OVER the last couple of days, a Jersey senator has been attempting to generate a debate on whether the Channel Islands should have political parties but, in reality, it is a pretty futile task.Electors simply would not wear the importation of the UK’s current three main parties and trying to create one or more from scratch to suit the island’s outlook and aspirations would be thankless, not to say impossible.
There are so many strongly held shades of opinion locally that even successfully negotiating a mandate among supporters would be an achievement. And since there have been attempts to form them in the past, it is easy to conclude that islanders have little enthusiasm for such things.
Where there is agreement is that voters want a better performing States, one that moves more quickly, spends and overspends less and generally stops contradicting itself and thus gives every appearance of being joined up.
That means concentrating more power into fewer hands, reducing the time taken over consulting with opposing or dissident groups and becoming prepared to take more risk by accepting that not all decisions can be winners.
Whether such a system is called cabinet, ministerial or executive government means little for the effect is the same: a central administration accountable to the States as a whole.
While Guernsey’s government may be the States as a whole, it has over the years delegated the day-to-day process of running the island to departments and their officials, otherwise the Assembly would be meeting weekly.
What the ‘debate’ over political parties is really about is whether islanders wish to delegate more power to an inner circle, be that a cabinet or the senior members of the ruling political party.
Elector preference to date is overwhelmingly not but the evidence in successive independent reports commissioned by the States is that the island has to have some form of defined leadership structure and will not progress until it has.
The last House showed that governmental reforms have some way to run and this one has a real dichotomy to resolve.