Unlike the vast majority of States Members - both
past and present - I have never been afraid to admit when I have made a
mistake. In now looking both forward to new projects lined up for this summer
but also back at the past 5 + years in the States I realise that one of my
biggest was in supporting Senator Ian Gorst in the vote for Chief Minister.
At the time I was, of course, quite candid in telling people, including Gorst him self, that for me the choice between the Senator and his opponent former Bailiff Philip Bailhache was very much like being told one had to choose between John Major and Margaret Thatcher: i.e. choosing between a misguided acolyte who might yet wake up and smell the coffee of democracy; or the actual political devil incarnate.
The 'hold your nose' approach...
To be quite fair to both myself and a few others who then took the ex-Deputy Bob Hill approach of ‘holding one’s nose’ and voting for the former Social Security Minister anyway for all the underlying concerns about his calibre and willingness to stand up for the interests of the majority rather than the few, it still seemed a wholly logical approach to risk.
Gorst, one truly hoped, was not quite past being saved from the failed political doctrine of ‘the Jersey Way’ silence on child protection failings, rabid ‘free-market’ fundamentalism and greed. Bailhache on the other hand was clearly already completely lost to this and the redundant ideology of the ‘natural order’ of a two-tier society of haves and have nots. Okay, to be quite blunt Bailhache was also demonstrably none too bright, and almost entirely bereft of both common sense and understanding of the most basic tenets of socio-economics with it. In short the ‘ordinary’ person’s worst nightmare.
Yet for all of this I now see in looking back at how Gorst’s opportunity to ‘lead’ has failed the majority of islanders - just as spectacularly as he failed to keep the basic promises he made to secure progressive’s votes – that apparently logical or not my decision to vote for Ian Gorst was wrong.
I really should have ‘held my nose’, had a stiff drink voted for Senator Philip Bailhache anyway...
But before I have people who have been so very - often wonderfully -supportive since Shona and I lost our seats in the States as a direct consequence of Michael Birt’s allowing the shamed and dishonest Victoria College paedophile protector, John Le Breton to sit a Jurat on our case angrily demanding to know just what the hell I am suddenly talking about I would briefly like to explain in this post my deeper reasoning for this change of heart.
Yes, as Chief Minister Ian Gorst has been revealed to be both a liar and a political fraud wholly out of his depth. He has been weaker in fact than any States watchers I know could ever have imagined. An on-going disaster who has shown himself to be without any shadow of doubt the worst of all three Chief Ministers this island has had since the move to ‘ministerial’ government in 2005. No mean achievement in itself!
But what overrides all of this for me upon reflection is that for all of the additional damage it would do to both Jersey’s community cohesion and socio-economic prosperity in the short term of perhaps five to ten years – not to mention our wider international reputation – this inept and sorry excuse for a politician has actually been played for a mug and used by those who have pretended to support him loud and long and never should have been afforded the opportunity.
Gorst I’m afraid to say, in my opinion, has been just a political glove puppet and I thus believe it would be far better in the long-term if those who have utterly manipulated him – not least in recent skulduggery surrounding both Plemont and the appalling treatment of Planning Minister Deputy Rob Duhamel - were now thrust into the spotlight as the true and deliberate architects of Jersey’s slide to an ever more deeply entrenched two-tier society whilst Gorst takes all the reputational bullets as the alleged Island leader.
Time to let the Man who would be King have it...
And this means of course Senator Philip Bailhache – champion and apologist of judicial injustice, child abuse cover-ups; and fundamentally of the ‘better’ people (i.e. the ultra rich, finance and big business interests) running the Island no matter how incompetent and/or vested interest driven any should be – finally taking on the mantle of Chief Minister himself in order that he can finally take the flak his machinations; and those of his little Prince Machiavelli, Senator Philip Ozouf so fully deserve.
Yes, letting Bailhache and Ozouf along with all of their little wannabe ‘Assistants’ openly take the helm would, within five to ten years, undoubtedly bring not just the poor but ‘middle Jersey’ to their knees with consequences such as I outline below - but this is actually the point. Perhaps things really do have to get much worse before the circumstances can arise to enable them to get much better?
