Minister shuns Giba over ‘mongrel’ slur
Friday 9th October 2009, 2:29PM BST.
A POLICY Council member has fallen out with business leaders over their criticism of how the States operates.
Housing minister Dave Jones (pictured) is refusing to attend meetings organised by a senior business group and is urging others to boycott them too.
Pressure on the States from business leaders has been mounting since the release of Tribal Consulting’s Fundamental Spending Review and last week’s annual Institute of Directors debate.
The G4 group – the Chamber of Commerce, Confederation of Guernsey Industry, Institute of Directors and Guernsey International Business Association – said on Saturday that the machinery of government needed to change.
Giba chairman Paul Meader said the Wales Audit Office report made it clear that a ‘root and branch’ review was needed. The current compromise system was ‘a mongrel which has not worked’, he said.
When asked to attend a breakfast organised by Giba, Deputy Jones declined, given that it thought he was part of a ‘mongrel’ States.
‘I will not be attending any more Giba events. I also believe that our system of government is the finest system in the world, mostly because of its structure which prevents powerful lobby groups like yours interfering with it,’ he replied.
Deputy Jones said that if Giba and other business lobby groups wanted to take over the States, their members could stand for election.
‘The idea that you have the public with you on this issue is wishful thinking. Many of those I speak to are fed up with the G4 and especially the IoD – most of whose members seem to have moved here in the last 25 years from a country that is in meltdown, telling Guernsey people what is best for them.’
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Does Deputy Dave Jones really believe that the Guernsey governmental system is the finest in the world? Sorry Dave, but you must be bonkers to truly believe that!
Do you really believe, for example, that the incinerator mess is a by-product of the finest political system? Or zero-10? Or paid parking? Or the strike by the airport firemen? Or the disaster that Leale’s Yard is about to become?
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As a Guernseyman and a finance industry worker I can see the problem here. I fully understand, and support, Guernsey’s unique consensus style of government. Long may it continue! I fully understand the loftily styled G4 Group’s frustration as they are all experienced at working in a non-democratic executive environments. It is a clash of cultures. One is driven by the wishes of the people, but you can’t please everyone all of the time, and the other would dispose of all their workers in Guernsey to raise profits if they could. We need both government and industry, and you must speak to each other. Perhaps the States needs to organise breakfast briefings for the G4? What is concerning me is that the G4 and its spokesman is turning political. Is this the start of party politics in Guernsey? If so G4 show your hand and get the mandate you need from the people of this Island before becoming the official opposition!
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Greg yes I do, when you compare our system to all others and I must be bonkers to keep sticking my head above the parapet for people to keep shooting at it, can you show me an example anywhere in the world that delivers the levels of service we do where nepotism or the patronage by powerful lobby groups can not make any difference to the way the states votes on specific issue? I haven’t put that very well but I think you know what I mean.
Also I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt the incinerator would have gone through if the Policy Council had been a Cabinet I found myself in a minority of one in opposing this waste plant, The same would have been true with Zero 10 If we wanted to maintain any economy at all we had to take this option and I have absolutely no doubt any Guernsey cabinet would have taken the same decision. As for the strike by the firemen, I am not sure how having an executive system would prevent people withdrawing their labour, and I agree with you over the possible disaster at Leal’s Yard but again I fail to see how an a cabinet could prevent it when the owners of the project have recourse to the Courts, an example of that is when the political board of the Environment department refused to pass the new garage development in St Martins the owners of the site (the Co-op) took the environment department to court and won so the political objections didn’t count for anything, after all St Martins is really short of garages.
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Cabinet Government NO NO NO NO NO.
I am sick and tired of the so-called business leaders slagging off the States. They are far from perfect but our island system works. Of course there are mistakes – no one is perfect. However, how many of these big businessmen would allow the press access to all their accounts, staff salaries, bonuses, customer bases etc ?
They are looking out for one thing – themselves – not Guernsey plc.
