The new top team

 Jersey has a new government!

Today, the Assembly voted in all the new ministers that will form John le Fondré's new government. A few inevitables, a few surprises - and a few disasters.

To begin, the inevitables. Senator Tracey Vallois is, of course, Education Minister. Having ruled herself out of running for Chief Minister specifically to run for this post, and with the backing of the new Chief Minister, Vallois has practically glided into the Education Department, facing no opposition. The Dictatorphile is External Relations Minister, as promised after his smashing at the hands of le Fondré - presumably our new Chief Minister shares the previous administration's view that sucking up to head-chopping absolute monarchies, state sponsors of international terrorism and ex-terrorist dictators is somehow paramount to Jersey's interests - while, as per the agreement signed in exchange for his party's support, Senator Sam Mézec is Housing Minister.

To my great surprise and irritation, the Wicked Witch was elected unopposed to the position of Treasury Minister (presumably having forgotten her pre-election promise to continue wreaking havoc at Social Security). It's something between ridiculous and tragic that Susie "Culture of entitlement" Pinel can simply walk into one of the Island's most powerful positions, especially after her Thatcher-style ideological war on poor people of the last four years, the result being that someone whose wrecking campaign has left anyone unfortunate to be on income support essentially to the dogs is now, terrifyingly, in charge of Jersey's purse strings. Her successor at Social Security, veteran Deputy Judy Martin, has a lot on her plate - a department beset with a culture of bullying and box-ticking, slipping living standards, increasing poverty to the point that 1/4 households in Jersey are now under the poverty line. The disgusting legacy that Pinel has left at Social Security can't be understated - this is not the sort of thing that Martin will be able to just sort like that.

Deputy Richard Renouf, in a mildly surprising upset, managed to beat JLF-favoured candidate (and homophobic climate change denier) Sarah Ferguson for the position of Health Minister, receiving 27 votes to Ferguson's 21.  The chair of the committee that masterminded the overturning of Susie Pinel's brutal £40 cut to single parent benefits, and my own parish's deputy, I'm personally one of the man's fans. Although he voted for Gorst in the Chief Ministerial vote, he is regarded around the parish as an easy-to-work with, friendly, competent man who fears God and knows his stuff (he certainly had the biggest crowd of supporters at the hustings!).

Perhaps depressingly of all, the slimy, dishonest, idiotic toad that is Senator Lyndon Farnham has walked straight back into Economic Development. From his arrogant, question-ducking, Gorst-sucking-upto attitude at the Senatorial hustings, his litany of project failures and legacy of shrinking productivity, the man has been a failure for Jersey at every turn. My question is -why did no-one stand against him?

Other successful bids include Kevin Lewis for Infrastructure, John Young for Environment and Len Norman for Home Affairs.

Try not to vomit, eh?

le Fondré triumphs in the race for Chief Minister - but how much will really change?

Senator John le Fondré has won a devastating victory over incumbent Chief Minister Ian Gorst in the election for Chief Minister today.

The former Deputy of St. Lawrence (2005-2018) was elected to the Island's highest elected office in a shock result that saw him win with 30 votes to Ian Gorst's mere 19. le Fondré's status as a member that was a traditional opponent of the Chief Minister rather than a former crony (like, say, Terry le Sueur and Frank Walker) prompted Senator Sam Mézec to call le Fondré's election "the end of 70 years of 'Jersey Progressive Party' government" (the JPP was a post-WW2 reactionary party, dominated by businessmen - many of whom were alleged German collaborators - formed in opposition to the socialist Jersey Democratic Movement) - "the first time a head of government has been democratically removed from office and replaced by someone not from the same political gang". Senator Mézec and his Reform Jersey colleagues all backed John le Fondré in the vote for Chief Minister.

