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

LE CORNU & THE STATE MEDIA: ITS NOT WHAT YOU DO - ITS WHO YOU ARE DOING IT

Another Team post today and on a very topical subject. For here at 'Not The State Media!' we believe very few people would not agree that when Deputy Nick Le Cornu pressed 'send' on his recent Tweet about Deputy Kristina Moore's announced return to politics he suffered a serious judgement malfunction: the terms used were as staggeringly ill-chosen as the 140 character medium was ill-suited. Yet be all of this as it may the public cyber-lynching of Le Cornu that the JEP, BBC Jersey and ITV have whipped up since is a phenomena that upon closer analysis also shows Jersey's MSM for exactly what it has become. Put bluntly an Establishment poodle collective that reports failings involving public figures entirely differently according to which side of the political fence they graze on. 

'Not The State Media!' demonstrates this truth for the reader below with a quick and very easy Top Ten of modern era Establishment member clusterfrucks - a few where our own ex-politician Trevor has even been on the receiving end of the shenanigans - and all of which Hacked Off confirms the State Media knew about! (We've left out some ongoing outrages involving Crown Officers for obvious reasons). Nevertheless we would suggest that looking beyond the understandable social sensitivity regarding cancer every one of them is far more serious in impact than Le Cornu's foot-in-mouth moment. Yet through all ten of these triple X rated Establishment horror shows there was not a single MSM push for resignation in sight. And certainly no day-after-day saturation coverage to portray the culprit as something slightly less pleasant than rabies. Indeed, in some cases there was not even a media report of the incidents. 

Yes, unless you are an Establishment goon so thick you are caught out 'live on air' telling a Leftist to slit his wrists you can always trust the State Media to pretend it never happened. It's called 'the Jersey Way' - a most unique form of white wash...

No. 1 - Bailiff Philip Bailhache's 'scandalous' 2008 Liberation Day speech

Now here is a man who really could have a political clusterfruck Top Ten all to himself! For if we went back just a few more years you could choose from his illegally banning Senator Syvret from the States for six months for telling the truth about the LLP scandal; or even the infamous Roger Holland abuse affair. Not to mention the Jervis-Dykes paedophile cover-up. But at No. 1 in our Ministerial era book who can forget the then Bailiff telling the victims of Haut de la Garenne that horrible as the buggering, torture and even forced abortion of vulnerable children in the States' care might be the 'real scandal' was the critical coverage from the world's media! Yes, child protection failings just seem to follow Bailhache around like an albatross. He should have resigned. He should have been sacked. The calls for either should have been unprecedented. But they were not. Come 2011 the JEP and chums were even all but running his election campaign. Shameful. 

No. 2 - Home Affairs Minister Deputy Andrew Lewis' and the 'damning' report that wasn't

A classic example of how the Jersey MSM 'State Media' really works - few outside the readership of Citizens' Media will even be aware of Walker regime glove puppet, Deputy Andrew Lewis signing the death warrant on Chief of Police Graham Power's career in 2008. Yes - Home Affairs Minister Lewis told the States he had 'no option other than to suspend Power due to the 'damning' contents of the Metropolitan Interim Report. Only trouble was... no such 'damning' report existed. Lewis had simply lied. Contrary to the denials Hacked Off says the State Media were aware of this - yet did not even report the outrage - and now Lewis is set to stand for election again in St. Helier 3/4! Not only should he have been kicked out of the States Lewis should have been prosecuted. Yet perhaps, readers, people should vote for Lewis - just so he can finally be grilled about his lies? Though obviously not by the MSM!

No 3 - Housing Miniser Deputy Sean Power & the theft of a vulnerable female colleague's private correspondence  

The first of two 'Top Tenners' for a serial offender who incredibly now wants people to elect him as a Senator! Power shamefully stole what he knew was highly personal private correspondence between Deputy Carolyn Labey and former Senator Syvret. Not just this but he also supplied it to third parties including other States Members and caused it to be published on an infamous internet hate site. Contrary to his lies Power denied his thievery for weeks - in fact only 'owning up' when he was caught out by his electronic States Member's code. More serious than Twitter-Gate? 100%. He should have been charged with theft but was not: even getting away with just a farcical 'regulatory' breach of the Data Protection Law. Three years on the correspondence Power so shamefully stole is still up on the internet!