Keep it up Dave Jones – you are not always right but i support you 100% over this. The States needs more like you – not afraid to put their heads over the parapet for something they really believe in. Good on you.
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To Deputy Dave Jones, my point was that your comment on our system being the best was wrong. I was not sticking up for any other system, including cabinet government.
My own view is that we should:-
(a) Halve the number of deputies on the states. Why do we need so many?
(b) At least double the salary. We need to attract high calibre people, which is not going to happen on the current level. To be honest, we probably need to make it even higher, although given the current economic climate that might not be acceptable to the electorate!
And yes, you might be bonkers for continually sticking your head above the parapet, but at least you have the guts to do so! I may not agree with the vast majority of what you post, but I respect the fact that you participate on this forum.
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Greg – agree – halve the numbers. But not a penny more in salaries. People of “calibre” or of retirement age generally don’t need the money. Paying the rest of them double the amount will not make any of them twice as good.
Utterly agree with your final paragraph – but…
As to the rest, I doubt if GIBA care much, as Dave votes “their” way, most of the time (and oh, how they lobbied for zero ten). One less breakfast.
“mongrel” would refer to the cross-breeding of Harwood with the previous system – not to the deputies themselves, surely?
And isn’t DJ a latecomer to the island himself? Why criticise G4 and GIBA for having members that have only been here 25 years? Does Dave feel particularly righteous at 26??
Didn’t he grant most of their licences, then?
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I agree we should at least half the number of deputies.
I dont agree that their salaries should increase, but perhaps performance related pay would be good.
If that was to be introduced they would end up owing us, the tax payers, money
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Bob- I think there are lots of good people i’ve encountered in various professions in Guernsey who would make very good politicians…but they earn a lot more than is on offer with the states and have liabilities which match their current salary, effectively removing them from being able to become a states member. But i agree that doubling the salary doesn’t make them twice as good.
Andrew- I like your idea on performance related pay.
Of course, maybe the opposite of paying them twice could be true (and perhaps Bob would agree with this point). Maybe we should return to zero salaries. My own personal view of various States administrations has been that it’s been steadily getting worse since it became a paid position.
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Greg
Yes I did vote for zero 10 and I still believe it was the right thing to do, we would have had no real economy at all if we hadn’t been willing to compete with our main rivals who also went for Zero 10 so all the politicians in Guernsey, Jersey and the IOM got it wrong as well.
And by the way Greg I will have lived in Guernsey for 41 years by May next year
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Sorry Greg that should have been for Bob
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Bob and Greg
You are both quite right. We don’t or shouldn’t need 45 deputies to govern an island of 62,000-ish people. One deputy per 1,400 people ? Completely over the top. 20-25, elected on an island-wide basis, would seem more appropriate.
Rightly or wrongly, there are many potential candidates for the States whose local income tax bill alone would not be covered by the salary that a Deputy gets paid, or even a Minister’s salary in some cases. Those candidates aren’t going to remotely consider it until they are able to retire from their career positions. Some will definitely fancy it though when they are ready to take retirement, and those in their mid-late 50s still have a huge amount to offer and would be able to bring a lifetime of business experience into the House with them. Any by “business experience” I don’t just mean “finance industry experience”.
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Greg
As to why we need so many deputies is simple, it is because every assembly needs a built in opposition, ours is a transient opposition and deputies change sides depending on the issue being debated. Also if you are not going to have an elected dictatorship with 10 people deciding everything behind closed doors, then you need enough deputies to populate the departmental boards and the two scrutiny committees. If there were not enough members on the floor of the assembly to challenge the decisions of the Ministers and Deputy Ministers (20 in all) then you would have Cabinet government by any other name. Perhaps you could give me a description of the “high calibre” of Deputy you want to see, or should that not be left to the people of Guernsey to decide whom they wish to elect?
