The most recent Chief Pleas meeting was not an edifying spectacle, according to our Sark correspondent. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0460609)
LAST week’s meeting of Chief Pleas was a bad-tempered affair which did little to enhance the image of the island’s legislature in the minds of the many in the public gallery for whom this was their first experience of government.
It started with an extremely cordial reception committee – about 50 or so employees of the Barclay family – apparently gathered, as several of them put it to me, to express their appreciation of the level of investment currently being made by our neighbours from Brecqhou.
There was a move early in the proceedings to stop people such as Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay from nominating substitutes if they were unable to attend the sitting because of illness. When some people read this, they will argue that the move would have affected everyone in the same way.
Possibly so, but despite the protestations to the contrary during the debate, there were those who were upset that our neighbours from Brecqhou had nominated lawyers – one from Guernsey and one from the United Kingdom – to represent them at the previous sitting and appeared hell- bent on stopping them.
They failed, possibly because members such as Phyllis Rang – who has been sitting in Chief Pleas for longer than some who clearly believe they know it all have been on Earth – referred to the utter futility of trying to amend a law which will cease to apply before the end of this year.
It was after that first skirmish that it dawned on many that battle lines were being drawn and, sad as it is to report, it was almost inevitable that votes were going to be based on who was saying what, rather than what was being said.
It was not an edifying spectacle and anyone who’d just popped in to get out of the rain and witnessed the shouting – totally unnecessary and something I’ve never witnessed in almost 40 years of reporting on legislatures – and the way members are continually permitted to make snide remarks about their confreres, without a murmur from anyone, must have thought that Dame Sybil Hathaway had bequeathed a real cowboy organisation to her grandson when she died all those years ago.
No doubt the now- customary accusations of me being pro-Barclay will surface once again so it’s probably as well for me to set out what I really believe. I think it is unhealthy in such a small community for one family to control so much land and, in particular, such a high percentage of the island’s commercial life.
That said, I think I am grown-up enough to accept – as some others seem unable to do – that there is nothing I or anyone else can do about it. It follows, therefore, that the choice is to live with it – without rolling over and Sir David is aware that I don’t roll over because I’ve told him so – or, as what I would argue is a relatively small but sadly influential minority seem intent on doing, do everything they can possibly think of to get up the Barclay family’s collective nose.
I will be criticised yet again for expressing opinions but I am more than confident that this view is shared by many.
It is perfectly possible to disagree in debate – often with considerable passion – without resorting to the sort of gratuitous rudeness and nasty innuendo so alien, I thought until last week, to people from these islands. On occasions it was Sark at its nasty little worst and, if the conversations I had with some of those present are anything to go by, there were many not best pleased at the end of the day and their mood had nothing to do with the debates.
On a much more positive note, Chief Pleas decided to lift the ban on carriages operating on Sundays after Deputy Dave Melling outlined the half-dozen or so legal exemptions which, coupled with some bending of the rules on occasions, make a mockery of such legislation.It all came about because the powers-that-be wanted to abolish it for those cruise-liner passengers who happen to land in Sark on Sundays.But, as several members then pointed out, that would create a first and second-class tourist and all sorts of other difficulties also.
Common sense has now prevailed and the rules are to be changed, although whether that level of common sense will be extended to the authorities turning a blind eye until the necessary legislation is approved remains to be seen.
As I argued – admittedly to deaf ears – when similar permissive, as very much distinct from restrictive, legislation was approved permitting electric bicycles, it would be sensible to follow Lord Nelson and look at things with a blind eye.
I’m not holding my breath.
The email address for comment is fallesark@ sark.net.
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