While this election has certainly earned its place in Jersey's political history, and Senator le Fondré's elevation is most certainly a political upset in a traditional sense, the question has to be asked - how much change does this really represent? Our new Chief Minister is, after all, a former accountant, having studied Accounting and Finance at university and worked for Ernst and Young, a tax-avoiding gang of busybodies cashing in by helping rob poor people "multinational professional services firm" headquartered in that well-known oasis of transparency, the City of London. His vote.je profile confirms a Reaganite "low, broad and simple" approach to the issue of tax (meanwhile, the low-tax low-spend model continues to be trashed even in business media such as Forbes), while making vague platitudes about "middle Jersey" while making precisely zero mentions of the struggles of working-class, low-income Jersey. le Fondré is best described as what a businessman might call "safe" - a slow-it-all-down, non-radical CM. While his deal with Reform Jersey of veteran socialist Geoff Southern getting an assistant post in Social Security, patron of the arts Monty Tadier as assistant Culture and the chairman himself as Housing Minister and Minister for children shows us that radical politics has most certainly come out of this election as a force to be reckoned with, his promise to appoint The Dictatorphile himself as External Relations Minister (fresh on the tail of yet another ER scandal, this time about Jersey's relationship with Rwanda) sends a clear message that head-chopping dictators are still in and principled diplomacy is still out.

Information about which members voted for which candidate can be found here: https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/new-chief-minister-jersey-john-le-fondre-voted/#.WxV7i-4vyUk

Election, 2018

The results are in! The polls have come in, the analyses have come out, and the crowing declarations on Radio Jersey have been arrogantly made. The election is over - now comes the real thing.

The results are a surprise, to say the least. After four years of endless calls for change, firmly pro-Establishment types like Lyndon Farnham, John le Fondre and Ian Gorst got in comfortably, with those three lining up to run for Chief Minister. Reform Jersey, while picking up two extra deputies - Carina Alves and Rob Ward - in St Helier No.2, received a bloody nose in the parishes. A shock result in St Helier No.1 saw the party rejected utterly, with not one of the three candidates getting in, and results weren't any better elsewhere.

A few interesting points.

Starting off at home, Richard Renouf returned in St Ouen with what he described as a "thumping majority". Cliff le Clercq, whose rather embarrassing lying about his accreditation as a counselor was exposed a fortnight prior to the election, received only 218 votes to Richard Renouf's 1,338. Ultimately, while le Clercq had a better grasp of issues surrounding young people, Renouf's record as the chair of the Health and Social Services scrutiny panel - the panel that pushed for Susie Pinel's abhorrent cuts to single-parent benefits to be overturned - is high-standard stuff, while le Clercq didn't have much in the way of policy that didn't essentially boil down to "reaction over action".

The Wicked Witch herself returned, far too easily than I would have liked. Susie "Jersey has a culture of entitlement" Pinel, responsible for the brutal 2016-19 Medium Term Financial Plan that cut benefits for single parents, the elderly and other vulnerable groups, topped the poll in St Clement. As one of the Chamber's most right-wing members, she has consistently voted against raising the minimum wage and voted both times to cut £40 of benefits for single parents. Her tenure at Social Security has overseen an era of falling living standards, rising in-work and single-parent poverty and a continued maintenance of the culture of bullying that infects Social Security and is a curse for so many ordinary people. Facing opposition from two Reform Jersey candidates, as well as the brilliant direct democracy activist Phil Renouf (the author of the attempt in 2016 to start a "Jersey Pirate Party" modeled off the anti-corruption, social-liberal, direct-democratic pirate politics movement), Pinel nevertheless made it in with a convincing majority. How sad that the voters of St Clement have chosen to spite their fellow islanders and elect someone so damaging to those unlucky enough to have to interact with the social security system.

Mark Baker of St Mary, the crypto-fascist confluence of Chris Lamy, Susie Pinel and Viktor Orbán, while being roundly rejected, still managed to receive 309 votes to Dave Johnson's 495. Baker is a well-known anti-Islam and anti-immigration activist, who believes English people should be banned from being Chief Minister and has professed belief in his "birthright" to the land of St Mary. I can't be the only one worried by the idea that an out-and-out racist like Baker could receive such a high percentage of the vote, even in an ultra-conservative parish like St Mary.

"The Reform Jersey Party", an anti-Reform blog noted in the past for disingenuous reporting and outright lying, announced that it was going to be mothballed until further notice. "Thank god", I thought. "Maybe the lies and slander might finally stop". Alas, it wasn't to be. A day after this announcement, the blog was reactivated - back by popular demand, as they called it, though I suspect the Nigel Farage "resign but not really" trick has gone on here.

In any case: the business of governance awaits.

Not-so-clever plans and very dirty tricks

A bunch of people in St Helier No.2 got this through their letterbox today - an unmarked, anonymous leaflet smearing Reform Jersey candidate and long-standing key voice on Jersey's left, Geoff Southern.