Or you could set up a committee and a handful of you could decide who is suitable in your view to go forward to stand in an election. Your point on pay is debatable, I went into the States before we got paid and I feel just as passionate now about my job as I did back then when we got very little. As a Minister my job is a full time one and I take it very seriously. Doubling the salary will not make any difference you need people who are totally dedicated to the task and paying them is secondary to that. However people have to live and nobody in my view other than the very wealthy could afford to become a member of the States without financial support.
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Mr Jones, perhaps maybe then we need political parties to provide opposition withouth having 45 deputies. As David points out, 1 deputy per 1,400 is bordering on stupidity!
And perhaps the departmental boards are over staffed?
As for high calibre, the States are running Guernsey PLC (which is in effect what any Government does, with the assistance of the civil service). Therefore I would expect Deputies to have had at least some experience in decision making. And I mean decisions with serious consquences. The ability to evaluate both sides of a debate and then formulate a sensible and researched opinion is not something that one is generally able to do from scratch. Yes, this does tend to suggest good politicians will come from more of a business background than perhaps a manual labour background but then being a politician is, at the end of the day, a vocation where certain skills are required. And please note, when I state business I don’t exclusively mean finance!
Yes, you are correct that the people of Guernsey vote on who should be in government. But there are a great many people on this island who would make excellent politicians who will not stand whilst they are being paid far more in their current job. Whilst one can talk about civic duty etc, that doesn’t pay the bills! Therefore the electorate are not given the best selection of candidates to choose from.
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I always get very nervous when people start bemoaning the alleged fact that there aren’t enough members of the States of sufficient calibre because that is usually some kind of code for “there aren’t enough rich, business-friendly men in the the House who will vote for less regulation, lower taxes and massive spending cuts in public services”.
Greg:
I disagree that the States of Guernsey is running Guernsey PLC as such. A government does so much more than just run a business. It is not just about profit and loss. It does, of course, have many similar facets to running a business but issues like social welfare, health care, protecting the environment, etc are so much bigger then simply making a profit at the end of the day and therefore the analogy doesn’t work.
Andrew:
How on earth could “performance related pay” work in the political context? Politics is largely a subjective affair isn’t it? Different people will have different views on what “success” in politics is. For example,a young, new deputy will propose a requete to stop an incinerator being built which is then successfully voted through. Is that a golden victory for the environment or an economic mistake? Or a new Treasury Minister brings in a radical new tax strategy that improves our international competitiveness but leaves us with a fiscal budget deficit. Should they get paid more or less for their efforts? How on earth do you construct an objective system to regulate such a thing?
Fair play to Dave Jones. I don’t agree with him on much but he is right to stand up for the consensus form of government that has provided full employment, economic growth & decent public services for the last few decades.
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Greg
Party politics doesn’t seem to be the answer if you look at Westminster they currently have 645 mps for a small country like England on top of that you have 129 Scottish MSP’s and 40 members of the Welsh assembly, a grand total of 814 members to represent the people of the United kingdom in one parliament or another. If we had the mix you desire who would represent the manual workers and what do you define as manual work, Carpenters, Plumbers, perhaps Digger drivers. The skills that are required as a politician are the ability to listen to those who put you there, the ability to put forward your case on the floor of the house and I have seen several so called business people fail on that point alone, the ability to read and understand the business of the day and above all the ability to use commonsense when voting in the best interests of the island. I look forward to seeing all these people who would make excellent politicians at the next election they will be able to pay the bills as all Deputies are now paid. I have a hunch however that we wont see to many of them in 2012 as finding the courage to become involved is much more difficult than sitting in an armchair deciding which people the public should pick from.
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So, the finance industry spokespeople want the best possible future for Guernsey. It wants our schools, our hospital and our standard of living to continue being an object of social and corporate pride.
Huh?
This is precisely the type of dynamic stakeholder leadership we deserve from the wealthiest, and clearly most advanced sector of our economic society. Its perfect pitch, directly or ‘reported’, clearly demonstrates a well-balanced and pragmatically honest prognosis of the Guernseyperson’s future requirements of sacrifices needed to ensure maximum efficiency and above-weight punchability.
