THE Bailiff has urged the States to bind together for a busy 14 months until the next general election. Geoffrey Rowland told the House yesterday, as it concluded a week-long election process brought about by the Fallagate hospital contract crisis, that he had been disappointed over references to factions and splits within its membership.

‘Certainly I consider myself to be a member of a single team championing Guernsey and there is no room in our politics for factions.’

Chief Minister Mike Torode pledged his support for that approach immediately afterwards.

‘The best thing we can do is ignore anything that may be regarded as a faction. Put in the past what is in the past and just go forward,’ he said.

‘My intention is to involve all States members wherever possible. That is vital.’

He intended to operate an open-door policy for members. ‘I want them all on board. When I said inclusive government, I meant inclusive government.’

Mr Rowland said claims in recent months that the States was dysfunctional were generally wide of the mark.

‘Maybe there is a slight hint, a grain of truth in there, but it has been hugely overstated and is totally not applicable to the functioning of the States of Deliberation.’

He said that robust debate and an occasional electric atmosphere were ‘the stuff of true parliamentary democracy’.

It was understandable that some

might feel bruised by their treatment,

‘but politics never seems to me to be for the faint-hearted’.

Mr Rowland said that after months of disruption, the States would have no scope to relax into the end of its four-year term and ease back on difficult decisions.

‘We are not going to have the luxury of not firing on all cylinders right to the end of this term.’

Mr Rowland said the States should take the fallout from Fallagate in a positive fashion and move on. He said that he considered the electoral changes as a ‘refreshing’ of the Policy Council.

He described the relationship of some members with the media over the affair as unfortunate, but said he did not generally criticise the media, ‘which plays an important part in the functioning of any democracy’. He added that he preferred ‘a broadsheet approach rather than a tabloid approach’.