JERSEY SENATORIAL ELECTION - A THREE TIER FIGHT? AND THE FUTURE LOOKS BLEAK

Heading for a well-deserved exit?

So the Jersey Senatorial campaign is finally upon us and though most people seem as excited about the line-up as someone on their way to the dentist here at 'Not The State Media!' we thought we would bow to Trevor's drive to try and get the debate rolling with some early and deliberately brief thoughts on who is most likely to come out smiling when the Fat Lady hits her final note on October 15. Thoughts, we would stress, that are not our preferred outcome for the betterment of the Island - but rather what appears the most likely outcome as we stand now!

In Trevor's view - and we have to say he has us convinced - what we are looking at here is likely to be a 'three tier' political struggle of near certainties, possibles and almost certainly nots with both the eventual poll-topper almost impossible to call with any confidence and only one seat truly up for grabs. Far worse being the suspicion that if you want positive change and an end to the 'Jersey Way' of self-interest and cronyism it is sadly looking like that trip to the dentist would be a whole lot more exciting - unless the very real prospect of Senator Philip Ozouf biting the dust is enough to get you doing handstands...

Our Top 7 - 'The Near Certainties' (sadly)..

The 'Anchorman' heading for the top?

Sarah Ferguson aside - right-winger or not she is certainly her own woman and not a Bailhache butt-kisser - we repeat the 'Not The State Media!' team would never consider a vote for any of these candidates. Yet the questions within this top echelon and their potential impact to still swing things crazily do remain truly fascinating. For example. Could Paul Routier still gain election yet again even if someone should ask him bluntly why all he has done of note in over 20 years is give free prescriptions to multi-millionaires? Likewise after three years of calamity and contempt - and even with the continued rabid backing of Jersey's State Media - could Philip Bailhache really still con enough voters that he is in any way competent to shape the futures of ordinary people if they sought out the facts beyond the spin? 

We will of course do a more detailed post outlining individual analysis on all of the above candidates and attempting to answer these and many more questions at a later date. In the meantime however what we feel must be stated is that in our view only one certainty can be proclaimed about the whole six we tip alongside Sarah Ferguson for success: This being that though the reasons may differ all the way from cowardice to contempt if elected not a single one of them will put the interests of the ordinary Islander first - let alone those abandoned down at the truly sharp end of three terms of ministerial economic myopia. They are Establishment to the very bone. You have thus been warned...

1. Senator Alan Maclean.

2. Senator Ian Gorst

3. Deputy Andrew Green

4. Senator Philip Bailhache

5. Senator Sarah Ferguson

6. Senator Paul Routier

7. Senator Lyndon Farnham
8. ???

5 into 1 won't go - 'The Possibles'...

The best of the 2011 intake but...

This second tier is in many ways the most intriguing of all. For just as the predicted Top 7 is in no way based on ability or commitment to the interests of the majority the success or otherwise of the five 'possibles' below hinge hugely on a few factors almost impossible to predict. For example: whilst current St. Brelade No. 1 Deputy John Young stands out head and shoulders above the rest of the States 2011 election intake has he given himself a high enough profile to now carry this predominantly excellent work forward? 

On the other hand can the undoubtedly articulate Anne Southern get beyond the country parish disdain for husband Geoff to secure enough votes to support the likely ones from the urban parishes? Can Malcolm Ferey dispel the seemingly widely held view that he has cynically exploited his position at CAB for political ambition - or that he is in reality just another Establishment Party wannabe? Perhaps most fascinating of all can the previously 'dead in the water' Philip Ozouf now exploit the untimely retirement of Senator Alan Breckon - a man sure to have beaten him to somehow scrape home? Such questions could yet dramatically swing the whole political outcome and send any of the five up or down...

1. Deputy John Young

2. Anne Southern

3. Malcolm Ferey

4. Dr Zoe Cameron

5. Senator Philip Ozouf

And the 'Almost Certainly Nots'

Desperate for Power

Its sad to find ourselves listing some of the candidates below within this bottom tier for its likely they include people who would be of the very best benefit to the wider Island community. At 'Not The State Media!' we simply feel some of these will likely fail due to a variety of realities it is often difficult to circumvent. For example: Christopher Magee's platform on legalising cannabis is a brave and admirable one. Yet can he get beyond the general lack of awareness of the subject; the country parishes entrenched Conservatism and his being seen - quite wrongly probably - as a one issue candidate? The truth is some of the seven will even fail simply due to a lack of political profile and an understanding of how to rectify this

Can first ever Polish candidate Konrad Krusznski somehow get beyond the sadly lingering insular racism of all too many in Jersey? Can Former Deputy Guy de Faye find a way to convince enough voters that just because he was overbearingly arrogant and also wasted a £100,000,000 of taxpayers money on a technically redundant eyesore incinerator last time around he still deserves another chance? Or in Deputy Sean Power's case should being a man who steals personal email correspondence; supplies it to an internet cyber-bullying site and - even subsequently having been caught - was only last year once again exposed abusing his position as Chair of the Planning Applications Panel to email applicant's personal data to his political cronies not debar him from securing an Island-Wide mandate and with it a likely Ministerial position?

