TRUTH & THE JERSEY WAY: SOME THINGS JUST DON'T GO TOGETHER.

Committee of Inquiry members named as Option B & the Jersey Evening Pravda keep spinning the lies...

In the week that finally saw the first two names for the hard-won Committee of Inquiry into decades of Establishment-concealed child abuse announced the crucial importance of all of these people being 100% independent of Jersey's self-proclaimed elite could not have been more strongly reiterated.

 

For if the Committee of Inquiry is to finally get to the bottom of what went on at Haut de la Garenne and other institutions (States and otherwise) they will need to have a commitment to truth burned into the forefront of their approach at all times. Of course, this fact would likely go without saying in most jurisdictions. But sadly Jersey is not 'most' jurisdictions. It is...how shall we put it: different.

 

Both different in that it is fundamentally one of the most special places you could ever hope to find. But 'different' too in that we unfortunately have a clique of people at the apex of power desperate to hold on to power here for whom truth appears to come a very long way down their list of priorities.

People who regularly try to rubbish true proponents of political equality,transparency and accountability - yet are quite happy to throw such words around themselves like so much confetti at a wedding. So long as it helps them get what benefits THEM.

 

Option B for Bullsh*t...

 

Anyone doubting this fact really need look no further than those at the forefront of the campaign for Option B in the forthcoming (hijacked) Jersey referendum. Already the pages of the local Pravda (more on this later) have been swamped with letters whose lack of honesty (it surely can't be just ignorance, can it?) should tell you that buying a  secondhand car from the authors might just be one hell of a risk.

 

Why do I say this? Well, it is quite simple. The cold, hard truth of the matter is that Option B - if it were to become law - would create voter inequality that would make Jersey the laughing stock of Europe. Indeed, this would not just be because of a degree of resultant inequality that would cause riots on the streets of any normal democracy; it would be because no other country in Europe would actually even consider risking putting forward such non-ECHR compliant, neo-feudal claptrap as a government-backed initiative in the first place.

 

Thatcher may be dead but the self-interest mentality lingers on...

 

Yet here in Jersey, of course, we see people such as former occasional visitor to the States Chamber, Ben 10 Shenton; Clothier saboteur Pierre Horsfall and even young Thatcherite wannabees like James Rondel all spouting the demonstrable garbage that Option B will create a 'fairer' system! Really boys?

 

Then why is it, let me ask, that not a single one of you B faction brigade can ever manage to explain exactly 'how'? Why they are so quiet on this issue and keen to adopt the standard far-right diversionary attack of branding people who differ 'wreckers' is because they know they are talking the aforesaid utter tosh.

 

Option B is the choice for people who say that they want efficiency, stability and equality. But actually want an entrenched two-tier society that will continue to let those with the deepest pockets and the lowest ethics carry on riding the elitist gravy train a few years longer. Ride the gravy train even in the knowledge it will ultimately - certainly within the next 20 years -lead the majority into the economic and social Abyss. Please make sure you look at what they DON'T tell you.

 

To this regard a few weeks ago the A Team were using a catchy little slogan that played on this truth with a tongue-in-cheek 'No Plan B'. May I politely suggest that a more honest slogan would be:

 

 

'Vote B and you'll B stuffed - Forever!'

 

 





Which brings us neatly on to that bastion of Establishment Party lies...the Jersey Evening Pravda

 

Now the fact that the local Pravda  is already up to its old tricks in support of the B campaign (lovely big photo of 'thumbs up for inequality' Shenton) should come as a surprise to nobody who follows local politics. This newspaper has been actively working to undermine democracy and spinning Establishment propaganda since at least the end of the Second World War. Doubt my word then just go and sit in the reference library for a few hours.

 

Indeed, the JEP's consistency in this strategy has been remarkable and has never once faltered: whether this required such diverse ploys as refusing to let the Jersey Democratic Movement publish its election manifesto; portraying heroes of the Occupation such as the legendary Norman Le Brocq as rouble-grasping, anti-Jersey 'wreckers' or just about anything else.

 

Psst! Need a couple of Lefties portrayed as fraudsters even when all they really did (like some Establishment candiates!) was help a few elderly and/or disabled people register for a postal vote? Yup - Pravda are the boys for the job!

