Illustration by Peewee

CHER Eugene,

I had a good time to the West Show this year, mon vieux, it’s a shame you couldn’t be there as well, eh? I was chatting to Jack Torode, me. And Bert, from L’Ancresse, he came down as well, him, eh?

We were talking about the States, and I said there’s something that doesn’t make sense about this new set-up. Jack said straightaway, it’s the States members themselves, eh?

We were saying how they’re supposed to represent the

people who elect them, but instead of asking the locals, they just ask English consultants all the time.

Then when they remember they’re supposed to represent the electorate, they do these consultation exercises. That’s where they ask the locals what they think, but it’s too bloney late because they’ve already made up their minds, eh?

I mean, I told you about that application for Leale’s Yard, to tidy up the area and have houses and shops and cafes and all that, eh?

Well, the Commerce and Employment, they’ve decided to ask consultants to tell them whether they should give permission or not, eh? And the Environment, they think that’s a good idea, them.

Caw, it makes you wonder why we’ve got politicians and civil servants in their own planning department and committees if they have to get consultants to tell them what to do, eh?

Jack said they made up their minds about his garage door without asking anyone else. And they went ahead with that Admiral Park without asking islanders what they thought, eh?

With all this talk about having a slimmed-down States, if it carries on like that they could scrap half the civil servants and the committees and just have a group of people who contact consultants when they need a decision, eh?

Then only last week, the Environment were asking for people’s views on what the incinerator should look like. But that’s one of their consultation exercises, mon vieux. After all, they’ve already decided what they’re going to have, and they’ve even put out a drawing of how it will look, eh?

If you ask me, there’s no one on that committee that’s had a horse and a stable door and managed to keep the horse in, that’s for sure.

Jack said he knows we’ve got some good architects in the island, but even they couldn’t make a £93m. incinerator on a headland look like a granite cottage, eh?

The trouble with the Leale’s Yard is all the empty shops in Town, Eugene. It will just make it worse if everyone goes up the Bridge for their shopping instead, eh?

But the States, they’ve known about that for years, them. The shopkeepers in Town, they keep saying the rents are too too high, but the States don’t do anything about it.

When you think, they even moved the Smith Street post office out of Nelson Place, so they could sell it to landlords and make money themselves, eh?

Old Jack, he was saying St Peter Port is a really pretty town, and the States have said they want it to be the jewel in the crown, but look what they’ve done to it.

They’ve put big railings and containers all over the White Rock, and a Customs shed that looks like a hangar left over from an airport. They were even talking about another hangar for a clubhouse to the Crown Pier, eh?

And some of them wanted paid parking in Town as well.

And you remember, they told everyone the new Markets would revitalise Town and Mill Street? Jack said if they’d ask locals to sort things out they’d get better results, them. After all, it was left to someone else to tidy up the plantation, eh?

Bert was saying about that French market from Normandy, it was going to the North Show, and it’s been to the North Beach a few times, so that shows people like that sort of thing here. He said they could have had something like that in the Markets instead of these English chain stores, eh?

The States say they want St Peter Port to be vibrant with a continental feel, but they think that just means letting a few restaurants put some tables outside on a rainy Sunday, eh?

And going onto double summertime would be more continental, but when that was suggested the States got afraid it would upset the UK, eh? I don’t know what happened to this idea of showing Guernsey is independent, Eugene. This chief minister flies off to Mexico to show Guernsey’s a different country, but then just does what the English government tells him, eh?

But then, it’s no wonder the UK thinks it can tell us what to do, when the States can’t even approve a planning application without asking for English advice, eh?

There’s one from the House of Lords now, saying Guernsey shouldn’t be independent any more.

He says we were made independent 800 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Caw, he’s right there, him, and some not for the better, eh?

He says now we’ve become a financial centre, people are leaving England to come here because they pay less taxes.

Caw, perhaps I could be a Guernsey consultant, mon vieux, because I could tell him the obvious problem there, then, eh?

But the thing with this Commerce and Employment is they want to pay consultants to look at the whole of shopping in the island and find out what shoppers in Guernsey really want. But like I said to Jack, that means the ones who are supposed to represent Guernsey people, they’re saying they don’t know what the locals want, eh?

And they’re going to pay thousands of pounds of our money asking someone else what we think. Jack and me, we said we’d tell them for half the price, eh?

And you know what will happen, mon vieux. They’ll get consultants from England, who only know about England, so they’ll base everything on what shoppers in England want, eh?

Then the States will say they’ve had expert advice, and Guernsey will look more and more like England again, with local shops going out of business and English shops taking over, eh?

Jack was saying there’s a bunker for sale now, Eugene, by the old fish factory, and it’s a good job the States haven’t got any money to buy it, otherwise they’d get consultants in there and there’d be another English chain store, eh? It’s still got the gun emplacements, so perhaps it should be restored, not for the Germans to fight the English, but for the locals to fight them off instead, eh?

Bert was saying about all these reports we’ve had lately about unidentified flying objects seen over Guernsey. I don’t know if you’ve read about it on your side of the world, mon vieux.

Jack said he didn’t know about any UFOs, but if a States committee put forward a good idea that didn’t copy England and didn’t need consultants, it would be pigs, not UFOs, eh?

A la perchoine,

Your cousin, Emile