Thursday, July 11, 2013

Jersey's Electoral Reform Drama - running longer than the Mousetrap - but a bigger sell-out ....CONTINUED

A reminder from twelve months ago. Electoral Commissioners Colin Storm and Constable Gallichan explaining the mysteries of  Option B on the "road show".....

...and below
Jersey States' very own living dramatist is interviewed here - one act only of about 12 minutes - and reveals his starring role in next Tuesday's all glitter performance as Chair of PPC presenting the will of the people to their elected representatives.

In fact Constable Crowcroft would probably prefer having a starring role in Hamlet or to be the body on the floor in the Agatha Christie melodrama but history has cast him in this rather conflicted part. Whatever happens he is unlikely to win any awards.

We watched him today at the PPC dress rehearsal that was in part open to the public.
His co participants being Senators Bailhache and Ferguson, Constable Norman and Deputies Martin and Tadier together with a Deputy Greffier and a few other bit-part players.

It was all a bit lack lustre amd hardly raised expectations of anything very startling happening in the States' Assembly when the full 51 elected players deliver their well rehearsed speeches and strut their finest stuff....

If the temperature outside rises the gents jackets may well come off but we don't anticipate that the discussions will stimulate anything new or that has not already been considered many times before over the years...

The gremlins are still preventing correction of typos  and the cursor is inoperative - anybody with a suggested cure please make contact please...IT is not the strong point around these parts.

Constable Crowcroft of St Helier - Chair of PPC - interviewed today.

5 comments:

  1. If Constable Crowcroft is right that the amendments tinker with the result, than why is there no amendment simply to implement option B and leave the constables in the States, but without a vote. That option was not put in the referendum and does not contravene the result of the referendum, but would go some way to ameliorate the obvious numerical disparities.

    There has been a wilful refusal to acknowledge or discuss this possibility all the way through the reform process. Why? Whose vested interest are best promoted by the black and white approach to the options?

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  2. If they had the vote removed, would they then have the wages removed as all they are now is advisors. The next question, would they then bother much to attend the States, as many commentators pointed out, they as fathers of their parish should actually stay and do the job they were elected to do.

    Just to be devils advocate. So they have no vote, ( as you suggest ) are not being paid, and most of them only sit in the States on the odd occasion that they are involved with a subject being discussed. Where does that leave Constables that are on committees or who are assistant ministers.

    Constables should not be in the States unless voted there.

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  3. If they had the vote removed, would they then have the wages removed as all they are now is advisors.

    But at the moment they are being paid for a job they have not been elected (well, kinda, sorta...) to do. They are elected to be father of the parish, which is an honorary role.

    I'd be more than happy if they stuck to what they were able to do, rather than meddle in things that are beyond their intellectual capacities.

    (For the benefit of the Constable of St Saviour, I suppose I should put that into words of one syllable, but I can't be bothered)

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  4. Option B the Great Gerrymander that deprives St Helier and the working class of equal representation. If it goes through then there will be lots of fun at the Privy Council.

    One thing has changed - the genie is out of the bottle and will never be put back in again. We now know why the government is dominated by rich Bourgeois - constituencies based on tiny rural parished allows them to dominate through unequal voting power. They fear fairness and have kept in place a undemocratic system that should have been reformed long ago.

    Constables henceforth lack legitimacy as is evident by the fact that 8 of 12 in 2011 never faced a contested election.

    A 26% turnout, of which a majority do not even support Option B, is not a mandate for anything in particular, let alone an indication of the people's will.

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  5. I almost Averty-d the sausage of abuse. Here is the SHARP REPORT'S MISSING PAGE 20 courtesy of some....honourable people :)

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