No need for peace talks – Sark ‘not at war with Brecqhou’
Wednesday 12th January 2011, 2:29PM GMT.
SARK is not at war with Brecqhou so ‘peace talks’ are not necessary, according to the island’s ‘chief minister’.
General Purposes and Advisory Committee chairman Charles Maitland (pictured) yesterday sought to justify its decision to publish correspondence between Sir David Barclay and Seigneur Michael Beaumont.
The contents of letters spanning almost two years will be discussed by Chief Pleas next week.
Conseiller Maitland said the decision to release the letters was made because his committee believed the issues Sir David wanted to discuss with the Seigneur should have been raised with the democratically-elected Chief Pleas.
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Indeed Sark is not at war with Brecqhou.
But when Conseiller Maitland refers to “Sark” he does not mean Sark. He means himself and his clique. As when his chum Arditti says he “defends the people of Sark from the Barclays”. And if Conseiller Maitland is saying that “Sark”, in this sense, is not at war with Brecqhou, who is he kidding?
Anyone who knows Conseiller Maitland will know that it is difficult, if not impossible, to have a conversation with him which does not at one point veer into a discourse about the Barclays, about his distaste for them and about how they are going to get their comeuppance now. It borders on obsession. It is your right to feel this way, Conseiller Maitland, and I am sure you are not alone, but please do not try to kid us that you do not.
GP&A’s credibility and the sincerity of their portrayal of themselves as an innocent helpless victim, have been called seriously into question by the release of this documentation.
Conseiller Maitland’s statement, which few will see as sincere, does little to restore them.
The letters were clearly released as a hostile measure towards the Barclays and because it was felt that such a release would both annoy and embarrass them. So much is clear from the text of the accompanying agenda item, although one who knows the mind of its proposers does not have to read it to know this.
The attempt has backfired spectacularly. At foot, aim, shoot!
Conseiller Maitland, we want respect from the Barclays; we do not want a fight to the death with them! The Island is big enough for everyone.
I wish Conseiller Maitland did everyone – but mostly himself – a big favour, and stepped down from the helm of the GP&A and made room for a better candidate. He has been prone to gaffes and he has come across as haughty and aloof from his electorate. If he carries on as he has done to-date, he risks becoming William Raymond Mk II: a meteoric rise to the chairmanship of the GP&A, followed by shunning and being contemptuously (r)ejected by the community in the following election. Like his predecessor, he is likely to gain a (possibly well deserved) reputation for causing untold damage to the Island along the way.
In addition to this latest gaffe, there has also been his equally relentless pursuit of Land Reform, which the people of Sark made abundantly clear at the last public meeting, and many told him privately, we do not want! Why won’t you listen to us, Conseiller Maitland? You have not been here long – why won’t you listen to people whose families have been here for generations?
Yes, Kevin Delaney’s newsletter is often far too personal and reading it often makes the heart of anyone wanting peace on Sark sink. This does no favours – to its editor! He does, however, often, make very valid points and discloses interesting information. He would be much better served if he stuck to being factual. But, if you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it, and you can write your own. That is what freedom of speech is all about! Maitland et co. say the newsletter is irrelevant, that nobody reads it, that nobody takes any notice of it. Yet apparently it is so important that a whole Chief Pleas agenda item – proposed by the same Conseiller Maitland – is about how “if relations are to be improved then the first step must be the reform of the Sark Newsletter and the adoption of a more civilised, less belligerent, approach.”. An agenda item, moreover, that has to be slipped in as a last minute addendum in exercise of the Seneschal’s emergency discretionary powers. So which is it – irrelevant, or a threat to the national security? Is it appropriate for a parliament to single out one particular newsletter this way? Do we want freedom speech, or do we want to live in a Nazi state, where speaking your (no matter how offensive) mind risks incurring the wrath of, and and formal repression from, the Government? I believe this agenda item to be Conseiller Maitland’s third major gaffe this week.
We would be much better served by a Chairman of the GP&A who could demand and *command* the respect of the Barclays, as well as that of the community – and returned it, to both. While there isn’t an awful lot to choose from among the current lot of Conseillers, in my opinion, I think one Conseiller, Stefan Gommoll stands head and shoulders above most – maybe all – the others in this respect. While I cannot say I agree with him on everything and while I do not see him as perfect, nor do I know anyone else who does, he is clearly independent; he has a good head on his shoulders; as a Tenant, he has extensive experience in Chief Pleas; and he is respected both, I think, by the Barclays and across the community. He also stands up for Sark and acts with common sense.
