WELL, that’s the elections done and dusted for another three years and the people have spoken, although in this small rock’s case the majority of the people entitled to speak through the ballot box chose not to.

There are winners and losers in every contest – and how I wish young people leaving school and entering what is going to be an even more competitive job market were taught that, instead of being brought up in an ‘everyone gets a prize and you’re all top of the class’ culture – and if there were losers at close to midnight on Wednesday then it was the candidates, all of them.

I say that simply because they were let down, and badly let down, by the tens of thousands of people on the parishes’ electoral rolls who couldn’t be bothered to get off their backsides, put on a coat and trundle down to their polling stations.

There, if the one I attended is anything to go by, they’d have found a great atmosphere, some interesting people to talk or listen to (if they wanted to, but there was no obligation) and candidates who, by and large, had put themselves out considerably for their fellow members of society and were entitled to, rather than deserving of, a level of participation on the part of the electorate far greater than the one they all received.

So, as I have said since some of those then in the Big House years ago took it upon themselves to make substantial increases in voting registration (as distinct from actually encouraging voting) their principal political objective – until the next easy and popular cause came along, that is – please stop wasting my money on campaigns to increase numbers on the electoral rolls. It is wasteful and my money and your energy (not to mention what you are paid for) would be better spent addressing the very real problems we will all face during the three years until the next round of elections.

I hope someone called Tony O’Neill read the bit I’ve just written about ‘the very real problems we will all face during the next three years’ because if I know anything about the Jersey public I reckon he is going to face more than the average bloke in the street.

Mr O’Neill is the chief executive of Sandpiper CI – it used to be called Le Riches and Ann Street Brewery (not to mention Le Brun’s Bakery) and then Channel Island Traders until someone decided otherwise – and in what may well become his very own personal 100 per cent, 24-carat Gerald Ratner moment he probably blew that part of his bonus which relates to the performance of the Marks & Spencer franchise held by his outfit.

I actually hope that’s the case because rarely have I read such an arrogantly dismissive statement as his ‘there’s no recession in Jersey so there’s no need for desperate tactics’ response to complaints that a national 20 per cent discount day applied only to Marks & Spencer stores in the United Kingdom.

It was arrogant because it demonstrated how far removed this chief executive is from the real world – as probably experienced by shelf fillers his organisation employs – where the effects of a downturn in business is apparent to everyone else but him, and it was dismissive because it demonstrated how little he understands about Jersey consumers and not only their shopping habits but also the length of their memories.

If he has any doubt about that, all I can do is refer him to what a now elderly lady did very many years ago when Le Riches took over the Orviss stores in Beresford Street. I know her because she used the same chap on the counter – Ray Gallichan, as it happens – as did my mother and grandmother.

She vowed then that she would never set foot in a Le Riches store again and she’s kept true to her word. A word of warning, Mr O’Neill, potentially there are thousands like her. Think on that when next you contemplate a Ratner prawn sandwich or how to face up to real competition when the Alliance outfit from Guernsey set up here, as they probably will.

I have a measure of sympathy for the correspondent who claimed the British Government had stolen her family’s life savings – money which, in part, had been put aside for their children’s university fees. However, and setting aside for a moment the serious allegation against Gordon Brown and Co of theft, my sympathy wanes ever so slightly when I read that the life savings of a presumably Jersey family – and I draw no distinction between native and resident – have been deposited in an Isle of Man bank.

I haven’t even bothered to inquire how many banks there are registered in these 45 square miles – Herself said that she could look it up on her computer if necessary – but it must run into dozens. To this simple country boy, that begs an obvious question – why put the contents of the biscuit tin under the bed into a bank hundreds of miles away when there are so many on our doorstep?

The answer of course, and despite possible protestations to the contrary I believe it to be the sole answer, is that the one hundreds of miles away was paying a few bob a year more in interest than could be obtained locally, something which for the likes of me makes all sorts of bells ring. I have another question. What if a bank in Nigeria, say, offers three times what the Isle of Man one offered? Where’s the cut-off point, either geographically or financially?

And finally … Having read the words and heard it being sung, congratulations to Gerard Le Feuvre for the anthem. Not only is it a street better than Sarnia Cherie, it should also be compulsory learning in every single school in Jersey. After the battering we’ve had this year, pride is great.