DEPUTY Geoff Southern is a conviction politician whose preferred policies are based on the belief that the rights of the little man should take precedence over those of the rich and big business. It also has to be said that he has courage – or a very thick skin.

Yesterday, only days after receiving a humiliating drubbing in the Senatorial by-election which saw a newcomer to politics, Francis Le Gresley, top the poll, Deputy Southern took his proposition questioning the competence of Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur to the House. There was irony in the Deputy’s decision to proceed with the no-confidence motion in that the electorate had so recently demonstrated that they had no confidence in his suitability to occupy the post of Senator.

In seeking the vote of no-confidence, Deputy Southern was tacitly offering himself as a replacement for Senator Le Sueur. It is clear that States Members, who rejected the proposition by 33 votes to nine, had no more appetite for this change at the top than the electorate had for the Deputy’s elevation to the Senatorial benches.

However, although the vote of no-confidence fizzled out in anti-climax, it would clearly be wrong to accept this as evidence that either all States Members or the Island as a whole are blissfully happy with the present executive. Unpopular decisions are being taken by the Council of Ministers and at least some of their grand plans promise a future Jersey which could be severely at odds with many people’s hopes and dreams.

Winston Churchill once said that democracy was the worst possible form of government – apart from all the others. Something similar can be said of Island government as it is currently constituted. Ministers are fighting a battle on difficult ground which they did not choose and are facing challenges of a magnitude wholly unfamiliar to most previous administrations.

Promising a future of sweat, blood, toil and tears – as ministers have done through the news they have conveyed about cuts and taxation – can, as history has demonstrated, rally a community to a common cause. It can also lead to despondency and despair. The difference comes when leaders show that they not only have determination but also the competence to achieve the results that they promise are just over the horizon.

Senator Le Sueur and the rest of the present executive might well have been quite confident that they would survive Deputy Southern’s attack. That does not mean that their victory can be an excuse for either complacency or for charging ahead relentlessly without listening very carefully to their colleagues in the House and the electorate.