Want a child abuse investigation trashed and years of buggery, bullying and unheeded cries for help from children painted as secondary to what PC Plod had for dinner - once again, we're your guys! Want a dodgy copper leaking information during a live child abuse investigation to a hack Daily Mail journalist instead painted as a 'whistle-blower' - give us a call!

 

No wonder more and more people are deserting the MSM for Citizens' Media...

 

Of course, often this most vile of 'newspapers' takes a more subtle approach.

Ever so accidental pictures of favoured Establishment candidates such as Sir Philip Bailhache given much greater prominence, likewise with quotes/text than other candidates. Respected US journalists (shockingly monitored whilst a visitor to our island and then banned upon revealing what she was researching) stuck on the pages of Pravda when her visa is returned... ever so accidentally next to a big feature on illegal immigrants!

 

The truth is the Jersey Evening Pravda is both terrified of TRUTH and contemptuous of it in my opinion and, indeed, in that of so many others. Okay so we know they are desperate to bury this... But just consider our case against them and Broadlands for the horrible, cowardly lie that my wife (Deputy Shona Pitman) and I had increased our salary by 4 times with my entering politics.

 

Bad enough as this despicable lie was in itself given our income had decreased and, of course, a belated, desperate attempt to spin this as a reference to a mortgage muliplier ignored the ever so inconvenient little fact that that 4 x wasn't even the current rate.But if you have been reading their recent appallingly written stories from the likes of Richard Heath and Andy Sibcy (what happened to you guys?) relating to facts of the case and material sent to the UK Justice Ministry then you'll oddly NOT have been made aware of the following very interesting FACTS.

Never mind Article 6 and Human Rights - we're the Jersey Establishment!

 

Firstly. the editors and owners of the Pravda are desperate that you don't know the cold, hard FACT that this newspaper is seeking to gain financially from a court case that was NOT ECHR compliant. This being because our esteemed Bailiff's Office - whether through negligence or, it has to be asked, something more sinister,failed to ensure that Jurat John Le Breton who is an evidenced personal friend of a defendant company director did not obey the rules on conflict of interest and recuse himself.

 

Whatever could have been Le Breton's motive for not doing what was required, I ask?

The Jersey Evening Pravda - aided and abetted appallingly by BBC Jersey in this instance - claim they CAN'T report this for risk of getting into 'Big Trub'. Slightly odd then you might think how journalists in both the UK and beyond have reported what is cold, hard FACT? Obviously the Establishment tom-tom drums have been beating frantically to try and keep the Bailiff's Office's failures quiet at all costs.

 

Then secondly, the reality that Jurat John Le Breton is highlighted within the Establishment suppressed Sharp Report as refusing to look at EVIDENCE against his friend and Victoria College teaching colleague, predatory paedophile Andrew Jervis-Dykes. Not just this but then writing in support of this vile individual. And yet was then actually put forward and supported by Establishment grandees including a former Education Committee President to become a Jurat!

 

The role of a Jurat? Looking at and deciding on... EVIDENCE!

 

And then we have the little fact of the Jersey Evening Pravda trying to con their readers that it is only Shona and I who have written to the UK Justice Minister expressing their deep concern at this abuse of justice. Of course the truth is that a dozen prominent Islanders wrote in support of our challenging of this sickening farce. All but three current or past States Members.

 

Funny how the Jersey Evening Pravda don't tell their readers that?

 

Opting out of ECHR obligations on the excuse that Jersey 'is small' just isn't an option...

 

But Lord above, would YOU not be concerned if you found an individual like John Le Breton awarded the job by the Bailiff's Office of deciding on evidenced fact in your case?! Deciding on evidence that could impact your whole life? Yes, I repeat: no wonder the Jersey Evening Pravda want to keep this little scandal quiet. Conflicted to the hilt AND a proven record of being happy to look the other way on evidence!

Yet what possibly makes this even worse? The aforesaid fact that despite this appalling reality the Pravda and their lawyers still appear quite happy to try and gain financially on the back of court proceedings that as a conseqquence wouldn't stand up in a Third World country like Zimbabwe.