No 4 - Attorney General William Bailhache lying about his selective prosecutions under Article 39A

Just weeks after his brother and Bailiff Sir Philip had faced a well deserved vote of no confidence brought by Deputy Shona Pitman Attorney General William Bailhache prosecuted her and fellow JDA member Deputy Geoff Southern for assisting a number of elderly and disabled people to complete application forms to register a request to later receive a postal vote. It was widely known that several other non-JDA candidates had breached the same Article - two in fact within the same St. Helier No 2 district as Pitman and Southern. Yet in the States Bailhache initially lied to politicians claiming the pair were the only ones who had done so. Until Trevor Pitman produced a copy of a police witness statement naming one of the other candidates and an email from Bailhache to Shona proving him a liar. There should have been MSM outrage. Bailhache should have been sacked. Neither happened of course: abusive, selective prosecutions are all part of the Jersey Way and getting more brazen by the passing year.

No 5 - Senator Terry Le Main fraudulently crying 'fraud'

Part Two of the incident referred to above. In 2009 upon an intervention by Senator Syvret the Bailiff finally made then Housing Minister Terry Le Main retract what was a malicious and truly disgraceful slur even by his gutter standards i.e. that 'electoral fraud' had been committed. Pretty rich given that Le Main resigned in disgrace from the old IDC after it was announced he was to be charged with 'Forgery and False Uttering' following the scandal of a faked signature of an old lady on his planning application form. Of course the State Media didn't report Le Main's disgusting behaviour at all - only the fully understandable JDA reaction to it in highlighting the Minister's own past and hypocrisy. The JEP who had already been deliberately misleading their readers with the same sick lies subsequently pathetically claimed their reporter 'must have nipped out' from the press box and thus missed it. 

Establishment Party Training Instructors?

No 6 - 'Cruel' and 'violent' allegations - but two Education Ministers fail to put children first

Another scandal arising from the child abuse investigation at No. 6 we have the late Senator Mike Vibert and his successor Deputy James Reed.  Everyone must, of course, be viewed as innocent until proven guilty. However as victims came forward - eventually culminating in multiple open court allegations within the trial of the Jordans that the (September 2014 retired) Director of ESC Mario Lundy had been 'the cruellest and most violent of them all' both Ministers buried their heads firmly in the sand. Instead of replicating the claimed 'neutral act' of suspension in the same way Chief of Police Power had been until a Committee of Inquiry could take place both Vibert and Reed wagged their tails to the aggressive 'they'll have to get through me' bark of CEO Bill Ogley. The CEO supposedly initiated an internal investigation. No one, however, has ever seen it. The silence from the MSM was again deafening. 

No 7 - Senator Philip Bailhache flying and lying over confidential documents

Newly appointed External Relations Minister Sir Philip Bailhache had preached about the need for respect in his 2011 election campaign. Here however as a key mover in the campaign to transform the abuse victim within the Dean suspension saga - HG - into the villain (he actually even used the term 'abuser') Bailhache showed his true colours once again. Caught out by two travellers who contacted the then Deputy Trevor Pitman to complain how they had been able to read confidential and intimately detailed documents regarding the victim Bailhache was reading in full public view on a flight Bailhache's reaction was as shameful as it was predictable.  The two travellers and Trevor were 'malicious' and 'liars'. Taking the two to confirm what they had seen to the Chief Minister should have seen Bailhache sacked. But Gorst did nothing of course - just like his lackeys in the MSM.

No 8 - Black marks all around for Senator Philip Ozouf

Now here's an Establishment politician so prolific in clusterfruck he almost caused a falling out within the 'Not The State Media! team. And we apologise - for we finally had to cop out and settle on a composite entry for the Machiavellian One. Many would say that the Lime Grove House scandal and the unsavoury forcing out of Mr Flowers should be included here. Likewise what many saw as the driving out of the hugely respected Comptroller Auditor General. Others would cite the unpleasantness that made State Treasurer Ian Black both ill and ultimately quit his post amidst allegations of bullying. Then there was the Bill Ogley fiasco and even talk of 'anger management'. Throw the recent Royal Bank of Canada/Post Office debacle into the mix and what comes out loud and clear is that the MSM State Media whom Ozouf has played like a flute for years let him get away with it time and time again. Just as they will regarding a botched and incompetent 2015 budget that could have such dire consequence for the poor the Senator's policies treat with so much disdain. Like Bailhache he's simply one of their untouchables.