How could Conseiller Maitland have been appointed to that position in preference to him?
How did Conseiller Maitland get to chair the GP&A at all, anyway? Did anyone even know who he was when he was elected? He had been on the Island for less two years, and I had never seen him out and about. Where else in the world does one move in and become the head of the government after just over a year, then starts bringing in drastic – seismic – legislative changes on a conveyor belt, before he has even had the chance to understand how the place works?
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PS I wish to add two comments to my earlier post:
1) Here is what I think the truth is about the Sark Newsletter: everybody, or nearly everybody, on Sark reads it. I suspect even some people on Guernsey read it. Even most of those Conseillers who officially refuse to subscribe to it, I suspect, read it. They may read it in secret, when nobody is watching, but they do read it. How else do they know what it says? The fact is, curiosity gets the better of us, most of us anyway, and to satisfy it, we read it, if only to find the answer to the question: what did he get up to this week? As for its content, sometimes it informs us, sometimes it amuses us, and sometimes it doesn’t; often, it makes us cringe. It causes grief – to its editor, I suspect, often, to those it attacks, I suspect, rarely. And it irks. It irks, for sure, when it attacks on a personal level. But such attacks are easily shrugged off, particularly when they are unwarranted. What irks much more are the inconvenient truths it contains. It is truth that hurts the most, because an inconvenient truth, once exposed, stares us irritatingly in the eye; we know; others know; and we know others know – it just won’t go away!
2) I weep for Sark when I think of who sits in our Chief Pleas. I have great respect for some of our Conseillers who work very hard to try to better our Island – it is a thankless job, particularly working with the colleagues they are stuck with. But far too many of them were I think accurately described by an excellent candidate who refused to stand in the last election because “he has better things to do that be stuck in a nest of vipers”. Regrettably, for this reason, things are unlikely to improve even after future elections.
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“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger that their democratic state itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Sarkdog
That’s the Channel Islands in a nutshell, no?
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Sarkdog, I agree with you 100%. It was expertly put by Roosevelt. Thank you.
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Well, that quote is not surprising coming from FDR, the famous statist president, the grandfather of Big State reforms in the USA, and known to history as a great admirer of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov – Lenin.
“Private power” of course means the individual, and the totalitarians could never tolerate the individuals being supreme and sovereign and the state being our servant.
Let me quote for you some other well-known U.S. Presidents:
“Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem.” — Ronald Reagan
“The history of liberty is a history of limitation of government power, not the increase of it.” — Woodrow Wilson
“Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master.” — Dwight Eisenhower
“When the Government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the Government, there is tyranny.” — Thomas Jefferson
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You are quite wrong A Resident.
Private power is not the individual in FDR’s quote.
People may think they are free under a libertarian umbrella, but the reality is we are slaves to corporatism. Be that the global companies, or the over reach of vast personal wealth.
Frankly I would prefer a benign state rather than a greedy corp. There is no democracy in letting the ‘individual’ or the ‘business’ run the world. It all boils down to the power and influence of wealth. FDR’s vision is far preferable than Reagan’s proven disaster.
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A Resi – as with Arnald, I think that you have misunderstood FDR’s quotation. He was not talking about individuals collectively (i.e. the people), he was talking about powerful unaccountable individuals who seek to exert power over the people yet remain unaccountable.
using your last Jefferson quotation – I believe that many Sark people fear the results of letting two persons dominate the Chief Pleas, hence the results of the elections. The rejection of potential tyranny in action.
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whos side are you on a resident i think i know
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Thank you, Arnald, for kindly informing me I am wrong. I do not have access to the Font of Truth, so I very much appreciate being corrected by those, like yourself, who do.
We can no doubt debate what FDR meant when he referred to the “individual” in his quote. If we look at his words only, it is easy and reasonable to conclude that he meant only to curb corporate power and that he was really a champion of the individual and individual freedom. But what if we look at his deeds? He increased taxes, he increased the size and power of the federal government, he confiscated privately held gold (not from corporate powers but from little people like you and me) and he introduced all sorts of federal programmes to “help” “disadvantaged” industries (or, as someone as misguided as myself might say, he created privileges for all sorts of special interest groups and corporatist cronies at the expense of individual taxpayers). In his deeds, he certainly did live up to the content of his quote, but not in the way you are reading it, Arnald.