As Chief Minister Bailhache would finally have his obsessive Holy Grail of ‘Independence’ (which he and his brother wanted former Police Chief Graham Power to undertake groundwork for) and with it, of course, we would consequently be severed from any potential intervention from the United Kingdom whatsoever when the finance industry abuses of the past 20 years finally goes belly-up due to changing global attitudes to tax dodging. Just as all true analysts – whether they are brave enough to admit it publicly or not - know will ultimately happen.
Under Bailhache and his Machiavellian gofer jobs will also become ever harder for local people to secure as the truth behind the current rehashing of old and failed immigration control propaganda from 2007 is quickly exposed. Ozouf’s ‘Go for growth’ and hang the consequences will lead us on helter-skelter down the yellow brick road to becoming a high-rise concrete jungle with environmental protection issues all but abandoned other than as a spin exercise in advance of elections.
Zero hour contract exploitation will mushroom as will the legislative enforcement via Social Security of ever more minimum wage ‘opportunities’.
A youth exodus of never before seen proportions will undoubtedly follow as young aspirations and dreams of career and a home are crushed beyond all hope.
A related knock-on effect for those already on the property ladder, negative equity will be the new ‘growth business’.
Oh yes, and we will also finally become a Human Rights pariah on the international stage – all without even the current potential fall back of UK assistance which we should be able to access to challenge judicial corruption in our courts now - and would if only our tax dodging activities were not still so beneficial to some in the City of London.Indeed, let us not kid ourselves: under a Chief Minister like Philip Bailhache and his economic hit man Ozouf Jersey would be taken to the brink of no return.
It would quite frankly be horrible: a kind of modern day Dark Age. Neo-Feudalism for the 21st Century albeit hidden behind a crumbling façade of a whiter-than-white Disneyland ‘respectable and responsible’ finance centre.
Yet the fact is it could all ultimately also be wholly worth the ensuing pain...
Because exposing these champions of elitism, privatisation and the concentration of political power in ever fewer pairs of hands by ensuring that they had to at last take open political responsibility; instead of pulling strings whilst hiding in the shadows behind a weak and ineffectual ‘Chief Minister’ could bring an end to their machinations and selling of Jersey’s soul quicker than any other way currently likely in an island where political apathy has become a sad and sorry norm. Not to mention a deliberate Establishment policy.
It is in direct tandem likewise, I believe, time for those of a ‘progressive’ or leftist leaning persuasion within the States to also stop playing along with the games. By this I mean that they should let the real architects of two-tier society Jersey and all of their Establishment enablers finally stand exposed in all their narcissistic glory.
What I mean is that it is time for progressives to not even contest positions such as Scrutiny Chairmen or the heading up of the Privileges & Procedures Committee and Public Accounts. Instead let Bailhache and Ozouf have their stooges and placemen fill them unopposed – with all ‘in Chamber’ opposition being swept away.
For the truth is every informed political watcher knows full well it is absurd that those on the ministerial side of government should then be able to vote to install Chairmen who will actually give the Executive the easiest time. Yet we let it happen and with the few brave enough to challenge and voice dissent the illusion of a democracy is maintained.
Thus the overall goal of what I am suggesting - let the public see if a wholly unchecked, unchallenged assault from the elitist right for several years will really give them the community cohesion and economy they have been conned into thinking they both want; and which will benefit not just their children but their children’s children. Conned let us not forget with the collusion of Jersey’s gutless ‘repeaters’ of the Establishment’s mainstream media.
After all, once the reality of a few years of this hit you how many ‘ordinary’ people struggling to make ends meet would really want a government of the sort Bailhache and Ozouf aspire to where questions, let alone direct challenge simply no longer happen?
For increasing numbers of the people who contact me or simply stop me out and about right up to this day of writing it seems the sense that a harsh ‘wake up call’ to prevent an inevitable and wholly irretrievable collapse of everything that has historically made Jersey so special a little further down the line is now called for. The approach I outline above appears to fit the bill no matter how seemingly extreme. A sort of new twist on Ghandi’s passive resistance one might argue.
I repeat: let Bailhache and Ozouf and all of those who enable them now carry out their policies and stand up to own and explain them in the full glare of the spotlight without either spin or others to give them the current smokescreen of democracy. And ff the majority of the public still support them after a few years of the official one party, two-tier society State then all well and good - whatever my own political perspective.
