"Your average person in Jersey looks upon the island's political system, particularly over the past two weeks, as a total sham.... we are ruled by a government that is totally incompetent." - Deputy Montfort Tadier, 2008
"And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”" - Luke 23:34
We are ruled by idiots.
A simplistic conclusion, perhaps, but one I've found myself increasingly unable to not draw after the events of this week in the long-running saga over public sector pay.
On Monday, it was announced by public sector unions that they're going back on strike. Customs and Immigration officers won't be turning up on Monday morning, followed by civil servants on Tuesday. Teaching assistants will be walking out for two-and-a-half hours on Monday morning, and civil servants have been ordered to stop accepting paid overtime. No more pussy-footing around with two-hour walk-outs.
On Tuesday, both nursing unions voted to reject the States' final offer, a derisory below-inflation rise of 3%. Threatening industrial action, the unions said that "nursing staff have had enough of being devalued", "there will be no staff for this building if the concerns of nursing staff are not addressed" and "there needs to be recognition that this includes their staff, who, having been continuously undervalued, have experienced an ongoing detrimental impact on both morale and mental health.".
Ouch.
On Wednesday, our esteemed Chief Minister reacted to the news that another batch of public sector workers had told him and Charlie where they could stick it by tossing out everyone's favourite Prime Minister's election spiel, saying that there's "no magic money tree" and that a pay rise for nurses that met the cost of living would mean that taxes would have to go up. Oh, the horror! Functioning public services, what kind of nerds have those? We literally don't have a corporate tax rate - ultra-rich "high value residents" are paying 1% on most of their yearly earnings, while the working and middle classes get squeezed and squeezed forever. Gosh, it's almost like we live in a tax haven which requires comprehensive tax reform!
On Thursday, our wonderful Connétable de Saint Ouën, Richard Buchanan, unconvincingly claimed that the States Employment Board doesn't feel "any pressure" to appoint a new chair, nearly a month after Tracey Vallois finally cracked and resigned her post as the head of the SEB. Yeah, no need to worry, lads, I'm sure it'll all work out fine. It's not like the board is going through its toughest period EVER, or anything like that. Don't you worry. Everything is OK. We're doing fine. Ignorance is strength. War is peace. Freedom is slavery.
Obviously, this sort of rank idiocy in the face of crisis hasn't been well-received even by the armchair overseers of the Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel, who have summoned the Chief Minister to a hearing in order to discuss
Also on Thursday, our friends the States FOI team published a lovely response to a question on the rolling monthly cost of Parker's interim directors, which you can read here. Total monthly cost, plus expenses: £389,600 a month. A report released the day before informed us that, for example, Anthony McKeever, the interim director of Health and Community Services, is pocketing £27K a month.
No magic money tree, right?
Who actually signs this stuff off? Who can we hold responsible for deciding that £27K was anything near a remotely reasonable monthly cost for one bloke?
It's beginning to feel like the rolling incompetence, poor attitudes and general lack of serious from the States over the last few months in relation to the civil service problem is starting to come to a head. They don't have any options left. John le Fondré is many things, but stupid isn't one of them, so he must realise that he doesn't have a way out of this. The strikes will go ahead next week, and then they'll get worse, and then they'll get really, really bad, and then government on this island will effectively cease to function, because the unions aren't playing around anymore. The government has no cards left to play - the argument that "there's no more money" has long been exposed as a fraud, and the government's negotiations with union officials ground to a screeching halt the moment the government declared their pay offer final.
So, what's the plan, lads? What's the grand strategy?
Cave in to all of the unions' demands?
Screech about how there's no money left until the end of time?
Or simply bugger off back to Angliétèrre and trouser all the cash?
Can't exactly say I'm keen to find out.
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