The Constables: Secret Conspiracy or Paranoid Fantasy?

A Secret Cabal Behind Closed Doors...?

According to Mike Dun, the Constables form a powerful block which means in private meetings, behind closed doors, not presumably, unlike the Secret Order of the Illuminati. He writes:

"Here is a link to the Committee of Constables of Jersey which is clearly a political group. The minutes reveal just how wide-ranging this group is - not just talking about all aspects of law making and the government of Jersey people but actually making decisions in private meetings, behind closed doors that affect us all. So not only a powerful political group but an immensely powerful and covert group of a dozen people who are paid from general public taxation but with only minimal public participation or supervision. https://parish.gov.je/.../Comit%C3%A9-des-Conn%C3..."

"This political group must be subjected to full public examination before the next election in June 2022 and reformed urgently."

Does Reform publish its internal minutes? I'd be interested to know.

But does Mike actually read those minutes. Please note (from the minutes):

"The Comité, with reference to its minute no. 7 of 12th April 2021, approved a response to the Democratic Accountability and Governance Sub-Committee of the Privileges and Procedures Committee on the Democratic Accountability and Governance Review. In general terms, it was not the role of the Comité to comment on the areas outlined in the terms of reference as it did not hold a ‘collective’ view or mandate (the exception being the statutory duty on Connétables when convened as the Supervisory Committee pursuant to the Rates (Jersey) Law 2005). Individual Connétables would make their own comments on Jersey’s system of government; the process (and its effectiveness) for changing ministerial portfolios and moving Ministers around and the accountability and effectiveness of systems for electing Members to ministerial office or Scrutiny. However, the Comité did consider it appropriate to comment in general terms on the convoluted management and governance structure within the Island."

So note "No collective view"!!!!

In fact, all this talk of "making decisions in private meetings, behind closed doors that affect us all" is silly. 

It is incumbent on all elected political authorities to make decisions, and not to seek the decision of the public all the time. The difference is that their decision making is transparent. You can read the minutes! If you don't like it, stand against a Constable in the next election, or bring matters up at a Parish assembly. 

Indeed, that is what elections are for, and because minutes are published- and most of it is pretty mundane admin stuff anyway - you can judge and vote at elections.

Where is the real lack of transparency and secrecy?

The Constables committee publishes its minutes. The Government of Jersey, and especially the Competent Authority, have been hiding all their minutes from public gaze. These "Citizen's Panels" set up - who belongs to them, where are their minutes? We do not know. How can we judge and vote on that? These are the true "shadowy bodies" at the heart of government, who have no transparency.

Block Voting? 

Mike Dun wrotes: "If no other party has more than 12 elected members after the June 2022 Jersey general election - should the 12 Constables automatically form the government?"

But two of them have signed up to the Alliance Party. So should it just be 10 Constables? A simple examination of their voting record shows that they don't all vote the same way anyway anymore, unlike Reform, who as a real party, always do. 

Now around 20 or 30 years ago, there was much more of a case for the Constables all voting the same way, but that was then, and this is now - Mike Dun seems as stuck in a past era as those who decry the Honorary Police as "Hobby Bobbies". 20 or more years ago, people could join the Honorary Police and just pick up what to do as they went along from their peers and superiors. Now, as anyone who joins finds out, there is a rigorous programme of training - in association with the States of Jersey Police - before anyone is allowed to "fly solo"

Just to recap on that: Every officer who joins MUST undergo a foundation course. During that period they are not deployed unsupervised nor given any training on technical equipment which are subject to intensive courses later on in their advanced training.  Courses are arranged and conducted by an approved States of Jersey Police trainer.  Once the foundation course is completed to the satisfaction of the States of Jersey Police training staff, officers are certificated and may thereafter attend further courses for advanced training. 

[for more details, see here: https://tonymusings.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-honorary-police-of-jersey.html]

Likewise, the obligations of a Parish Constable are far greater than 20 years ago. 

The Constables and Party Politics

Mike Dun writes:

"After all, the shift of two Constables has already meant that the Alliance Party has established a theoretical equal claim to be the “majority party” alongside the Constables and not a vote has yet been caste by the electorate… Inevitably this trend will continue into 2022 when more Constables defect to this party of assured status quo with their eyes on “ministerial” jobs. Who among them would really want to continue as a mere backbencher “Constable” with responsibility primarily for emptying the Parish bins?"