And if they do not, yet the same said public still just sit on their butts in continued political apathy of ever-decreasing electoral turnouts and passive acceptance of abuses of both justice and the most vulnerable of children as their long-term future crumbles around them then one has to conclude that the old saying that a ‘people get the government and policies they deserve’ may unfortunately well be right on the money.
At the time I was, of course, quite candid in telling people, including Gorst him self, that for me the choice between the Senator and his opponent former Bailiff Philip Bailhache was very much like being told one had to choose between John Major and Margaret Thatcher: i.e. choosing between a misguided acolyte who might yet wake up and smell the coffee of democracy; or the actual political devil incarnate.
The 'hold your nose' approach...
To be quite fair to both myself and a few others who then took the ex-Deputy Bob Hill approach of ‘holding one’s nose’ and voting for the former Social Security Minister anyway for all the underlying concerns about his calibre and willingness to stand up for the interests of the majority rather than the few, it still seemed a wholly logical approach to risk.
Gorst, one truly hoped, was not quite past being saved from the failed political doctrine of ‘the Jersey Way’ silence on child protection failings, rabid ‘free-market’ fundamentalism and greed. Bailhache on the other hand was clearly already completely lost to this and the redundant ideology of the ‘natural order’ of a two-tier society of haves and have nots. Okay, to be quite blunt Bailhache was also demonstrably none too bright, and almost entirely bereft of both common sense and understanding of the most basic tenets of socio-economics with it. In short the ‘ordinary’ person’s worst nightmare.
Yet for all of this I now see in looking back at how Gorst’s opportunity to ‘lead’ has failed the majority of islanders - just as spectacularly as he failed to keep the basic promises he made to secure progressive’s votes – that apparently logical or not my decision to vote for Ian Gorst was wrong.
I really should have ‘held my nose’, had a stiff drink voted for Senator Philip Bailhache anyway...
But before I have people who have been so very - often wonderfully -supportive since Shona and I lost our seats in the States as a direct consequence of Michael Birt’s allowing the shamed and dishonest Victoria College paedophile protector, John Le Breton to sit a Jurat on our case angrily demanding to know just what the hell I am suddenly talking about I would briefly like to explain in this post my deeper reasoning for this change of heart.
Yes, as Chief Minister Ian Gorst has been revealed to be both a liar and a political fraud wholly out of his depth. He has been weaker in fact than any States watchers I know could ever have imagined. An on-going disaster who has shown himself to be without any shadow of doubt the worst of all three Chief Ministers this island has had since the move to ‘ministerial’ government in 2005. No mean achievement in itself!
But what overrides all of this for me upon reflection is that for all of the additional damage it would do to both Jersey’s community cohesion and socio-economic prosperity in the short term of perhaps five to ten years – not to mention our wider international reputation – this inept and sorry excuse for a politician has actually been played for a mug and used by those who have pretended to support him loud and long and never should have been afforded the opportunity.
Gorst I’m afraid to say, in my opinion, has been just a political glove puppet and I thus believe it would be far better in the long-term if those who have utterly manipulated him – not least in recent skulduggery surrounding both Plemont and the appalling treatment of Planning Minister Deputy Rob Duhamel - were now thrust into the spotlight as the true and deliberate architects of Jersey’s slide to an ever more deeply entrenched two-tier society whilst Gorst takes all the reputational bullets as the alleged Island leader.
Time to let the Man who would be King have it...
And this means of course Senator Philip Bailhache – champion and apologist of judicial injustice, child abuse cover-ups; and fundamentally of the ‘better’ people (i.e. the ultra rich, finance and big business interests) running the Island no matter how incompetent and/or vested interest driven any should be – finally taking on the mantle of Chief Minister himself in order that he can finally take the flak his machinations; and those of his little Prince Machiavelli, Senator Philip Ozouf so fully deserve.
Yes, letting Bailhache and Ozouf along with all of their little wannabe ‘Assistants’ openly take the helm would, within five to ten years, undoubtedly bring not just the poor but ‘middle Jersey’ to their knees with consequences such as I outline below - but this is actually the point. Perhaps things really do have to get much worse before the circumstances can arise to enable them to get much better?
