MY old mother always used to say, ‘If you can’t find anything nice to say about somebody, don’t say anything at all.’

Or it was something like that – I don’t remember exactly. I didn’t take a lot of notice of the old bat.

But she was talking a great deal of sense, really, because although I would love to verbally abuse several politicians, a large number of letter writers and quite a few participants in the radio moan-ins, there’s not much point. They wouldn’t listen to me. Or anyone else for that matter.

Most of them obviously didn’t have a mother with the wisdom and patience to try and instil tolerance and good behaviour into the thick skulls of her offspring. So backbiting, intolerance and simple bad manners are rife in this community – and that’s just amongst the leaders.

Yes, I’m sick of Island politics and Island politicians. Individually they’re fine. But give them an audience and most of them are a disaster.

However, I don’t think that their bad behaviour is born out of ignorance (with a few possible exceptions). I think it’s due to frustration.

On the one hand you have political leaders who can’t lead because there’s no consensus and most of their time is spent answering often silly questions in the States, repeating much of what’s been said before at Scrutiny meetings and dealing with a plethora of propositions from private Members that haven’t got a chance of success.

Then you’ve got the backbenchers who waste their time putting forward propositions that haven’t got a chance of success, beating their heads against a brick wall in trying to get their agenda through and receiving little thanks for their efforts, even from the electorate. And in the middle of all this you have the much-maligned public servants who are either accused of being lazy and incompetent or of trying to run the whole show themselves.

Either way they receive little thanks. Indeed they are often the easy targets for malicious or ill-informed critics. For example, hearing States Members who couldn’t run a bath criticise hospital management on the basis of a flawed report by consultants certainly makes my blood boil. (Sorry, Mum.) It’s no wonder that everyone is frustrated. But what’s the solution?

Yes, you’ve guessed it – it’s party politics. The trouble is that every time I raise this subject, I feel like a heretic or at least an eccentric. There is no mainstream debate about the merits or otherwise of party politics in Jersey. It’s simply not on the radar for most people, and even our leaders view the possibility with scorn. They say that they prefer consensus politics – although how they can say that with a straight face beats me.

So I’m afraid there’s not much appetite for parties in Jersey, and even if there were, it would be hard to introduce them.

That’s a great pity, because while political parties would not be a panacea for all of our ills, they would certainly be far better than what we’ve got at the moment.

There are obvious flaws in party political systems and many Islanders think of it as yar-boo politics, with MPs shouting at each other across the floor of the House of Commons. But we’ve got a pretty close version of that already, and it seems to me we’ve adopted many of the bad habits of party politics without getting any of the benefits.

In fact, far from the stereotype behaviour many Islanders associate with parties, the main benefit of a party political system in Jersey would be to bring much more discipline to the States and States Members.

To begin with you would have the discipline of election time. Candidates would have to espouse and stick to the policies promised by their party at election time, thus giving the electorate a real choice about substantive issues.

The candidates would be forced to think about what they believe in and what they would support, thus realising early on that success often means compromise.

Of course, candidates would not be forced to join a party to be elected, and there would no doubt continue to be independent States Members and even a few mavericks. But it would be obvious to them that they would have more chance of success in pushing forward what they believe in if they had the support of like-minded party members.

Then successful candidates would be forced to tow the party line in the States, thus avoiding the current free-for-all. But rather than putting Members into a straitjacket, a party political system would not be so rigid that members would be forced to vote in the same way every time.

On most issues there would be a free vote, particularly where the party itself had no agreed policy. However, on substantive matters where research and a carefully thought-out agenda is required, members would be expected to support agreed policy.

Oh, and we could do away with the Scrutiny system, which Members on either side of the argument don’t believe is working properly.

It’s not going to happen, of course. We’re just going to keep on muddling through and tinkering with the machinery.

Still, it would be worth remembering that it was not so long ago that many of the pillars of the Island community came together to form a party which was very successful in electing candidates who provided highly successful leaders for many years.

That party was formed not long after the Occupation at a turning point in history to push forward reforms against opposition from the Jersey Democratic Movement. When those reforms were won, the party folded.

Now Jersey is once again facing a number of difficult issues and some would say that it is at another turning point. So where is the Jersey Progressive Party when you need it?

Peter Body is editor of Business Brief magazine