THE nation is buzzing today with reactions to last night’s televised debate between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Closer to home, there was at least the fleeting possibility that a similar confrontation would occur here, Deputy Geoff Southern having challenged Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf to a public debate on public services, taxation and budgetary deficits.

Senator Ozouf has declined the opportunity to confront Deputy Southern on a public platform, which was perhaps predictable. After all, there is established machinery designed to expose the issues that the Deputy wants to explore. It is called debate in the States Chamber.

Unfortunately, through a combination of factors, which might or might not include astute political manoeuvring, the States as a whole have had no real chance to test the Treasury Minister’s proposed programme of radical public sector cuts against Deputy Southern’s alternatives. These amount to the protection of public services to avoid redundancies and the risk of ‘double-dip’ recession coupled with raising new revenue, initially through changes to the Insular Insurance scheme.

The Deputy has articulated his ideas in a discussion paper – which is summarised in this edition of the Jersey Evening Post – so even in the absence of the face-to-face encounter he envisaged, the essentials of his proposed programme are now in the public domain.

This is exactly as it should be. Although Senator Ozouf and his ministerial colleagues have an economic plan which they are driving forward with vigour and complete conviction, they have no monopoly on wisdom. Alternative strategies, therefore, must not be dismissed out of hand.

There is, for example, legitimate cause for concern over the unintended consequences of making public sector cuts before the economy has recovered sufficiently from recessionary conditions. In the UK, such concern has led 50 economists, many of them at the top of their discipline, to sign a document warning of this very danger.

Against this background, what should happen next is quite clear. In spite of having turned down the open debate invitation, Senator Ozouf must be prepared to use
orthodox channels of political exchange – namely the States Assembly – to ensure that all tax and spending issues, and not just the executive’s chosen course of
action, are exposed to full consideration by the body which is still at the heart of
Island democracy and must have the final say on fundamental policy.