But FDR was unfortunate; the country he lived in was far too backward and traditionalist (much like Sark is today), obsessed with such outmoded things as private property and inividual choice. So he could not take his “vision” to quite the same extreme as his hero, that great champion of democracy and individual freedom, Lenin, was able to in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or as other great and enlightened socialist leaders were able to, like Hitler in his national socialist “3rd reich”, or Chairman Mao’s in his red China, or Pol Pot’s in Democratic Kampuchea, or Robert Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe, etc.
I have to disagree with you, Arnald, about corporatism being a feature of a libertarian society. In my (I am sure much humbler than your much more excellent) experience, corporatism is much less a feature of libertarian societies and Reagan’s “proven disaster” (or, I might even say, Wilson’s, Eisenhower’s and Jefferson’s “proven disaster”) than it is a feature of countries which have implemented FDR’s “vision”. In Jeffersonian America, individual liberty was supreme and small business was driving the economy; in FDR’s wake (and, admittedly, his predecessor’s, Hoover’s), those were sidelined, and the state and state corporatism blossomed.
You may well prefer FDR’s vision, Arnald. I respect your preference and your right to pursue life in a place which implements it. But if that is your preference, Arnald, are you not living in the wrong place? Sark is not exactly known for our “FDR vision” way of life. We are a very much more backward, reactionary sort of place. Most of us like it that way.
If FDR’s vision is what you seek, you could live pretty much anywhere else in the world. More or less every country nowadays has implemented it. You could more or less pick and choose the grade of socialism you want to live under – you could pick Obama’s America for socialism lite, you could pick France for a bit more, or you could even go all the way and move to Zimbabwe, Chavez’s Venezuela, or even Belarus. You’d even have access to cinemas, theatres, restaurants; or, you could move out into the country and enjoy the same greenery and the peace you have on Sark. There is a lot of room in those countries. How come you want to stay here and suffer under what has, after all, been perhaps the most libertarian regime in the world? Why work hard to change this place when you have so many to choose from that are already ready-made? Have you thought about his, Arnald?
I entirely – and firmly – agree with you, Arnald, that we do not want to be ruled by a greedy corporate, or any one (or two) rich and powerful individual(s). I think the threat of this, however, has been very much overstated. Chief Pleas is well and firmly in control of Sark, and so it should be.
What the released correspondence shows is that Maitland et co. are far less innocent than they would lead us to believe. They are like the naughty child who puts on his most innocent face and weeps and cries crocodile tears when mommy is watching. But as soon as she is not, his mouth is overcome by an evil grin and a giggle. He sneaks up on his bigger brother, pokes him in the eye, laughs and thinks to himself: “watch the oaf chase after me now, he’s really going to get it from mommy this time!”
I am not saying that mommy should condone the bigger brother’s whacking of the little child, but the little child needs to be spoilt a little less and get a bit more of the medicine he deserves.
At one point, the battle between the Barclays and Maitland and co. has to end. What is your proposal on how this is to be done, Arnald? I really would like to know. Do we keep making demands of the Barclays, and making unilateral preconditions before any talks can begin, which we know they are not going to accept? Do we keep fighting to the death until one party drops dead, or is forced to leave the Island? Do you think if we keep poking them in the eye, they are going to just keel over and wave a white flag? Or are we content if we can live and let live – achieve mutual respect and good enough neighbourly relations and make peace? The Barclays’ letter shows to me that they have made reasonable overtures and offered olive branches which were far more than token gestures and which were rejected out of hand; regardless of what went on before, I do not think this was constructive.
The majority of the Islanders I think would like to see an end to this nonsense and get on with life in peace, but our political class does not: Maitland, Cole, Stisted and their cronies need the Barclays around as the bogeyman. This is why they do not want to make peace with them – and this correspondence clearly shows they don’t. Because without a bogeyman like the Barclays, there is no way they would ever get elected and grab power for an ever growing government and for themselves. For them, more government is the answer. But when, Arnald, has the growth of one corporate power (the state), supposedly to counter another (private) corporate power, been to the benefit of the little people? Can you imagine Maitland – whom nobody even knew – getting elected if Sark News had not chosen to command the people how to vote? Who do you think loses out from this enlargement of the government, Arnald: the Barclays, who have land and interests all over the world, in Monaco and God knows where else, and who are about as injured by all this as the elephant when you tickle it, or the little people who live here and have to deal with the ever growing state and the ever more intrusive legislation?
