YOU don’t have to read the JEP too closely to figure out that reporters get things wrong from time to time – hint: the clues are normally around 50 words long, appear under the heading ‘correction’ and end with the words ‘The error is regretted.’

But I’ll hold up my hand – I had no idea that the 2000 Clothier Report would turn into an election issue. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, not because I think the system is perfect, but because the debates are just about the worst thing that can happen in the States Chamber.

I can’t even bring myself to work out whether it’s three or four times that I’ve sat through week-long debates on reform – but the sum total has been that Constables can step down to bring their terms in line with each other.
But only if they want to. Anyway, it brings up a question: who decides what the election issues are?

One of the jobs of candidates, beyond presenting themselves to voters and explaining what they will do and how they stand out from the pack, is assessing what issues the public want to hear about. And it’s probably not that easy a job.

OK, we all know that GST and population are going to be the two key factors in the 2008 elections. But you can’t really build an election platform on just two issues.

It’s filling in the other stuff that’s the tricky bit – some candidates have gone for the new incinerator, some have gone for electoral reform, and some have gone for tourism.

In 2005 it was largely the candidates who promised to reduce States spending who won out in the Senatorial elections. Since then, incidentally, spending has increased way in excess of inflation – but that’s another story.
The only time you really find out what the issues were is once the votes are in, and you can see who made it.

If the Clothier Report – and its recommendations to reduce the size of the States, axe Senators and Constables and remove the Bailiff – does turn out to be one of the big issues, and the candidates who promote it do end up getting elected, where will that leave the rest of the States Chamber who have pointedly ignored it for the last eight years?

Of course, the one thing that eager States Members did grab out of the Clothier Report was the big finding – the move to ministerial government. And after three years in office, Economic Development Minister Philip Ozouf, Education Minister Mike Vibert and Social Security Minister Paul Routier are at the sharp end of elections that could turn out to be a referendum on the ministerial system.

And that’s slapped great big bullseye targets on them. They got a pretty rough ride in St Mary – although they and their supporters were very indignant when that’s how we reported it the following day – but it will be interesting to see how they get on come 15 October.

If they all get in, I guess you can assume everything’s rosy in the garden. But if two of three of them get voted out, then it raises real questions about how Islanders have taken to the ministerial reform.

The ministers and their prominent detractors are a pretty vocal bunch. But altogether they only amount to around a hundred or so people. It’s how the vast majority of Islanders – most of whom have far better things to do than Jersey politics – react that really matters, and this election is the first real test of that.

Some time ago, Deputy Sean Power broke his cover as the Hardest Man In The States by getting from Baltimore to Jersey with a broken leg and no medical attention. I’m so scared of him that I wrote about it.

But apparently, people haven’t been showing him enough respect – particularly in the St Brelade No 2 district that he represents. Here’s a direct quote from a press release he sent out announcing that he would be a candidate for re-election (do you think it’s exactly what he meant?): ‘I have been involved in fighting and representing many parishioners in all sorts of issues.’

Right, that’s it. I don’t know who you are, but I’m on to you. Oh yes. You picked the wrong twisted malcontent to mess with, my friend, and all your connections at the Football Association and the Constable’s Committee aren’t going to be able to get you out of this. No. You’re going to pay.

I guess that you took last week’s column, ‘Coincidence or conspiracy – you decide’, as a challenge. I had a suspicion that you were out there, weaving some dark plot. And I was right. So not only do you schedule Chelsea matches on the 2005 election night, and the 2008 nomination night, but you went and did it again on the night of the Senatorial hustings meeting in St Mary last week.
I’m on to you, pal. You’re going down.