No 9 - Senator Ian Le Marquand & the 'scoop' that should have seen him in the poop

In March 2010 Home Affairs Minister Senator Ian Le Marquand gave another telling demonstration of just why Citizens Media bloggers are now the only trusted media in Jersey. Appearing before the ESC & Home Affairs Scrutiny Panel the Minister was asked by the Chairman about the delay in producing the Wiltshire Report. This was a key report eventually manipulated to support the illegal suspension of Chief of Police Graham Power. But the Minister did not want to answer. You see he had - he told the stunned Scrutiny members - instead promised a 'scoop' on what was happening to a reporter at the JEP! Incredibly such behaviour from the Minister was to become the norm when upon the Wiltshire Report's final publication the then Deputy Pitman was refused a copy of the report and told he could not have one until after they had been given out to the Minister's media chums! 

No 10 - Sean Power - more emails & more despicable behaviour at Planning

In 2013 Power colluded with his chums at the JEP to get a front page story falsely claiming the Deputies Shona and Trevor Pitman were 'getting preferential treatment' from Deputy Rob Duhamel regarding a minor planning application; even spreading the further lie that it had been made on the wrong form. Consequently asked publicly by the Minister to apologise for these lies Power was left seething. Not only did he try to claim to the Pitmans that the JEP alone had created the story 'deliberately twisting his words'. But thanks to one disgusted recipient it was revealed that though Chairman of the Applications Panel Power had also been illegally emailing their application form (personal details inc) around to his Option B cronies like Philip Bailhache and Kristina Moore. As Hacked Off verified the email from Power was even given to the MSM. But once again the editors ensured they kept silent. 

PostScript - The 'Jersey Way' rolls on...

Now in 2014 Deputy Power stands accused of clusterfruck yet again: a man convicted of making a death threat phone call  - and caught on a recording making more such threats (one Jon Sharrock Haworth) also claims Power provided him with personal information regarding Citizens Media stalwart Rico Sorda's pregnant wife! Jersey's State Media are well aware of this deeply disturbing allegation too. But with it being one of their boys going for Senator we'd wager you are hardly likely to see the MSM reporting on it. 

If Nick is 'nasty' Sean is surely 'shameful'?

So there we have it. Ten quick examples that demonstrate in Jersey media 'outrage' can and will be turned on and off like a tap according to who the person screwing up happens to be. The message arising from this is clear: if you want integrity - if you want the truth stick with Citizens Media!

Posted by 'Not The State Media!' 12/09/2014

CITIZENS MEDIA EXCLUSION: JUST WHO IS CALLING THE SHOTS AT THE JERSEY CARE INQUIRY?

Few who have followed the evolution of the so-called 'Historic' Abuse Scandal in Jersey since the early days of struggle by Stuart Syvret and Messrs Power and Harper would deny that it has been a long and bumpy road to even reach where we are today. Indeed, there have been further scandals aplenty along the way - not least being the truly shocking and concerted efforts on the part of Jersey's Establishment to try and ensure an independent inquiry never happened at all. 

A Master class in how to destroy trust

Yet perhaps the recent about turn by the Committee Chairman, Francis Oldham QC resulting in Jersey's 'bloggers' suddenly and quite unceremoniously being prevented from reporting on hearings from the Media room - an inarguable breach of their own agreed Protocols surely - marks a new low in that it demonstrates our worst fears: this being that regardless of all the many assurances the Inquiry really isn't as independent from Establishment influence as those overseeing it would claim? 

After all, that the excuse for removing Voice For Children's Neil McMurray and former St. Martin Deputy, Bob Hill was stage-managed by the local BBC on behalf of the Jersey MSM - sorry,  the State Media - McMurray even being treated with such crass discourtesy that he was prevented from finishing his lunch in the building - is surely beyond question. Remember neither man had breached the COI's rules in any way whatsoever! Yet they are being penalised. We thus say it again - a true Master class in how to destroy trust by anyone's standards. Let alone long-suffering victims of the most horrendous abuse.