Aside from pushing an unproven slander that Southern was sacked from Hautlieu for inappropriate behavior - the details of why Southern left Hautlieu have never come out in the open, as they're a private matter between Southern and the Education Department - it accuses Southern of breaking electoral law. Southern did indeed do this - he helped a few senior citizens fill in a register-to-vote form, which, for some absurd reason, is illegal under Jersey law, and was fined £10K. To compare, Jon Howarth, who was convicted a few years ago of threatening to kill Stuart Syvret's landlord, was fined less than £500.

 It's also to be noted the leaflet is anonymous - whoever had this done is cowardly enough that they won't reveal who they actually represent. No-one has yet been identified delivering these, so we have no idea who or what is behind this.

This dishonest, cowardly and slanderous smear campaign helps no-one.

Lying Cliff le Clercq

Well, well, well.

Cliff le Clercq, Richard Renouf's only opposition for the post of St. Ouen deputy, has been caught lying about his credentials as a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Despite his membership expiring two years ago, he used their name and logo on his website and claimed membership at the electoral hustings last Tuesday - despite being warned to cease by the Advertising Standards Agency last January, who said they were "concerned" by le Clercq's "apparent disregard" for advertising regulations. le Clercq claimed that the loss of membership was due to issues with his bank account.

Now, as I said the other day, I found le Clercq surprisingly credible at the hustings on Tuesday, seeming to have the right idea on gun rights and the reasons young people feel disenfranchised. I wouldn't vote for him - Renouf, for all his faults, is a pretty reliably progressive and experienced candidate with a record of effective scrutiny, who has also been a very good constituency politician that genuinely makes an effort to represent his parishioners. le Clercq may have the right views on certain issues but I sense in him a strong whiff of the old St. Ouen conservative who will slide straight into bed with the establishment as soon as he gets his bum one of those nice red seats. This latest scandal only raises more concerns - can you really trust someone who can't manage the workings of his own bank account with public finances? The man is, after all, a shrink (sorry, "life coach") - great if you want someone to feel better about their life, but unconvincing compared to Renouf's experienced legal background and former role as a Procureur de Bien Public.

Is this really a man you want representing you in the Assembly - "apparent disregard" for advertising regulations, a man whose lack of response to the rulings of a regulator the ACA found "concerning", and someone who can't seem to even manage his own bank account?   

I'll stick with Renouf, thank you.                                           

le Clercq vs Renouf

Regular readers will know that I'm a resident of the parish of St. Ouen, and tonight, we had our deputy hustings! There are two candidates for the seat: Richard Renouf, the sitting deputy since 2014, and Cliff le Clercq, a failed senatorial candidate from 2008 and professional psychotherapist. I must admit, first of all, that prior to his surprise stand for deputy (announced and arranged at the nominations meeting, with more than a hint of "token opposition" about it), I had never heard of him. That in mind, I was genuinely fairly taken aback with how credible he sounded. Renouf, with the exception of one question relating to mental health that he stumbled over and failed to recover, was his usual calm, collected and credible self - having run the Health and Social Services Scrutiny Panel over the last term, he has an impressive grasp of a range of issues. Interesting points were made on several issues; both candidates took a position in support of the Bailiff being removed as President of the States and in support of an elected speaker, which I found somewhat surprising for a parish which is - as noted by Renouf - one of the Island's more traditional. Both candidates expressed their approval for St. Ouen's shooting culture - Renouf supported further restrictions on firearms that would "keep them out of the hands of criminals", which I found slightly concerning as possibly giving gun owners even more red tape to fill out. Owning a firearm in Jersey is cumbersome enough - criminals, as a rule, don't carry weapons, and incidents are very rare - there is no reason for any change to the current laws (although apparently our favorite Assistant Home Affairs minister Deidre Mezbourian (one of Gorst's more obedient pets) disagreed). Happily, le Clercq was quite categorical in his support for the status quo. Another interesting topic covered was electoral reform and "superconstituencies", which Renouf seemed to show support for. le Clercq, slightly irritatingly, ignored the thrust of the question ("what are the candidates' views on electoral reform") and launched into a tirade about the committee system (although I didn't disagree with what he is saying - the man is in favour of abolishing ministerial government and returning to a consensus-based system). The prize for "most accurate point of the evening", however, must go to le Clercq for his bang-on point about disengagement from younger voters; his point, essentially, was that young people don't feel like they have a stake in society, and therefore, they don't vote. This, depressingly, is very true - people feel that the Jersey system isn't worth their time. They plan to leave at the earliest opportunity, and in many cases, never come back. Why? Because the Island is too expensive for many people to afford to live here.

