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.
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
'A Thinking Alliance'...
Quote from the email
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
