LONG debates bring out the worst in States Members. Take Transport Minister Mike Jackson, for example. He’s not a particularly mean or vicious man — certainly less so than some of his colleagues in the Chamber.

So it was a little surprising to hear him come out with this: ‘He seems to think we should all revert to living in caves and wearing animal skins. With all due respect, the Deputy has gone stark, raving bonkers.’

Wow.

Demeaning, contemptuous and personal. The ‘big three’ of the classic States Slag-Off.

That’s an Ozouf quote, maybe, or possibly an original Syvret — maybe an old school Ted Vibert. It actually calls to mind the unrelated and unlamented Mike Vibert, who was the undisputed master of blowing his top and losing all sense of proportion — a man who treated inquiries during Question Time as monstrous impositions.

‘You dare question me? I’m the Education Minister! What do you think this is? Some kind of time allocated for you to question me? Who do you think you are? You hate children, don’t you?’

He never said those things really, of course; he said other things, other words. But that’s pretty much how he pronounced them.

I digress. The object of Mr Jackson’s ire, let’s not forget, was Deputy Daniel Wimberley, who brought last week’s unsuccessful rescindment motion against the incinerator.

For the record, I don’t think a return to early pagan society is what Big Dan has in mind for Jersey. And I should know. I listened to him going around the parishes at the 12 interminable Senatorial hustings meetings, and he didn’t say anything about caves or animal skins. And that’s the kind of thing you’d mention, right?

The criticism was more than a little unfair. Deputy Wimberley is not stark raving bonkers. But he hasn’t got a clue how to run a States debate, that’s for sure.

Turning up late doesn’t help, missing questions won’t win you any friends, making a speech of nearly three hours isn’t great debating tactics, and wandering off while others are speaking is just ignorant (unless you’re a reporter off for a quick smoke — then it’s cool).

He’s not a listener, nor a man particularly well given to receiving information or opinions that he doesn’t like. As with so many Members, he has a way of dealing with that. He calls it spin.

Aha. Here it is: last week’s debate summed up everything that’s wrong with the States — a roomful of people shouting, no one listening at all.

If you can dismiss something as spin or lies, you don’t have to listen to it. You don’t have to lend it any credence at all, you can dismiss it and go on blissfully about your day in the reality of your own choosing.

So what you get — and more to the point, what we get — is two views on the extreme sides of the argument, never shifting closer to a middle position that works for everyone.

Burn all the rubbish, or recycle it all. Stop immigration, or open the gates and let it rip. Throw Frank Walker in jail, or build statues of him in King Street.

When it comes down to it, last week, 35 politicians chose one set of words to believe in and dismissed the rest as spin or lies. The 17 remaining went the other way.

I don’t believe for a second that the day and a half of debate on the incinerator changed anyone’s mind, or shifted any votes.

If you’d have taken the vote before the debate began, it would have been exactly the same as it was at the end.

At times like these, it takes much greater minds than mine to pour water on the fire.

Step forward the greatest stand-up comedian of our time, America’s Chris Rock (with some hurried editing by your humble correspondent, this being a family newspaper): ‘Everybody’s so busy wanting to be down with the gang. “I’m conservative”, “I’m liberal”, “I’m conservative”. Nonsense! Be a rational person! Listen! Let it swirl around your head. Then form your opinion. No normal, decent person is one thing, okay?

‘I’ve got some things I’m conservative about, I’ve got some things I’m liberal about. Crime, I’m conservative. Prostitution, I’m liberal.’

A MYSTERY has been solved. I have worked out what’s in the States Members’ Coffee Room.
It’s not slot machines, it’s not a free bar, and it’s not dancing girls. Dammit.
It’s a crystal ball, and Senator Sarah Ferguson has nicked it.

Compare her remarks on the ‘Blampied charge’ from a Corporate Services Scrutiny panel hearing on Tuesday 17 February, and Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf’s comments on the £5m in tax that he apparently doesn’t want to collect from foreign non-finance firms.

Senator Ferguson, 18 February: ‘I am concerned that they are relying on us to damn it or to propose it, and it is not Scrutiny’s job to propose alternative policy. It seems to me that we are hearing this rather half-hearted attempt at bringing policy forward to us, hoping that we are going to kill it stone dead.’

Senator Ozouf, 28 February: ‘It will create a real risk that UK firms which currently operate in the Island will increase their prices to cover the costs. It could also just be the tipping point with regard to whether firms choose to invest in Jersey or not, and this is not desirable at all, especially during an economic downturn.’

But . . . he’s still got an ‘open mind’, you understand. He’s waiting for the aforementioned panel to report.

Now compare both with Senator Ozouf’s predecessor, now his boss, Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur, from the 2009 Budget statement:

‘To improve fairness I am not only introducing a Land Transactions Tax on the purchase of residential share transfer properties (as recently agreed by the States) but also proposing a deemed rental charge to ensure that all businesses, both local and non-locally owned, will now make a tax contribution under the zero-ten per cent structure.’

Ho, ho. Fasten your seatbelts . . . this is about to kick off.

Finally, a lot of words get thrown around the States Chamber. The word ‘spin’, as we have seen, is one. ‘Establishment’ is another. This week saw a new one: ‘McCarthyite’.

That’s what Deputy Trevor Pitman — remember him? (The Week in Politics Best Politician In The World for the week starting 26 January) — called the prosecution of his Jersey Democratic Alliance colleagues Deputies Geoff Southern and Shona Pitman, while another candidate doing much the same, he alleged, had been let off.

McCarthyite? Excuse me?

There’s only room for one misanthrope with an obsession for post-war American political history in these parts, Trevor, and I was here first. Hop it.