Time for better government
Wednesday 21st September 2011, 3:00PM BST.
Sir Philip Bailhache (centre) with Linda Corby (right) and meeting chairman St Clement Constable Len Norman (left)
THE Senatorial hustings campaign began in St Clement last night with former Bailiff Sir Philip Bailhache launching an attack on the current crop of States Members.
In the first meeting of the Senatorial tour, 12 of the 13 candidates answered questions on subjects including referenda, reducing the number of States Members, and Jersey’s greatest successes.
More than 200 people attended the meeting and there was standing room only at the Parish Hall, with several people standing in the lobby behind the assembly room to hear the candidates speak.
• See today’s JEP for full report of the speeches and questions at last night’s meeting
• Give us your election views: Click here
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Hopefully some of the candidates will focus on cutting States spending – today’s ridiculous example of unjustifiable waste of taxpayers’ money was the hosting of the Branchage Committee at the Radisson Hotel – yes sad but true….
Of all our committees surely this one should understand the meaning of cutbacks and pruning?
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I was at the hustings and have already voted for the people I think are responsible and professional enough to be in the States and if I were a betting man I would say Sir Philip Bailache will top the poll.
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Chris Whitworth sent along a cardboard cutout of himself and apparently the cutout came across as less wooden than the real thing. The audience only cottoned on after the meeting when they tried to shake hands with him
Today a cardboard cutout. Yesterday a senatorial candidate who had to declare numerous embarrassing convictions at the nomination meeting took another candidate to the highest court in the island (cost??) to try to get him disqualified for failing to do the same thing, even though one glance at the States of Jersey Law (Article
would have told him the action had no chance of success.
And absolutely nobody (other than myself) asks how this absurd requirement to make a public declaration of certain convictions was pushed through the States with no debate in July 2002. Our ‘democracy’ is apparently the only one in the western world to require candidates to make a public declaration like this and it is clearly the worse for its introduction.
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Blatant electoral bias on the part of the JEP, still at least they are up front about it.
Retire on your £240,000 and stop interfering you old bugger!
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Running against the States might seem like a good idea but you only need the electors for a few weeks while the States will be your colleagues for the next three years.
Achieving anything in a house where the only loyalties are to shifting alliances at best is hard. If a few of them have already taken against you then it will be harder still.
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How I agree with the past Bailiff – many years ago, before States members were paid, the Jersey States members were a respected ensemble and the Island a better place. Maybe, just maybe, if
Mr. Bailhache is elected, we might see a bit of sanity return to the Island’s Government. At present it seems many of the members are in the Chamber, because they are not capable of obtaining work elsewhere.
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TIME FOR A BETTER GOVERNMENT god we have been saying this for years.WELL HEAR HEAR ! come on everybody lets have the biggest turn out ever ! VOTE VOTE VOTE !
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“I was at the hustings and have already voted for the people I think are responsible and professional enough to be in the States and if I were a betting man I would say Sir Philip Bailhache will top the poll.”
But poll topping can be bad for your political health. Look at previous poll toppers and the sticky ends that they have come to.
Intelligence is not everything either in a politician. Low cunning, clubability, an ability to court the populist and turn it to your own ends is important as well.
The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and we will not find out who is lucky enough to eat three years of the cold, stale suet of States’ debate for a few weeks yet.
However it seems that youth and good digestion can be the keys to success
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Doesn’t exactly say what he stands for but does it. Is he for the existing pay freezes in the Public sector, for current fiscal policy. It’s to easy to make simple reamrks, lets put some meat on the bones and tell us what you would do in government.
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I think Sir Phillip will top the poll and there may be a few surprises for some sitting politicians , but from my experience in going to last nights hustings , there needs to be some way however of weeding out some of the the losers and timewasters attempting to get into the states , i know that most the present incumbents are inept and incompetent but i will not get personal and name them but they know who they are !!!
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Sir Philip made it quite clear at the St Clement’s hustings that he wishes to reduce the number of Deputies, keep the Constables in the States and reduce the number of questions that are asked in the States Chamber. He fails to address the question of why so many questions are required nowadays. If some States members were not denied access to information by the Ministers and their departments, they would not have to demand this information in the States Chamber. How can it be democratic that some of our elected representatives are denied the information essential for making decisions which affect the people who elected them as their representatives? If Sir Philip is elected can we expect more transparency in government and more freedom of information, thus less questions having to be asked?
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Sir Phillip’s proposal to reduce the number of Deputies while keeping the Constables will reduce the democratic representation of the house by weighting the house even further in favour of the country parishes at the expense of the more populous home parishes.
The country parishes are already over represented, this will make the situation worse!
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Nellie – There are a number of reasons why our “alternative” politicians ask so many questions but whilst conspiracy may be their excuse, it is not among these.
First that very few seem to have a clue what is going on in the real world; they are just too incompetent [won’t say lazy] to find out from openly published documents; they want to create the illusion that they are actually doing do something for their £45k and finally and probably for me for the worst reason is that they feel it is their duty as an “opposition” politician to disrupt and thwart the CoM from running the Island.
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Sanity, you are entirely correct; these few politicians who aske these repetitive questions could just pick up the phone to get the information, or find it on the very transparent States website. They ask their tedious questions constantly to give the impression to their gullible followers that they are working. In many cases it is pointless and a waste of the assembly’s time.
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