Aren't breaches of Protocol meant to apply to everyone?

The above is of course a stark contrast to the behaviour of the Jersey MSM itself since the Inquiry began. ITV (formerly Channel Television) had filmed witnesses arriving at the Inquiry building without ever asking their consent. BBC Jersey managed to go one better in their contempt and actually filmed victims INSIDE the Inquiry building! Yet were either of these 'accredited' media organisations barred like the wholly innocent Hill and McMurray? Of course they were not. Once again for experienced justice professionals who must understand winning - and maintaining - the trust of abuse victims is everything hardly a response from the Chairman and her team likely to engender it?

The excuse these sorry events have been hung upon is, of course, the somewhat farcical aggrandisement of being media 'accredited' and the even more mystical process by which someone can earn this most dubious of distinctions. For let the 'Not The State Media!' team be quite clear on something: 'accreditation' has nothing whatsoever to do with actual professionalism. For as has been reiterated time and time again by the abuse victims it is the bloggers - the citizens' media - whom they trust Trust simply because the victims know they have told the truth - and done so again and again even under the most vicious and heinous of attacks over many years. All while the likes of the BBC, ITV and Jersey Evening Post have done the exact opposite - even, of course, being quite willing to accept media awards for their lies. 

The danger is that victims will withdraw crucial evidence

Given that the Committee of Inquiry has long had access to the official review into the Financial Management of Operation Rectangle undertaken by a Scrutiny Sub-Panel I happened to Chair myself they surely cannot have failed to notice this rather disturbing truth: misreporting, distortion and even total fabrication of fact regarding the abuse scandal being spun to the Jersey public by the 'accredited' Jersey MSM is a phenomena that has existed since Establishment Grandees like Philip Bailhache and Frank Walker first got the inkling that Stuart Syvret would not be shutting up; and that Graham Power and Lenny Harper would not be signing up to 'the Jersey Way' like their predecessors had done.

Indeed, whether it be the fictional £7.5 million being wasted by Power and Harper; statements about bodies; coconuts or non-existent basement dungeons Jersey's State Media have lied, lied and lied again. Yet there they still sit in the Inquiry's media room whilst Hill and McMurray are now excluded. And it is the core reason as to why the pair's expulsion is so disturbing to so many victims. For to add a little personal testimony just as I have sat with the likes of Hill and McMurray in the past whilst victims bravely poured out their tales of abuse I have now also sat and listened as victims tell me they are no longer sure that they trust this Chairman or Inquiry. - and even feel they ought to withdraw their evidence lest it be distorted once more! I consequently ask: if final truth, accountability and closure is what we desire could we really wish a more negative development just because a few 'accredited' egos have been bruised by the peasants doing a more professional job?

Will Truth now be buried along with its Champions?

As one of the few political figures of the period who has already given two lengthy sessions of evidence to the Inquiry lawyers I have to say that the events outlined above also cause me personal misgivings as to whether doing the undeniably 'right thing' in the interests of justice will now prove anything more than contribution to at best a box-ticking exercise - at worst a whitewash. For example - and I don't wish to go into great detail until I feel the process is beyond salvage. I have already named a significant number of names involved in judicial failings with the evidence to back what I have said up. I have even given extensive details of a large amount of missing evidence relating to abuse at Haut de la Garenne - including several crates of letters from both distraught parents and lawyers - and with this the names of the States employees who took this harrowing material into their possession. Prior to it... disappearing again! Material that the States have of course not yet handed over!

With honest citizens media journalists like Neil McMurray and Bob Hill removed in such a shabby and unprofessional way what confidence can I now have myself that any of this - including the individuals who need to be named - will ever be reported to the wider public that they should know? I certainly cannot rely upon the 'accredited' media to do so. In fact what confidence can I now have if this 'independent' Inquiry is seemingly not actually so independent at all that this damning evidence will even ever get to be heard in public? Like the victims I too need some answers and fast.

Trevor Mark Pitman for the 'Not The State Media! blog 6/9/2014

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