WHEN is a mass meeting not a mass meeting? When it attracts fewer than 200 participants.

That is one way of summing up last night’s protest at Fort Regent, organised by Unite, but supported by other unions, Deputies Geoff Southern and Montfort Tadier and Jersey Democratic Alliance president Ted Vibert. In spite of the weighty issues up for discussion, the event clearly failed to mobilise significant numbers of Islanders.

The weather, televised football and the latest episode of The Apprentice might well have played roles in limiting attendance, making the meeting something of a damp squib. However, if this occasion failed to capture many people’s attention or prompt their attendance, it must not be taken as a sign that the matters under consideration are unimportant.

Although government is set on a rigidly plotted course intended to take the Island towards a two per cent increase in GST and which will see economies worth £65 million being made in the public sector, these policies are bound to be controversial. It would be highly suspicious – and indicative of unacceptable passivity – if there were not reactions from those likely to be at the sharp end of the cuts and the tax hike.

Equally, the Island would be a weaker democracy if the States were packed entirely with yes-men unwilling to question executive policy.

That said, it is obvious that the unions and those of our political representatives ideologically at odds with the executive line are currently facing an uphill struggle when it comes to swaying public opinion on a grand scale. As yet, we are seeing nothing remotely like the 19,000-signature petition which opposed GST when it was first mooted.

Last night, people might well have found Rangers versus Manchester United or Alan Sugar more appealing than a political rally, but deeper problems underlie what can be called the opposition and its attempts to engage public opinion. There is, for example, widespread acceptance of the ideas that our economy is in difficulty, that the public sector is bloated and inefficient, and that desperate measures are required to put the Island back on an even keel.

Higher taxes, redundancies and service reductions are desperately unappealing, but those opposing them will have to do more than shout ‘Never!’ from entrenched positions based on self-interest, doctrinaire politics or even concern for the underdog. Anyone rejecting present strategies for balancing the books must argue cogently and intelligently for the alternatives that they propose.