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Nice piece, A R.
I’m not sure anyone is talking about Leninism, rather Social Democracy, where the state is democratically mandated to serve the people.
Whether or not the Barclay Bros have this at heart, rather than wholescale economic takeover, I don’t know. I don’t really want to comment.
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A Resident. YOU DO GO ON and ON and ON.
Once upon a time SARK was a wonderful place to visit, no disharmony amongst residents including my family there, they got on and displayed enormous warmth and courtesy to all who visited. But that was in the GOOD OLD DAYS! Before the castley thing on Brechou happened, is it a second Seignuery in the making? I WONDER! As for GP opinions, may I suggest that GP leaves Sark to get on with their own way of government and stop stirring THE POT!
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I can’t help but read some clear bias into the GP reporting of these events – I thought that Press reporting should be unbiased, however each article alludes to how downtrodden SEM and the Barclays are by the viscious people of Sark and how Sark are getting everything wrong. This is backed up by terrible “opinions”, although I accept that is what they are!
Has it ever occurred to anyone that the reason Sark is “getting it wrong”, is because they are a very small community who were chugging along quite happily and have no idea HOW to properly reject these attacks. I believe they don’t want all this brouhaha and are just dealing with it as best as they can and as they know how to.
Leave Sark alone! If you want to give them money, fine, but not with a whole bunch of strings attached. Then don’t complain when you don’t get what you want and start pointing to all the money you “gave” (invested) them.
It is pretty poor I have to say. I now sit back, wait for A Resident’s vast response and the knock on the door from the Barclays’ lawyers.
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A-Resident. Out of all of the differing comments, views etc expressed above and under other articles about Sark, as a right we all enjoy with freedom of the press, I applaud your first two posts. You have written down the thoughts of many residents of Sark who are nowadays unable to express their thoughts and ideas in the open as we used to be able to. We could sit in either of the pubs and expound our thoughts and ideas without fear of reprisals. In those days Sarkees, born and bred, ran the island, only made new laws when it became apparent that they were needed and only then after lots of discussion and points of view being aired both in the drinking establishments and in C.P itself.
The new breed of politicians seem to be retired persons with an agenda to take over the running of the island. No thought being given to the born locals and the damage being done to their way of life.
Are all of the new laws, being enacted with indecent speed, necessary or just to prove that they as a group have the power to mess around with local peoples lives at whim regardless of the affects on residents.
Looking at the new laws enacted in the last two years most seem aimed at a certain island group
but also affect others too. None of these laws were even considered necessary until the new crowd in power took over. Was there a clamour of people knocking on the doors of the new ruling group demanding all of these changes to the exisiting laws including shipping laws, housing, not to mention messing around with moorings to upset and inconvenience visitors to Sark. If so I must have missed the clamourings or passed by at the wrong time!!
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In the famous exchange of letters, what on earth is David Barclay doing when he signs his letters H.E. Sir David Barclay?
Folie de grandeur, maybe?
Doesn’t the Queen’s staff pass on elementary forms of address for such people?
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Arnald – can you give an example of a benign state?
I’m struggling to think of one.
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From what I have gleaned from snippets of news articles, the Barclays have asked for one seat on the chief pleas to have a voice in respect of Brecqhou. What danger is there in allowing this to happen after all there are many more seats and one vote against the majority will never progress. It is all a power thing and Sark residents must look inside their community to see what is at fault and not outside it.
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To all above commentators, Please read the letter posted by Gary Blanchford in the Guernsey Press letters under the heading of SARK. Posted on the 14.1.11. He has been very succinct on this subject and I couldn’t have put it better. Well Said!
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Zelda.
They went to war over landowners getting an automatic seat on chief pleas.
Now they are spitting the dummy as they can’t get a seat on chief pleas by virtue of owning property.
They forced democracy on Sark and now don’t want to abide by the results of the ballots.
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It is time for clear heads and calm hearts.
