is that if a public employee wishes to stand for election then effectively they must give up their job. That is because in this context the difference between paid and unpaid leave – according to them – means just that.
I can fully understand, and actually support, the view that a person cannot be a States Member and a public employee at the same time, simply because it gives rise to all sorts of problems and potential conflicts. But this is not about that. This, in this simple country boy’s view, is about a real interference with someone’s human rights and not some idiotic claim made by a tree-hugging pinkoe hoping to make a few quid in compensation, and probably on legal aid to boot.
Having read what I earlier described as the emotive rhetoric in Mr Pitman’s letter, the cynical and deeply suspicious side of me strongly suspects that he is perhaps ‘known’ among those in the corridors of power to have somewhat forthright views and is not afraid of expressing them.
There’s nothing wrong with that, Mr Pitman. I’ve been doing it for more years than I care to remember. The trouble is, my fellow bolshie crapaud, that you don’t even have to open your mouth or put pen to paper without someone (usually in authority over you) claiming to know exactly what you’re thinking. Yet again, it seems to me, more notice has been taken of who is saying what, rather than what is being said. The sooner this unfair and idiotic ruling is overturned, the better.

And finally, Ruth Nelson, bless her at 90-plus, summed it up, asking the latest ‘interventionist’: ‘Who do you think you are, Esther Rantzen?’