 

Or maybe its all a whole lot more sinister still?

Maybe Le Breton's being allowed to get away with sitting on our case against the JEP/Broadlands even when it is beyond question that he was impossibly conflicted wasn't just down to him? Maybe what is happening now isn't just a consequence of cynical opportunism? Maybe it was yet another manifestation of 'the Jersey Way'?

Maybe it was all part of a deliberate strategy?

 

After all, the Establishment can always use the get out/excuse 'well, if you are unhappy you can appeal!' Knowing that most ordinary people simply can't afford another £30,000 + nor should have to due to failings entirely down to the Bailiff's own Office probably don't even enter into their considerations.

Or maybe that too is all part of 'the Jersey Way' plan...

 

But to return to where I began with the selection of the Committee of Inquiry members to examine decades of States concealed child abuse: all i can say is thank God that this selection is in the hands of a decent man like States Greffier, Michael de la Haye!

If we can follow in this vein all the way through and keep the Establishment 'wreckers' at arms length maybe the inquiry will eventually be able to succeed. We must certainly do all we can to ensure this happens. More than enough children and adults have suffered already.

 

 

Keep the Faith. Yes, they can destroy us - but ultimately the Truth will always win in the end...

Truth - especially the BALD TRUTH - to paraphrase Corporal Jones - the Jersey Establishment and their mouthpieces just don't like it up 'em!

 

 

 

 



EQUALITY OF VOTING & THE CONSTABLES - Trying to make a silk purse out of the Electoral Commission sow's ear...



So just what is wrong with the hijacked Electoral Commission's recommendations which we are due to debate at the next States Sitting on February 19th?

Well, nothing if you buy into the letter from former Senator Jimmy Perchard published in the Jersey Evening Pravda this past Thursday (no doubt triggered by his reading my tweet about Geoff Southern's amendment to make this a one question referenda in standard fashion). We should all leave well alone according to Mr. Perchard because the Commission was 'appointed' by the States.

A fair and resonable view? Well not from the vast majority of people that I speak to. And actually not an argument that is even remotely sustainable if you have any genuine concern that above all else a voting system must be as fundamentally fair to all as it can reasonably be made.

Trouble is, as I have been at pains to highlight, all too few within our (MSM) mainstream media want to put their heads above the parapet to tell the public that in reality what Senator Philip Bailhache and his underlings on the hijacked Commission have put forward is neither fit for purpose nor even the best that could be achieved in creating a reform option wishing to retain the Constables.

Am I making this up? Of course not!

But first let's be quite upfront here. No matter how passionate one feels about the role of the Constables - or any of the 3 types of States Member's role for that matter - this can never justify selling out a section of the community; in reality making their votes worth less than others simply because of where they happen to live. Yet this is what Senator Bailhache and co are trying to fob us off with.

Take the nonsense spun to try and justify the Commission utilising statistics based on so-called 'eligible' voters in concocting their proposals rather than actual population. On page 13 of the Commission's final report they state: ‘Equality and fairness are key elements of any truly democratic electoral system’

Interesting this - because I would suggest that not a single individual within the States Assembly would dream of rising to speak at an election hustings to publicly proclaim anything other than their full support for this principle. The 'eligible' voters stats that Bailhache and his colleagues base their arguments on will already be out of date by the time of the 2014 elections. Heck - they are out of date already!

The truth is out there somewhere - in fact it's in a graph just below...

Yet just a cursory glance at the figures utilising full POPULATION statistics in each of the Commission's proposed 6 large districts shows how precious little more than lip-service has really been paid to this principle. Indeed, forget the bull that to utilise these population figures might have taken the Commission 'outside it's terms of reference'. This is all part of a callous attempt to mislead the public by watering down the true extent of the system of first and second class voters the Jersey Establishment want to create - not just to maintain but hugely strengthen their grip on power.

A feat they hope to achieve of course by creating an ever-wider divide between the weight of votes available to those in 'country' parishes - who largely tend to vote for the political right. And 'town' dwellers who generally tend to lean more toward the political left. Anyone doubting the con lurking beneath the spin and excuses that what is before us now is the best compromise achievable need simply study the figures I lay out below.

