Saint Ouën's low-energy Connétable

Are you a disgruntled retiree looking for a well-paying seat to place your bum onto while you slowly glide towards your impending death?

Did you run an election campaign based entirely on selling yourself as a good person rather than someone with half-decent policies?

Have you found that your £46K/year salary isn't sufficient to prevent you from whining about it in the local rag?

Well then, the position of Connétable de Saint Ouën may be just what you've been looking for!

That's right, folks, our esteemed local Connétable is at it again, this time telling hacks that States members need a pay rise. According to Mr Buchanan, "If it [the Assembly] wants to attract people with real ability from the finance industry, then it has to realise those people are worth a certain amount of money." and, reassuringly, that he's finding his shiny new position to be "a lot more work than I expected". I always thought the reason these parish types sold themselves on their experience at the top of parish life (as Buchanan does extensively in his vote.je statement) was because they knew how it worked and how to handle the workload. Obviously, our Richie doesn't seem to have had the same experience!

After all, it's not like there's a big pay dispute going on at the moment, in which the States have repeatedly claimed that there's no more money left, is it? It's not like a senior member of the States Employment Board and the government as a whole making these sorts of comments could be seen as massively insensitive, right? Oh, yes, did I remind you that Connétable Buchanan is on the SEB, and an Assistant Chief Minister? 

To be fair, it's not like you'd know that from the way he conducts himself. According to Bob King of JCSA Prospect, "He’s talked about intense negotiations but he’s never been in them... I have only had one conversation with the guy, at my request, to say the whole thing is going to hell in a hand cart and here’s your chance to sort it out, and there was much hand-wringing from them".

Encouraging as ever, eh? We all know that the "negotiations" are a joke, a farce which involve the States representatives banging on about lack of money and little else, but you'd think the SOJ would at least pretend to try, right? Apparently not, especially when you're dealing with a man who, not even a year into his new job, declares that he'd rather be "having a rest" than serving the parish as Connétable. Obviously the Assembly is a bit too high-energy for Mr Buchanan. 

Don't you worry though, gris ventres; after all "It’s a challenge. I shall probably give up at the end of four years, exhausted and worn out". Stunning! Why bother with anything as ghastly as a potential challenge when you can be elected unopposed, trouser two hundred grand and split after four years, amirite?

I'll be honest, Richard, mate; it's not a great first year, and no amount of tasteless whinging to the rag about your salary is going to change that. Saint Ouën and the Assembly in general need vigour, energy, political aptitude - not a low-energy ex-finance drone whose selling points include "63 years of life experience".

The fight goes on.