1. Konrad Kruszynski

2. Christopher Magee

3. Deputy Sean Power

4. Shirley Baudains-Osborn

5. Guy de Faye

6. Geoffrey Habin

7. David Richardson

The answer to such fascinating questions are of course entirely in the hands of we the voters. And this is the way it should be. All we at 'Not The State media!' would say to the electorate is make sure you really do your utmost to find out the truth behind the glossy 'manifestos' and mainstream media propaganda for Establishment candidates. For if you don't - just as we found we had no choice but to predict - you will likely be getting a whole lot more of the same and what is more you will wholly deserve it.

Have fun! At least while there is still hope for change...

Post by 'Not The State Media!' 18/09/2014

LEAKED EMAIL REVEALS NEW SECRET 'OPPOSITION' ALLIANCE LIKELY TO INSTEAD FURTHER ENTRENCH THE POLITICAL STATUS-QUO

'Population growth can't be the economic driver...'

                                                                                                                                                      Quote from the email

At the penultimate pre-launch meeting of the 'Not the State Media!' team we agreed that all three of us were pretty well placed to comment on the concept of party politics and the claimed alternative of an 'alliance'. Not just the positives either but the negatives too.  NTSM! lead-writer Trevor could point to his having actually been the Chairman of the very first political party - the Jersey Democratic Alliance (JDA) - ever to be registered in the Island back in 2008. Media insider Hacked-Off had regularly reported on the development. Something that was then a wholly new phenomenon to the Island's electorate - at least if you hadn't happened to have been around back in the aftermath of the Nazi Occupation. And Stella, in hailing from the UK mainland, obviously comes from a jurisdiction where party's getting voted in and out of government - and all that goes on in between - was the accepted norm.

All of which made the copy of a deliberately leaked secret political email originating from Deputy John Young and circulated between nine sitting States Members (for the record two Senators and seven Deputies) now lying on the table before us just a few weeks away from Jersey's 2014 election interesting to say the least. So much so in fact that we ultimately decided to revert back to what its contents now confirmed to us as being hard fact as our first 'Not The States Media!' story. The authenticity of the email after all was undeniable. It was even within our Power to identify which one of the nine would be 'colleagues' had seen fit to callously betray their fledgling alliance by leaking it to a third party: his name was on the top as the recipient who had printed it off. A betrayal we would suggest which may actually form a part of a wider plot.

'Don't use the word democratic'

                                                                                                            Quote from the email

For the potential implications on the bigger political picture of a new alliance against the elite group who have led Jersey into the cul de sac of an unsustainable mono-culture - if it could be made to work - are clearly significant. Though not a one of us viewed an 'alliance' as offering the same long-term benefits of political accountability inherent in a bona-fide party we all agreed that in a jurisdiction as fragmented by democratic deficit as Jersey a truly inclusive opposition alliance structured around half-a-dozen key, shared principles could be the first step to true and meaningful political reform. The reasons for this are obvious. In a society where  a sold out mainstream media (MSM) has portrayed all things party political as the very spawn of Satan for decades in order to help maintain the Establishment status-quo; a coherent political alliance - or even better a still political Movement - could allow two hugely important developments with potential to dispel the age old propaganda for what genuinely informed commenators know it to be.

Firstly' trial candidate commitment without fear of having to sign up to a whole ideology-based party manifesto package. And secondly, large-scale 'toe-in-the-water' investigation by a similarly cautious voting public. Sadly the identities of those States Members involved and - perhaps even more so - those 'opposition' figures we know to be excluded reveal this particular 'alliance' to instead be more likely to play straight into the hands of the very Establishment figure whose ideals and Neo-Feudal political 'vision' would erode Jersey's community cohesion; its dysfunctional machinery of government - and most certainly its potential for finally installing an honest and accountable justice system ever further: the driver of us becoming an 'Independent' Tax Haven Senator Sir Philip Bailhache. Quoting directly from the email we will show you why.

