THERE’S something intrinsically unfair about telling other people to do things that you yourself refuse to do.

After the decisions made in the States last week, States Members are going to have to get used to the fact that the people who may have voted them in at the last election may not be so minded next time around. Because those decisions most definitely give the impression that there is one rule for the politicians and another rule for the rest of us.

The core gripe is that despite making cuts in services to children and the disabled, they have refused to debate their own pay rises.

The most frequent explanation is that States Members’ pay is set by an independent body and it would not be appropriate for them to discuss those decisions made on their behalf.

Underlying this explanation, however, must be a conviction among certain States Members that they jolly well deserve their pay rise – regardless of the fact that many of those out in the real private-sector world haven’t even thought about a pay rise for, well, quite some time. There is, after all, a recession on.

By the same token, people who will have their services cut are, in no particular order, schoolchildren who will no longer get their third of a pint a day; people who are trying to bring tourism business to the Island; students of foreign languages; people who have been injured and who find the hydrotherapy pool of help in alleviating aches and pains and in keeping their joints mobile; those with psychological problems; the disabled; and users of community health organisations set up for a range of afflictions, including mental health problems.

It has to be acknowledged that a number of these groups are unable to speak up for themselves, or are unlikely to do so, given their particular circumstances.
So while our States Members are contemplating the increase in the money in their pockets, perhaps they will take time to put aside the question of how much their job is worth and think – even for a brief moment – about the people who believed the lies they told during the last election hustings, and those who once upon a time put their trust in them to do their best for this community. Particularly those unable to speak for themselves – schoolchildren, disabled people, and the mentally ill.

There must, surely, be less vulnerable groups from which services could be cut or removed altogether. Unfortunately those less vulnerable groups are far more likely to bombard politicians with objections and criticism, which is, in my humble opinion, why their funding has been left intact.

• Read more of Christine’s comment in Saturday’s Jersey Evening Post