As Chief Minister Bailhache would finally have his obsessive Holy Grail of ‘Independence’ (which he and his brother wanted former Police Chief Graham Power to undertake groundwork for) and with it, of course, we would consequently be severed from any potential intervention from the United Kingdom whatsoever when the finance industry abuses of the past 20 years finally goes belly-up due to changing global attitudes to tax dodging. Just as all true analysts – whether they are brave enough to admit it publicly or not - know will ultimately happen.
Under Bailhache and his Machiavellian gofer jobs will also become ever harder for local people to secure as the truth behind the current rehashing of old and failed immigration control propaganda from 2007 is quickly exposed. Ozouf’s ‘Go for growth’ and hang the consequences will lead us on helter-skelter down the yellow brick road to becoming a high-rise concrete jungle with environmental protection issues all but abandoned other than as a spin exercise in advance of elections.
Zero hour contract exploitation will mushroom as will the legislative enforcement via Social Security of ever more minimum wage ‘opportunities’.
A youth exodus of never before seen proportions will undoubtedly follow as young aspirations and dreams of career and a home are crushed beyond all hope.
A related knock-on effect for those already on the property ladder, negative equity will be the new ‘growth business’.
Oh yes, and we will also finally become a Human Rights pariah on the international stage – all without even the current potential fall back of UK assistance which we should be able to access to challenge judicial corruption in our courts now - and would if only our tax dodging activities were not still so beneficial to some in the City of London.Indeed, let us not kid ourselves: under a Chief Minister like Philip Bailhache and his economic hit man Ozouf Jersey would be taken to the brink of no return.
It would quite frankly be horrible: a kind of modern day Dark Age. Neo-Feudalism for the 21st Century albeit hidden behind a crumbling façade of a whiter-than-white Disneyland ‘respectable and responsible’ finance centre.
Yet the fact is it could all ultimately also be wholly worth the ensuing pain...
Because exposing these champions of elitism, privatisation and the concentration of political power in ever fewer pairs of hands by ensuring that they had to at last take open political responsibility; instead of pulling strings whilst hiding in the shadows behind a weak and ineffectual ‘Chief Minister’ could bring an end to their machinations and selling of Jersey’s soul quicker than any other way currently likely in an island where political apathy has become a sad and sorry norm. Not to mention a deliberate Establishment policy.
It is in direct tandem likewise, I believe, time for those of a ‘progressive’ or leftist leaning persuasion within the States to also stop playing along with the games. By this I mean that they should let the real architects of two-tier society Jersey and all of their Establishment enablers finally stand exposed in all their narcissistic glory.
What I mean is that it is time for progressives to not even contest positions such as Scrutiny Chairmen or the heading up of the Privileges & Procedures Committee and Public Accounts. Instead let Bailhache and Ozouf have their stooges and placemen fill them unopposed – with all ‘in Chamber’ opposition being swept away.
For the truth is every informed political watcher knows full well it is absurd that those on the ministerial side of government should then be able to vote to install Chairmen who will actually give the Executive the easiest time. Yet we let it happen and with the few brave enough to challenge and voice dissent the illusion of a democracy is maintained.
Thus the overall goal of what I am suggesting - let the public see if a wholly unchecked, unchallenged assault from the elitist right for several years will really give them the community cohesion and economy they have been conned into thinking they both want; and which will benefit not just their children but their children’s children. Conned let us not forget with the collusion of Jersey’s gutless ‘repeaters’ of the Establishment’s mainstream media.
After all, once the reality of a few years of this hit you how many ‘ordinary’ people struggling to make ends meet would really want a government of the sort Bailhache and Ozouf aspire to where questions, let alone direct challenge simply no longer happen?
For increasing numbers of the people who contact me or simply stop me out and about right up to this day of writing it seems the sense that a harsh ‘wake up call’ to prevent an inevitable and wholly irretrievable collapse of everything that has historically made Jersey so special a little further down the line is now called for. The approach I outline above appears to fit the bill no matter how seemingly extreme. A sort of new twist on Ghandi’s passive resistance one might argue.