In fact, any discourse around the matter of this sophisticated analysis is based purely on parochial ignorance and a desire to be pointlessly and uselessly annoyingly laughable.
No, truly, it’s worse than that.
If you believe anything you read, anywhere, that alludes to anything at all that could be construed even in the remotest sense to do with anything that our finger-jabbingly high position on a number of lists implies that we are not, then – and this is another States oversight – there should be a public farewell ceremony for that Boat that Goes In The Morning. To the Isle of White, apparently, although the truth is necessarily obscured by transparency and regulatory requirements.
It is what they are for.
*sigh*
Don’t you guys ever tire of sounding like the Messiah? Your argument for democratically mandated protection and nurturing, for acceptance and moral respectability, consists of insults and blackmail. Presumably you would like to back up these claims of War Against Guernsey with some detailed independent analysis, maybe whilst conveniently forgetting the last 40 years.
Honestly. The gall is astonishing. Not only did the Mothership have to be saved by the checkout girls and cab drivers from other countries, but this ‘business excellent’ philosophy finds it suitable to denounce everything about Guernsey except for Lyndon “you-make-my-mouth-say-things” Trott.
David etc
Do you honestly believe that being a ‘good’ publically elected representative in a community needs only the skill to bow down to these desperate squawkings and not advertise it too much? Like, oh, the last generation or so?
How progressive is that?
Where are the sustainable investments in Guernsey as proof of commitment and dedication to the host country? What will be your legacy when your well dries up?
You said it.
What a pathetic thing to say. “You’ll be sorry when we’re not your friend”
And let’s get this clear from the language used. Any move on their lifestyle, be it through tax or perceived government inaction, has been threatened with total withdrawal of labour.
There is nothing to boast about. The legacy you would leave if you ran to cuckoo in some other nest would be mostly negative, but quickly forgotten. The very fact you all got fat but left the disaster scene as YOU describe my potential future opportunities to resemble, says much, much more about this arrogant and prevailing attitude you are naturally gifted at, than it does for the likes of Deputy Jones.
And it is that fundamental inability to be socially intelligent that predicates the lack of ‘quality businessmen’ in government. Experience in screwing people for profit is not entirely a desirable characteristic. The equation Without Tax Dodgers And Criminals = You Are All Going To Die Poor is not something to relish and be excited about. Until such time as there is proportionate social advancement to the amount of wealth secretly shovelled through at Guernsey’s reputational and domestic expense then your stupid graphs and meaningless self aggrandisements (based around a game of soggy biscuit and STEP magazine) are as pointless as your jobs/value ratio.
Can you imagine the outcry if the nurses, or the teachers, or civil service decided that people weren’t being very nice to them, or by deciding that a banker was more important than a dying baby, they threatened to up off?
This spoilt brat indignation at government waste hides incompetent management. Did your self-deified status disable your business acumen? Do company projections only work when no one’s looking?
You’ve made a mess, boy. Bad dog. Au lit!
Get a grip, David. It’s not Dave Jones’ fault we’re a pariah, as much as he’d wave the EU into the incinerator. You lot have had decades to prepare for some ethics.
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Greg-
The cold truth is that most of us do not wish to waste time and energy by publicly banging our heads against the political wall. The states isn’t a meritocracy. The very attributes posessed by the guys you talk about will make them a target of the established cadre of deputies and ministers. They do not always like the “can do” attitude; they do not wish to be outshone.
We can do more for the island in providing goods and services; opportunity and employment; sponsoring professional education and apprenticeships and providing a living for people and a tax base for the community at large. After that, emigrate somewhere more sensible for retirement, so one isn’t tempted into politics!
Dave Jones – I might feel the same as you do – why should I listen to anyone that’s only been here 41 years?