The most concerning point, however, will be a joint award. Both candidates expressed an "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" approach to the introduction of ID cards. Sorry, but I find it difficult to support anyone in favour of these things. The idea that a citizen should have to carry around an ID card at all times for presentation on demand for any agent of the state is simply an appalling breach of personal liberty. I should not be expected, in my own country, to provide proof in the street that I am a legitimate citizen of this country. ID cards are a deeply dangerous and fascistic intrusion into people's personal lives and I find it deeply worrying that both of St. Ouen's candidates condone them.

John Davis's reactionary smears

Jersey reactionaries really are a fascinating breed.

This letter really encapsulates the absurdity that is politics in Jersey. Reform, a painstakingly moderate social-democratic party (you know, the sort that's perfectly normal in pretty much every Western jurisdiction except Jersey), being described as communist is, frankly, utterly hilarious. RJ are so far from any communist party that has ever existed - even more moderate, "Eurocommunist" strains in parties such as the former Italian Communist Party, that there's simply no comparison. One interesting point that this John Davis makes is that he was a candidate for the Australian Labor Party, which he describes as "progressive socialist". Ignoring the fact that Reform is social-democratic - an ideology usually placed to the right of socialism - I thought it'd be interesting to compare and contrast the two parties. As can be seen in ALP's policy document, "Practical Policies That Put People First", the party stands for - among other things - higher taxes on the rich, no increase in regressive taxes such as GST, funding for students to go to university and investment in renewable energy. A bit like, er, almost exactly like the what's in Reform's manifesto, something I'm sure Mr Davis would've noticed if he had actually taken an unprejudiced look at the party's manifesto. Unless, of course, Mr Davis willingly stood in Australia for a party whose policies, by his own standards, are communist? Is Mr Davis a communist? I mean - many would call me communist - I wouldn't hold it against him if Mr Davis was a communist. But it's just a wee bit hypocritical for him to call a party with policies identical to his own "communist" - wouldn't you say?

Oh, god, not again

Apparently, a decade and a half of rejection isn't enough for some people to take the hint.

Gino "put all employment laws in the dustbin!" Risoli, local greasy spoon owner and living evidence that you can tell some people as many times as you like and they still won't get it, has announced his candidacy for Senator in the upcoming elections. Risoli is a familiar face in this regard - this is his fourth election, having stood in at the 2005, 2011 and 2014 generals, as well as a 2010 Senatorial by-election. 2005: bottom of the poll. 2010: third from the bottom out of nine candidates, receiving 76 votes. 2011: standing in St. Helier No.1, he once again came bottom of the poll. 2014: yet again, bottom of the poll. One would think that, unable as he is to even win a deputy seat in town (you know, the sort of seat that's notoriously good for newcomers or outsiders), he would choose not to embarrass himself again. Apparently not.

To be fair, he's not for want of trying. Risoli has been involved with failed political ventures before - in 2005-2010, he was involved with Progress Jersey, a pressure group that was active for a few years but has since dropped off the radar - one can only conclude that Gino and his fellow pressurer, laissez-faire Tory and anti-tax activist Darius J. Pearce (principally known for his dud attempt to organise a Jersey Conservative Party, as well as lying about the supposed insertion of ex-Senator Frank Walker into a photo of him with former PM Gordon Brown and Northern Irish evangelical hate preacher, Protestant fundamentalist and wannabe terrorist Ian Paisley) got bored.

At least his ranting Facebook posts can be a good laugh.

Reform's big plans

Reform Jersey have launched their manifesto! At a launch event yesterday evening, RJ Chairman Sam Mézec presented the document to the general public for the first time, setting out the party's position on all the key issues.

I don't plan on writing a lengthy dissection of the whole manifesto - if you're interested then you can read it here - but I thought I'd discuss a few points which really caught my eye.