I repeat: let Bailhache and Ozouf and all of those who enable them now carry out their policies and stand up to own and explain them in the full glare of the spotlight without either spin or others to give them the current smokescreen of democracy. And ff the majority of the public still support them after a few years of the official one party, two-tier society State then all well and good - whatever my own political perspective.
And if they do not, yet the same said public still just sit on their butts in continued political apathy of ever-decreasing electoral turnouts and passive acceptance of abuses of both justice and the most vulnerable of children as their long-term future crumbles around them then one has to conclude that the old saying that a ‘people get the government and policies they deserve’ may unfortunately well be right on the money.
Trevor.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote;
"As Chief Minister Bailhache would finally have his obsessive Holy Grail of ‘Independence’ (which he and his brother wanted former Police Chief Graham Power to undertake groundwork for) and with it, of course, we would consequently be severed from any potential intervention from the United Kingdom."
Taken from the Interim defence case of the former Police Chief Graham Power QPM to the discredited, and disgraced, Wiltshire Constabulary allegations.
"Such views are not confined to the older elements of the honorary service. They can be found, albeit in a more developed form, in the senior levels of government and the legal establishment where some notable figures favour an eventual severance of links with the U.K. and would see the ready acceptance of U.K. working practices as running counter to this agenda. I recall that in 2007 I assisted a small working group which included, among others, the Bailiff Sir Philip Bailhache and the Attorney General William Bailhache. The purpose of the group was to prepare a draft contingency plan for complete independence. I submitted papers to the group on the implications for law enforcement, and used some contacts from my previous role to offer suggestions as to who outside of the island, could assist in developing such a plan. I provided contact details of key figures in the Scottish Government and Administration including the Scottish National Party. I recall that some of the advice and contacts I provided were in an email I sent, probably in July 2007. This and other experiences reinforced my understanding that there was a tide flowing against closer association with the U.K, and a strong local agenda to develop working models and solutions within the island."
You and your readers will no doubt be aware that this is the document suppressed by (to use you words) "Jersey’s gutless ‘repeaters’ of the Establishment’s mainstream media."
Namely THE BBC
ReplyDeleteThe local blogs including yours Trevor, reveal the naked truth. Only two years ago, your view would have been thought of as a left wing vision without substance, today sadly it appears the truth.
The egotistical, introvert, wealthy, non business skilled are in charge in the States.
This week I read on another forum about the story of Web and the ex chief minister involved in the bent Harcourt fiasco. It is difficult to view this disaster any other way other than corrupt.
In the last week we learn social housing has been effectively taken over by another miserable quango, and today we read Fort Regent has also gone, with all Jerseys other sporting facilities to follow.
Major parts of the islands infrastructure are effectively taken out of the hands of the States decision making process and going private, they tell you that it is owned by the people and answerable to the States, technically yes, but in real life it is repeated lie.
This is lie is confirmed when States members are regularly refused access to information regarding their concerns.
The elite are putting their friends in charge to run Jersey. This is not for the benefit of the island or its residents, there is no proof that any recent quango has served the island well, or added value because they are not truly accountable to the last penny.
This will only add to Jerseys decline because of the elite’s aggressive greed, which like cancer does not know when to stop and kills the source. Maybe this is why Ozouf is now promoting the borrowing of millions to be repaid by future generations, that’s if Jersey is not bankrupt which without doubt it will be.
Islanders need to wake up from their sleepwalk and take action. Mugabe has sold large tracts of land to the Chinese, what is so different about the way this Government supporting non democratic decision making by quangos of the islands assets, clearly dis-enfranchising it’s people.
To be honest Trevor if there were twenty five more open spirits like you in the States flying the flag of honesty, accountability and responsibility, Jersey would still be a wonderful island, it is now not, and getting a worse place to live by the month.
Trevor
ReplyDeleteIs this the kind of business Bailhache and Ozouf is encouraging to the Island ??
Report from the Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/passports-for-profit-british-company-to-make-disgusting-amounts-of-money-from-controversial-eu-passport-sale-9094251.html
For some time I have worried that the old guard would let the progressives have a turn just as their unsustainable policies started to break down, so the progressives could be the scapegoats and the establishment return to power after the crisis with enhanced credibility in the eyes of the general public. Beware of a bale-out by senior politicians, it will be the first sign of doom, not the golden opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThere is also something fishy about P Bailhache stepping down as assistant Chief Minister, and letting P Ozouf take that post.
