AS ISLANDERS are now aware, how words, particularly ‘special event’, are defined can have a material effect on individuals, having a bit of fun, and even a business making a quid or two.

So the joint statement from Guernsey Police and the Environment Department yesterday saying that an ‘expedient’ approach has now been taken to allow the Cobo balcony gig to take place is really rather revealing.

Reaching a solution on practical rather than moral grounds (Concise Oxford Dictionary) or because it’s convenient although possibly improper or immoral (New Oxford American Dictionary) tells you all you need to know.

The police, for reasons still hidden, wanted to turn over the event despite its years of success and it has taken the appalled reaction of islanders to prompt politicians into over-ruling that draconian and unnecessarily repressive act and use different legislation to say that the coast road will, after all, close.

That a common sense result – even with its slightly dodgy undertones – has been reached is to be welcomed and whoever banged which head or heads is to be congratulated. But this is still a wholly unsatisfactory situation.

If the police were right, then it looks like the island’s supposedly independent force has caved in to political pressure. While that probably isn’t the case, this does not look good, especially to anyone concerned that it is who you are that matters more than what you have done.

More seriously, however, the off-on circumstances of the live music event question the confidence islanders can have in officialdom to behave in a fair and equitable manner.

The gigs might be noisy, leave a bit of mess and close the road for a while but they do not shake the pillars of local society, any more than do hillclimbs, Liberation cavalcades or any of the other special events islanders regularly enjoy.

So what prompted this police assault on fun at Cobo, who was behind it, and why, after all these years, was a reinterpretation of the law deemed necessary?

For Environment to intervene using its own powers indicates that the police action was unjustified. And that makes this doubly worrying.