Nobody who lives on Sark or its dependencies was made to move here. They have chosen to live here. Why, oh why, then try and instigate such a revolution?
Wouldn’t it have been easier and less fraught, and cheaper, to integrate seamlessly into the community?
To work from within to support an evolution rather than to start a revolution from outside. History has proved that you can’t kick down doors on Sark. Sarkese are rugged, stubborn and determined.
There has been such a missed opportunity here. Sark could have achieved so much with some intelligent and discreet but determined integration.
It is impossible to work with anyone who has a larger, secret or hidden agenda. Understanding, trust, respect and honesty are vital parts of any relationship.
It is not possible to seduce people with wealth and power alone. You must win hearts, and heads, and minds.
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Interesting common thread from the Sark attack dogs – write only what we want you to write. Otherwise it’s wrong, biased, outrageous, abusive, whatever.
The issue with any criticism is not whether it’s fair or not but whether it’s capable of justification.
Leaking the Barclays correspondence was a clearly hostile act, banging it into chief pleas agenda after time was an abuse of process.
Still, at least, for the first time since Sark had ‘conseillers’ (what a misnomer) there might actually be a debate rather than a collection of nodding dogs pushing through whatever the seigneur, seneschal, Maitland put in front of them..
GP biased? Check out the Sark cabal.
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Hello
It’s healthy to be cynical, but it can go too far until you stop believing in democracy.
It sounds like you don’t believe in democracy. That is sad.
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Thank you Margaret. I felt I had to make comment after the rather bias Press leader.
David Cranch,
I also wondered about the HE that he uses in his letters, it can only stand for “His Excellency” and its the first time i have seen it used in that context.
Wikipedia says:
Excellency is an honorific style given to certain members of an organization or state.
Usually, people styled “Excellency” are counted amongst:
heads of state
heads of government
governors
ambassadors
certain ecclesiastics
certain members of royalty
and others holding equivalent rank (e.g., heads of international organizations, high commissioners in the Commonwealth of Nations).
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Now then then now oh alright
for your enjoyment and satisfaction-and especially for those who are so old that they have forgotten their fairy tales
HE:now do you remember ?
I’m the King of the Castle,
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Well said Eric.
Whilst writing I think that the original invitation was an opportunity lost. Why did the Seigneur not phone back, have a chat, explain his problem of referring to his committees but promise to take up the cudgel and see if common sense could be achieved and use the opening to get lines of ocmmunication set up. If he then managed, as a result, to get the lines of communication re-established and as a result peace and stability between both ‘sides’ he would have been able to claim the honour of sorting out Sarks biggest problem and thus hopefully the island revert to its former peaceful state. It seems as if he prefers the ‘divide & rule’ route along with his cronies.
An opportunity lost I feel.
Also SEM were not asking, from the letters, for a seat on C.P’s – just a place on one of the committees presumably so that they could point out any problems that could occur with their housing, staff and planning problems when suggested new laws were coming up for drafting. Then all angles would have been considerd at the onset of a new law being proposed. They do have a very large staff on island with problems as management to contend with and many committees have sitting members who are not conseilleurs but on committess by invitation. Seems a sensible suggestion as far as I can see.
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Jay, which is largely as I read the GP comment, rather blunt though it was
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The H.E. before the Sir Barclays stands for His Excellency due to them having recently been made Ambassadors at Large to the Principality of Monaco. Their admitted domicile is Monaco.
Their Baronetcies were granted by Queen Elizabeth 2nd.
Tony Ventress
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Thanks Eric. Let’s hope it is not too late for some modicum of common sense to prevail – either that or there is a hidden agenda that prefers confrontation. This week will tell!
17 plus committes for 500 plus residents is a heck of a lot of commiittees. We used to have a handful at one time!
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Jay
Do you really think that Sir David Barclay is so naive as not to know the exact position he was putting the Seigneur in by that first invitation.
The only critisism is that the Seigneur does not appear to have placed that letter immediatly before the committee, but waited for an accumulation of letters.
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Your final paragraph says it all Gary. Why
did he not advise GP&A that he had received the first letter and maybe, even maybe, someone on the committee might have had the sense to grab the bull by the horns and run with it and see what happened in the hopes that it could have ended up healing all wounds. Worth a try I would have thought.
