WHAT started off as something many islanders regarded as a poorly timed questioning of the order of precedence at the island’s annual act of remembrance escalated yesterday into something potentially far more serious.

The intervention by the Bailiff does two things. Firstly, it reminds everyone of what the focus should be at this time – those who made the ultimate sacrifice so we could live safer lives. Secondly, it suggests that the chief minister’s account of what triggered the row was economical with the facts to the point of misleading islanders.

Whether that was deliberate or not remains unclear. Nevertheless, the Policy Council line that the Bailiff triggered the discussion is now wholly refuted and that is a desperately unsatisfactory state of affairs.

As things stand, people trying to make sense of this unseemly matter have to decide which version of events to accept, the council’s view that they were bounced into it by the Bailiff or the Bailiff saying his Chambers had been put on notice that the chief minister intended to raise it, hence his advisory note.

What that means is – whether anyone likes it or not – questions of believability have been raised and that is damaging. No one, in the absence of an agreed version of events, wants to be in a position of having to make a call on which came first, the Bailiff’s note or the council’s belief that the matter should be raised in the first place.

Inevitably, islanders will conclude that the Bailiff’s Chambers has no axe to grind in this matter, therefore yesterday’s statement is one of fact.

That would mean what has emerged so far from Frossard House has been economical, misleading and perhaps deliberately so for some shadowy political purpose.

Late in the day, however, the chief minister said any prior indication that the council might raise the issue was back in January.

If so, the records at the Bailiff’s Chambers are deficient or memories are poor.

What can be said with certainty, however, is Guernsey’s war dead deserve better than this.

Both sides need to draw hostilities to a close with a joint explanation of exactly what happened and when.