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Guernsey Che- Unfortunately, there is a large element of government that has to be run along the lines of a business, otherwise the country goes bust. (Having said that, the country can also go bust even when it’s run like a business…but that’s for another debate!)
I understand your point regarding the environment, health etc, but these areas still need to be run within budgets, and important decisions still need to be made.
Dave Jones- I’m not sure of your point regarding the UK. If you ignore the regional parliaments (which are generally pointless!), the UK population per MP is significantly different to Guernsey’s. However, I don’t see how this relates to my comment regarding party politics, which I mentioned to counter your point about needing 45 states members to give an adequate opposition?
Also, I fail to see any relevance regarding your comments re manual workers? You don’t need deputies from a similar working background to represent you in the government, that isn’t how government works! Government doesn’t have to broadly represent the make up of a population. Government has to be made up of capable people, it doesn’t matter what their background is. My personal view is that (in general) people with experience of running organisations or with senior positions in organistations are better equipped for the task. But there will always be exceptions, and as you point out, politicians also need put the interests of the island as a whole first.
I don’t think you’ll see many people sacrficing their current salaries to that offered by the States to run in 2012.
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Greg
You are so right about needing government by capable people.
When I recall the Chairman of Lloyds saying it the time of the HBOS acquisition that it was a unique opportunity to accelerate and extend our strategy and create the UK’s leading financial group” and the claim of Eric Daniel’s the Chief Executive that the merger was something we have looked at for a long time, I get worried about financiers as a group being allowed anywhere near a decent business.
The regular banking crises of recent years being the result of greed and recklessness provides the doubts whether they could run an organisation such as government.
There are exceptions but they are few and far between.
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Arnald
I can honestly say that I haven’t understood around 75% of your last posting so I can’t really respond. Are you using a different language on Planet Arnald ?
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Stephen John, I agree totally re HBOS and Lloyds, although I think you’ll find the UK government also had a strong hand in the “marriage” of the two companies.
However, I’m not sure in any of my posts on this thread that i’ve stated we need members of the finance community as politicians? I know that many posters on this forum find it hard to accept that there is a difference between “business” and “finance” but believe me, we do have some very successful non-finance enterprises on this island.
I would also strongly argue that the recent banking crisis was caused by several factors, including, but not limited to, banking greed and recklessness (two areas that have been prevalent in the banking arena for a time that easily pre-dates the current crisis).
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Stephen John
The bank can’t even run my overdraft facility with any degree of accuracy.
Overstated ability, a local workforce unable to adapt to change, and a proven track record for harbouring tax evaders, arms smugglers, fraudsters and terrorists.
Care to want to take their opinions seriously?
Greg, you see you fail at the first hurdle.
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Of all the businesses in the world banking most be the easiest to turn a profit from. Consequently one of the hardest to fail at, but world bankers have managed just that.
On the other side of the coin, to actually manufacture something, delivering it into a competitive market and turn a profit takes real business skill.
The above is well known and understood by bankers hence trying to cover their embarrassment by calling there manipulations ‘products’ and claims to being wealth creators.
Sure, banking is clever, probably one of the sharpest, but certainley not intelligent.
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Good on you Dave J, I am sick and tired of listening to the constant moans and groans of an organisation, which wants only one thing and that, is total power over all. I support the current number of states Deputies. Lets be honest, it is Giba and the other mongrels who want a reduction in Deputes because they only want their men and women in the House.Perhaps the WAO report may just give them the support they need to turn Guernsey into a Hong Kong. I strongly believe that in 2012 the local voters in Guernsey will do the sensible thing and not vote for any ‘mongrels’ from giba. Mind you I am sure they will do all they can in ensuring they have ringers standing to stop any good working class local none finance person being elected. We must stand up to these bullies before the island is lost for good. Mind you, the power these mongrels have is frightening.
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Arnald.
Next time you write, you will have to write in the following form
“This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed at home”
I think that will be easier to understand,
I’m not digging at anyone (yeah right)
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