I do not think that is what you are suggesting but that is what I feel would have been an opportunity to grab at the time.
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Tony,
David Barclay gives a first rate impression of a stuffed shirt by signing himself that way.
And the letter is meant as a peace offering?
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Jay. You are sadly naive and misguided.
GP&A were kept fully informed of each attempt to draw the Seigneurs’ fire. Sark’s shiny new democracy may be new but it isn’t stupid. Timing is everything.
How audacious, arrogant and foolish was it to present Sark with a private agenda? Chief Pleas alone sets the political agenda for Sark.
Here is a popular analogy: anyone who attended the excellent Folk Festival knows that Sark dances to its own tune!
One more thing: the much derided ‘Sark Newsletter’ now has a cover price of 90p. However it is still distributed ‘free’ and unsolicited to most addresses on Sark. Spot the subtle difference between the much heralded ‘free’ press of open democracy and the unsolicited propaganda of private paranoia.
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One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that the Sirs Barclay are NOT on Sark’s Electoral. I leave everybody to draw their own conclusion.
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Arnald – I don’t quite follow your logic. Sorry.
How does asking if you can name any benign states means I don’t believe in democracy?
In theory democracy is a wonderful idea but I’m not sure it’s often well executed.
So in the hope that you’ll answer my question, can you think of any benign states that execute democracy perfectly?
It’s worth bearing in mind that we get to vote for politician once every few years but we can decide daily which companies we deal with…
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@Jay: thank you & I agree with you. @eric, @Hello: I also agree with you.
@Arnald: Re. intent, I’d take Sir David Barclay’s letter to the Seigneur of 5 January 2009 at face value. The way I read it is this: (i) they want to protect their business interests from hostile government interference (points 5 and 6), (ii) they’re happy to financially support Sark (points 6, 7 and 8), and (iii) the cessation of hostilities (the rest of the letter). Makes sense to me.
I doubt they want to (or even could) economically take over Sark. If they had wanted to, they could have bought enough Tenements pre-2008 Reform Law to obtain much more than mere economic control, so why didn’t they? They control an international business empire, why would they want to control the lives of 600 people living on a rock? Trying to secure enough influence or to otherwise ensure we don’t enact laws which interfere with their interests – makes much more sense.
I can’t see why the proposal in that letter should not be attractive to us. I would want Chief Pleas to pursue it. It’s in our interest to bring the dispute to an end and the letter seems to offer reasonable terms for doing so, at least as a starting point for negotiations.
Re. request to cease publishing the Sark Newletter as a precondition to negotiations. It is gratuitously unpleasant and hostile, but freedom of speech means the freedom to say things which are unpleasant. We don’t need a right to say pleasant things, nobody is going to object to us doing that. Requiring them to surrender their freedom of speech cannot be a precondition to negotiations. That amounts to putting our leaders’ personal comfort ahead of the strategic interests of the Island. If they’re going to be politicians, they need a thicker skin and to learn to put their personal preferences aside when discussing matters of national interest. Politicians of other places will not have much sympathy for ours expecting to be so mollycoddled.
What are the intentions of our ruling class? Many of them are retired and have nothing better to do than to bicker with the Barclays. It gives them something to do, a raison d’etre, an opportunity to be in power, to mingle with important foreign dignitaries, to be, and to be patted on their backs for being, the “champions”, “defenders” and “saviours” of Sark (think of Charles Maitland who recently arrived from England, unlikely ever to have had a political function, and suddenly, after just over a year on Sark, he’s our “Prime Minister”). It also gives them the chance to implement their pretty unpleasant and unpopular (essentially, a statist/socialist) agenda – having difficulty with freedom of speech and their intolerance of dissent are good indications of how far along the statist spectrum their instincts lie. If the electorate were to judge them on their legislative platform rather than the fact they sell themselves as the anti-Barclays, they would be out on their ears in an instant, but while the dispute carries on, their Chief Pleas tenure is assured, helped no end by the Sark Newsletter which helps establish their martyrdom. They have little motivation to end the dispute and every reason to fan its flames.
Not all our Conseillers are like that; a number of them are very good, modest, hard working volunteers trying to do what’s good for Sark. I am referring to the ruling inner clique, some in Chief Pleas and some not.