First and foremost, RJ's plan to reform the way St. Helier's parish democracy works is, I think, one of the most exciting parts of the entire manifesto. Currently, the local administration in St. Helier is, frankly, utterly archaic. The words RJ themselves use in their manifesto put it better than I ever could: "The democratic structure of the Parish administration in town is based on laws which are hundreds of years out of date and do not reflect the level of service provision which has been taken up by the Town Hall. The current system of electing two Procureurs du Bien Public and a Roads Committee is unnecessarily complicated and is not understood or valued by most St Helier residents". This is as true in other parishes as it is in St. Helier - I live in St. Ouen, for example, and virtually nobody outside of the usual parish grandees ever engage in or even understand the parish's local administration. Municipal elections are almost a covert affair - not publicised, not understood by the vast majority, they are barely elections at all, in the style of some 18th century rotten borough with perhaps 10 voters who invariably and unanimously back the incumbent. To counter this arcane and undemocratic system, RJ are proposing the establishment of a 'Conseil Municipal de St. Helier', a directly elected local council of unpaid 'Conseillers', with the power to make by-laws and "enhanced powers on local infrastructure, business licenses, planning and public entertainment".  This sort of radical reform is exactly what the parish system that we all take pride in requires to stay valued and relevant in the modern age - real, easy-to-understand local democracy which means that municipal services can be delivered with transparency and accountability.

The other position I found interesting was their policy on reducing the costs of GP visits. RJ's immediate policy on curbing the frankly outrageous costs charged by certain GPs (sometimes more than £40 to see your GP for a ten-minute checkup) is to reduce the prices for lower-income people, but they also commit to eventually reducing and eliminating these charges for everyone. This paragraph precedes their section on health: “Reform Jersey believes in the principle of a universal health service, free at the point of need. We believe that every Islander in need of treatment should receive it in a timely manner and without incurring costs". However, what was noted last night is that this objective to eliminate GP charges isn't a pledge - not because they don't believe in it, but because it might not be achievable in the short-term and they don't want to promise the electorate something they know they might not be able to achieve. Isn't it refreshing to see someone standing up and actually being honest, as opposed to the vague platitudes and impossible pledges usually spewed out by independent candidates?

The Minister of Social Insecurity

Susie Pinel, bane of the unemployed, single mothers, and more generally anyone who has had to interact with the social security system, has announced her intention to stand for reelection, and what's more, she wants to keep the role of Social Security minister! Describing her role as "much-valued", she said she was "proud to be Minister for Social Security".

Pinel's record is essentially described as "la petite Iain Duncan Smith" - a minister given responsibility for social security who then proceeds to, er, do nothing but damage to the social security system. As the author of the brutal cuts of the 2016-19 Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP), it was her who laid the groundwork for the austerity campaign that has caused so much damage to the lives of those dependent on social security. She has consistently voted against propositions for her own department to improve people's lives, voting against proposals to raise the minimum wage, as well as voting not once but twice to make single parents £40 worse off (despite the fact that over half of them live in relative poverty). Her opposition to the January 2018 proposal to restore the benefit was apparently because it "isn't fair to offer extra help only to single parents" and that the scrutiny panel that had recommended the benefit be restored (Health and Social Security) had "failed to fully understand the social security system" - given that it was her own government that proposed this cut originally back in the MTFP, these excuses ring hollow. 

Parental rights is another critical Social Security issue, and one where Pinel saw herself far outpaced by the Chamber's left. While Pinel indicated that she might not even accept all the recommendations of the Employment Forum's report (the document that precipitated the most recent public debate on parental rights), Deputies Mézec and Southern brought forward radical proposals to increase parental leave from 18 to 26 weeks, as well as accepting the EF's recommendations. 

Her cuts come against a backdrop where they couldn't be more harmful. An Evening Post report in 2015 found that from 2010-15, Jersey's poorest households had become 30% worse off (https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2015/11/17/reform-jersey-plan-campaign-to-oust-deputy/). A more recent report based off of numbers from the States Statistics Unit found that over the last decade, the Island's economic standard of living has declined by a sixth. When poverty is on the rise, benefits cuts are the last thing that's needed - this is just another case of right-wing politicians preferring balancing the books over improving people's lives. 

Given that it's two months to an election, you might expect Pinel to be bending over backwards to try and win votes as most politicians are doing. Not this one, apparently - our Susie has stuck hard and fast to her austerity agenda, voting against Mézec proposals to raise the minimum wage and to restore the single parent benefit even as many of the Members who backed her in 2015 flocked to Mézec's side. Reform Jersey identified her seat as a target as early as 2015, meaning that the campaign to oust her will take special priority when the election campaign kicks off. 

My advice to the minister is pretty simple.

Be scared.