'Simple message: THERE IS ANOTHER WAY'

                                                                                                                                      Quote from email

It must of course be acknowledged that to even see senior States Members from as polarised ends of the political spectrum as Senator Sarah Ferguson and Deputy Rob Duhamel talking about shared common ground is without doubt a positive development in itself. Similarly positive statements can also be made of some of the policy principles outlined in the email. Not least to this regard is the view - long voiced by the Progressive Left - that we desperately need to 'deal with population growth' and that this 'can't be the economic driver model' pursued so obsessively under Senator Ozouf. Equally so bringing about 'sustainable public finance' whilst tackling the 'divided society'. The disappointing thing here however is that in highlighting these examples and the strident 'There is another way' message there appears no indication of simultaneously facing up to issues that then cannot but help arise as consequences. Something the Left has always done no matter how uncomfortable the thought: and which to its credit the latest collective incarnation of it - Reform Jersey* - is acknowledging again.

For instance much as those who would attempt to rehabilitate the 'Greed is Great!' ethos of dystopian Thatcherism try and deny it - usually whilst attempting to con the electorate that it is an inevitable precursor to unbridled 'tax and spend' the fact is (we even seem to recall the Establishment Party's Social Security Minister conceding this two years ago) the introduction of a fairer taxation policy including moderate progressive taxation simply has to follow. It is simply mathematical reality. Jersey's substantial problems just cannot be solved by the ideologically driven policy of dismantling Jersey's Public Sector. Similarly, that the email also reveals the new 'opposition' alliance as being adamant that there must be 'No focus on constitutional reform' in the same breath as stating the need to heal the 'divided society' in our opinion leaves us with two statements which are completely incompatible. And yet there are two further serious problems demanding action if the 'alliance' is to make any significant impact as those involved hope.

'Alternative to the PO/IG two-step'

                                                                                                                       Quote from the email

The first is that alongside of the highlighted failure to accept the hard economic reality of what some of the new alliance's commitments will mean in terms of developing policy the potential for any 'opposition' grouping to get near to offering a genuine alternative is - in the final analysis - wholly dependent on numbers. Which begs the consequent question: why has the group excluded working on areas of starkly clear 'common ground' with the aforesaid newly formed Reform Jersey political party? Indeed, just as significantly where are others from outside of the Establishment fold such as Deputies Hilton and Higgins? Surely all who have relevant 'common-ground' must be brought together and worked with for the ultimate goal? Success in securing the necessary numbers here in Jersey we suggest now demands a 'bloc' approach such as used by Progressives in Portugal: individuals or specific parties being free to stand together as an 'alliance' on key issues whilst also maintaining their own identity.

The second factor is a problem which we have to admit we find somewhat baffling. And it revolves around the alliance's planned electoral message quoted above i.e. the alliance being an 'alternative to the PO/IG two-step'. Is there really anyone in the States Assembly today, we ask, who genuinely believes the nonsense that the politicians currently running the Establishment Party show are the pairing of Chief Minister Gorst and the Treasury & Resources Minister? We would have put money on the answer being no. Yet it appears not only does this delusion exist within those driving the new alliance  but that this analytical myopia - far from bringing about the desired new dawn of such ideals as 'people over profit' and 'the redressing of years of economic-socio imbalance' - but a handing of ultimate power to the brothers who are, in our opinion, the biggest threat to Jersey's social fabric since the dark days of the Occupation holding as they will the positions of both Chief Minister and Baliff.

'A Thinking Alliance'...

                                                                                                  Quote from the email

                                                                                                   

For let us at 'Not The State Media!' spell it out: without the numbers to get behind a plausible Leftist or 'middle ground' alternative further weakening Senator Ian Gorst (worst of all three Chief Minister or not) as the alliance's misplaced targeting of him as apparently being 'in control' can only do - can equally do nothing but strengthen the hand of Ozouf's true string-puller Senator Bailhache. To suggest otherwise would frankly be absurd. Consequently without a swift reconsideration of the problems highlighted above by all concerned in the proposed alliance we at 'Not The State Media!' have to contend that the economic and social consequences for the already hurting middle and working classes of Jersey will - within a short span of years - be dire indeed: probably wholly catastrophic. That Jersey's Off-Shore Finance industry as we currently know it will quickly collapse under external pressures under Bailhache's delusion that a Tax Haven of just 100,000 people can take on the true 'Big Boys' in regard to Treaty compliance is beyond doubt.

Yet paradoxically - and in adopting a wholly detached outlook we have to concede we find uncomfortable to say the least given this is an Island we each love - we at NTSM! believe it to be equally true that in the long term a period of unfettered Bailhachism would also eventually bring about the kind of political opportunities the Left has not had within its reach since the upheavals of 1945. A case indeed perhaps of things having to get even worse before they can get better? True or not wouldn't it surely be preferable that all who understand deep down that there really is a better, fairer way - including the members of the alliance - got together now and thrashed things out?

Not The State Media! 2/9/2014

*No one from the NTSM! team is a member of Reform Jersey