Yet, like all good socialists professing to be the champions of little people, this inner cabal has done rather less than you might imagine for the benefit of the people of Sark and rather more for themselves and their cronies.
Conseiller Maitland says he has set up a Seigneurie Garden Trust for the benefit of the inhabitants of Sark. Yet the Sark Newsletter is right: we know nothing about this trust, nor do we have any say in how it’s run. We can use the facilities in the Seigneurie gardens only on a commercial basis. So in what sense is this “for the benefit of the inhabitans of Sark” and not a privately owned private enterprise? It seems, however, that he has secured a £25,000 a year job for Advocate Arditti, who seems to be an old chum of his. Financially, the net cashflow seems to be, if anything, from the taxpayer to his circle of friends, not the reverse.
And then there is his relentless pursuit of Land Reform. This is not something people want, especially not the local people. At the sole public meeting on Land Reform which was held last October, the atmosphere was palpably hostile to the idea. People who speak to Conseiller Maitland and asked him why he is pushing ahead with it when the local people don’t want it report him saying nothing, just that he’s going ahead with it anyway. When one realizes that he himself is a wealthy retiree who has moved to Sark from England about 3 years ago, that he holds a lease from a helpless old widow, whose family has been on Sark since 1565, who recently lost her husband and who doesn’t own much other than the land of her Tenement, that she is sure to be much less well off than him, and that he stands to end up owning her land to her loss in the Land Reform, it is difficult to have much sympathy for him. No matter how much of a go the Sark Newsletter has at him.
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An apology, unfortunately in a previous post I elevated the Barclays in the peerage. They did not receive a Baronetcy which is is inheritable but were made Knights Batchelor which does not pass to the next generation.
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A Resident – I agree wholeheartedly with your last comments above and with such insight you should stand for election. The Sark people would have a champion in you though some I am sure will disagree but thereagain you cannot please all the people all of the time no matter what!!
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I totally agree with you Zelda.
A Resident seems to be one of Sark’s most sensible
residents with the capacity to look at affairs from all sides and come to a sensible conclusion.
A breath of fresh air!
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Thing is over 90% of the Sark electorate voted.
2 or 3 posters on here who claim to come from Sark, say that 90% are wrong and want the wrong thing for Sark.
I prefer to think they know their own minds and desires.
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Yes Steve 90% vote shows a great interest on behalf of the residents of Sark. Also though, looking at the results, there is a shift, slow but sure, away from the cabal that has been running things for the last 2 years. Some more moderate members are now coming in but, I fear, so far not enough to bring a more moderate grouping.
Maybe the next election will weed out some more of the ‘great & good’ as they deem to consider themselves. Not all of the cabal was up for election this last time.
Then hopefully the general good of residents will come into play. A long wait though and I fear loads more legislation will be put in place within the next two years, mostly going through on the nod, unless some brave members stick their heads out of the sand and stand up and be counted to try to stop the over legislation of a small island.
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Jay, what you must understand about Sark legislation is that it was traditionally very simple and straightforward. Often confined to single sheets of paper, agreed and signed in good faith by consenting parties who would respect it, and each other to uphold the law.
Sadly we live in changed – supposedly enlightened(?) times. Individuals will now employ smart, expensive lawyers to manipulate simple old laws for their own benefit.
The consequence is that Sark is now having to run to play catch-up and bring often old, out-dated and simplistic laws up-to-date, in order that the $marta$$ lawyers can’t run them ragged for the personal gain of their clients.
In effect, Sark’s delightful simplicity has become responsible for it’s own demise. Rafts of new legislation are needed quickly to bolster up old and out-dated Sark laws.
I fear that you are going to see more of the same pain I’m afraid.
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Jay – I suspect that you may be right. From what I understand, some of the actions of the Chief Pleas since the Barclays’ disastrous attempt at a coup has been an overreaction to their actions, and the Chief Pleas could have behaved better for the good of the island.
However, what I and many seem to take issue with is the suggestion that the alternative to the “cabal’, as you call them, are the Barclays themselves. The Barclays were well and truly rejected by the electorate and they offer no alternative worthy of consideration. To use an analogy from a land with party politics, it would be like giving UKIP or the BNP the status of the main opposition during the Labour years just because they were the most diametrically opposed.
The island would probably benefit from a more balanced Chief Pleas, but the Barclays are not going to provide that, the people of Sark will.
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