ReplyDeleteI see where you are coming from Trevor, but I wonder if you are missing the open goal at the other end of the field, so to speak. The progressives in the chamber not contesting chairs not standing for scrutiny etc will have little impact on the wider public. More than likely it would be presented as even the progressives know they arent up to the job, or some such rubbish.
ReplyDeleteWhere is there is some real anger among the voting public is the handling of the referendum. Whilst it is quite possible to argue the whole exercise was seriously flawed, the outcome of two set of debates on it in the States is that they have effectively implemented option C - the one option that was decisively rejected by the public in the referendum. It has left a bitter aftertaste with many and a serious sense that the assembly is not acting for the people even when given a clear message by them. In this respect I believe there is much more traction to be had in presenting the case 'if they wont listen we won't speak'. Not just those in the chamber, but all active citizens. No submissions to consultations, no evidence to scrutiny panels, no response to the media on any States debate , proposal or PR : No reform-> no response.
I'm not sure I really want to argue the case for that, it is quite complex, but I have made the point when pressed recently that I do not intend standing for election in the foreseeable future unless and until there is meaningful reform of the States. Perhaps that is no big loss!
IT is also very strange that we have Bailhache explaining to the media why Gorst has made this decision re ozouf ,or did the real chief minister Bailhache make the decision ?
ReplyDeleteThere is something fishy also in having ex politicians, ex and serving civil servants sitting on quangos. The important ones ( not charities ) being paid excessive amounts of money for little work.
ReplyDeleteThe controlled soldiers.
The controlling officer of the soldiers, lets call him a minister.
Then the supreme power wants to be able to sack his minister if he she does not obey. Placing a new person as minister that will obey.
Lets call him a dictator.
Other peripheral members of the assembly are completely irrelevant.
Hitler rises again in control of all areas from Housing, sport, harbours, tourism ,planning and a development company, all with complete access to billions of the publics money and assets.
Game over.
I wonder which of the Bailhache boys idea the Jersey Embassy in London was, The law officers are checking over the lease for a property in a expensive part of London at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAM
Apologies for not posting replies of late. Been somewhat tied trying to pass on final number of cases of which I am still trying to help people. Tough job as there are only a handful in the States now who really do constituent work especially if people with problems are not in your own patch. Let's hope a couple of Lefties get in rather than a couple more like. Rod Bryans and James. Baker who think all needed in politics is carrying a Minister's bag and thinking they are important.
ReplyDeleteI have read the greater part of your speech in the States of Jersey concerning the administration of justice in Jersey (voiceforchildren). The judicial function in Jersey is thoroughly corrupt. Realistically it requires the Bailiff, the Deputy Bailiff, the Commissioners, the Jurats, the Attorney General and the Solicitor General and, most probably all of the officers and employees below them to be dismissed from office to improve matters. Probably the Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police as well. At some point I hope that one or more of them or their subordinates will break ranks with those they know to be corrupt, turning Queen's evidence. I think Stuart Syvret called it something like the currency of concealment - the indirect benefits that accrue to those that maintain their silence in the face of gross injustice. With the advent of the internet and the ability for victims to speak out without needing the support of the State Media the currency of concealment is diminishing in value all of the time.
ReplyDeleteMoving on, I was surprised to hear that Philip Bailhache had stepped down as Assistant Chief Minister. Was it the frustration at his failure to achieve the dismissal of Deputy Duhamel from the Council of Ministers do you know? Philip Bailhache may be perceived as powerful but I doubt whether he could lead a Council of Ministers. As a longstanding judge in the Royal Court, he has probably become accustomed to not being challenged in any meaningful sense either by subordinates, or by unexpected events.
I have not bought the jep for a number of years now because they continue to cover up all the mistakes that the establishment member are making including child abuse. They back Bailhache , Ozouf, Gorst up to the hilt no matter what they say or do. It really is a party political paper. I would love to see a new paper come out. All the Jersey blogs are the only ones to listen to because there is the truth!
ReplyDelete