The first thing you will hopefully notice is that these obviously include both Deputies AND Constables - something the Commission has been very keen to try and avoid doing with its pitch to the public. I mean, Senator Bailhache and his colleagues have massaged away 6,632 people deserving of representation off the St. Helier 'books' at the stroke of a pen. How convenient...

  

District No	Parishes/Vingtaines	Total Population	Number of Representatives	Public Per Representative
No.1	du Mont Cochon du Mont a l’Abbé de Haut du Mont au Prêtre du Rouge Boullon	17.543	5.5	3,189
No. 2	Bas de Haut du Monte au Prête, Canton Bas de la Ville, Canton de Haut de la Ville	15,942	5.5	2,898
No. 3	St. Clement Grouville St. Martin	17,850	8	2,231
No. 4	St. Saviour Trinity	16,736	7	2,391
No. 5	St. Lawrence St. John St. Mary St. Ouen	14,178	9	1,575
No. 6	St. Brelade St. Peter	15,571	7	2,224

People are being sold a lie...

Surprised? Everyone not a close follower of politics that I have shown these figures to has been. Which at the end of the day has no doubt been the whole reason to try and keep them largely under wraps. People are being sold a lie - a lie that tells them if you want to retain the Constables then something has to give; and sadly that 'something' is the equality of vote for the population of St. Helier!

Just 'half a Constable' for each St. Helier district whilst some have 3 and even 4 - sorry, there's just no way of balancing this out...

Of course, it would be very easy to write post after lengthy post highlighting all that is wrong with the Commission's contentions - for a lot there is. Yet for now let us purely confine our thoughts to the following questions. Could the shambles Senator Bailhache and his hijacked Commission have set before us in fact be improved upon to any significant degree - and improved upon with comparaitive ease? Improved upon to still allow an option that both keeps the 12 Constables AND allows the poor people of St. Helier to have a vote largely in line with the other districts?

The truth is that it can! Not only this but in reality the benefits that would be achieved by just one very simple modification would actually 'head off at the pass' two other problems that a great many people - even supporters of retaining the Constables - are greatly concerned about.

So what is this oh so difficult to achieve modification?

It is simply this. Instead of the largely inexplicable call to reduce the Assembly from 51 to 42 modify that figure slightly to 46. Then in line with the true statistics outlined in the table above allocate those 4 extra seats to the the two large St. Helier districts that the Commission currently proposes need to be sold massively short. Not only does such a modest move bring these second class citizens of the island's capital far more into line with the other districts; it actually ensures that two of the biggest related  worries about political reform can be put to bed at a single stroke.

 

One: An Assembly of 46 would enable the highly important ‘Troy Rule’ principle to be retained. Something that will prove nigh impossible with a reduction to a 42 x Member States Assembly - certainly if all of these new Ministers are invented: Justice; Children's; Foreign!

Possibly why Senator Bailhache is suggesting it - we can all be one big, happy family and any prospect of 'opposition' can be cut  off at the knees. Indeed, with a Chief Minister with probable sole power to 'hire and fire' a dictatorship/one party state in all but name... 

                                   

Two: This slight increase by just 4 x Members to 46 would also offer potential to even allow one Member to take on the role of Speaker. A role that like it or not will soon need to be filled with the inevitable coming necessity of achieving a full and true separation of powers i.e. ending the dual role of the Bailiff as Head of both Judiciary and Legislature.

Not only the above, of course, but even though many believe the argument about 'saving money' by reducing numbers is largely a red herring if it undermines both democracy and political efficiency this amended version of the Commission's Option B would still reduce the States current wage bill in the region of £230,000. You have to ask: why ever did the good Senator and his Commission colleagues not think of it in the first place?

Perhaps, dare I suggest, because just like the wholly unnecessary 'retain the status quo' proposal of Option C - instead of a 'none of the above' option - the real intention was to con the public at large into voting for what would give the Jersey Establishment Party what it craves above all else: the Constables still in the States and a weakened St. Helier vote cementing that hugely consolidated grip on power!

Now if only someone would put a couple of amendments in to allow a States debate to show people what is really going on...