Notice how he uses derogatory language wherever possible: "responsibility primarily for emptying the Parish bins?". Perhaps he should look at some Parish accounts. But it's like calling him a "failed election candidate who consistently failed to engage with the electorate", as if that was his main claim to fame.

But from the Minutes of the Constable's Committee: "In general terms, it was not the role of the Comité to comment on the areas outlined in the terms of reference as it did not hold a ‘collective’ view or mandate."

Moreover Constables taking on Ministerial Office has thanks to at least one example, led to a Constable being voted out by the electorate in a contested election - yes they do happen, just as we have seen recently in St Clement.

And the Constable of St Brelade has already said he will stand as an Independent, so that's one against the two. I really don't think the voting record shows Constables defecting as Mike predicts anyway. The two Constables in question are already known for supporting the establishment position. Simon Crowcroft certainly won't. Karen Shenton-Stone is unlikely too do so. Andy Jehan is already critical of the current government, and he's only just been elected. Mike Jackson often is critical of the Council of Ministers. There's a lot of wishful thinking on the Mike Dun's part.

Mike Dun writes: The Constables are potentially a very powerful group – in reality a “political party”

Reform are a party - and they all vote the same way - unlike the Constables. That's not to say it is necessarily a bad thing that they are so consistent, it is just to point out the difference between a real party, and the fantasy that Mike Dun seems to harbour about the Constables. You could just as easily say that the Council of Ministers and the "nodding dogs" among Deputies who support them are "a very powerful group". Despite the Troy rule, they usually manage to muster enough support to even recently fend off a vote of Censure.

Oaths of Office

Obviously aware of the fact that - unlike Reform's voting records - there are differences, Mike tries to fend off criticism with special pleading:

"Being a member of a party does not mean that a person agrees with every policy of that party or group, so Constables can – and do – disagree on some issues sometimes. But they all accept their double duties when they swear their oaths or attend Constables Committee meetings etc and behave in accordance with the vague rules of their 2 offices."

The oath of office has to do with the running of the Parish, and nothing to do with voting the same way. There's nothing mysterious about it.

"You swear and promise, by the faith and oath that you owe to God, that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties and office of Connétable of the Parish of…….; you will cause to be kept the King's Peace; you will protect and uphold to the best of your ability the rights appertaining to the said Parish, and as touching the public welfare thereof, you will be guided by the advice and counsel of the Principals and other officers of the said Parish; which officers you will convene, or will cause to be convened through your Centeniers, regularly to advise on the affairs of the Parish; you will execute the lawful orders of the Lieutenant Governor, of the Bailiff, of his Deputy and of the Judges and Jurats of the Royal Court, as pertaining to their respective offices, attending meetings of the States whenever you are called upon to do so; and all this and your bounden duty you promise upon your conscience to perform."

The dual duty is: a) a duty to their parishioners, and b) a duty to the public of the island by attending meetings of the SoJ. That's it. So in both parts of their duty, their duty is to the electorate who vote them in.

There is a double duty, but the Deputies also have a double duty, albeit a different one, not just to the electorate but also to the monarch.

"You swear and promise before God that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of (Senator) (Deputy); that you will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors, according to Law; that you will uphold and maintain the laws, privileges, liberties and franchises of Jersey, opposing whomsoever may wish to infringe the same; that you will attend the meetings of the States whenever you are called upon to do so; and generally that you will fulfil all the duties imposed upon you by virtue of the said office. All of which you promise to do on your conscience."

Subsidiarity against Centralisation: Why I support the Parish system

Lastly, I would leave this to ponder. As a Distributist, I am committed to the political princilple know as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization.

In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be. This principle is a bulwark of limited government and personal freedom. It conflicts with the drive for centralization and bureaucracy characteristic of the State.

The Parish is an excellent example of that principle. It raises money from the rates to cover expenses, and is run as a very tight ship. Being smaller than the State, it can be more efficient than the State.

Remember when at the 2014 election, there were plans afoot to take rates from the Parishes and put them under a central (and paid) new Department. Rates soaring, more highly paid civil servants (paid for by higher rates), and an increase in central government control over the people of Jersey, with no say at all - rates after all get voted on in a Parish Assembly. 

There was a PWC report (costing £50,000) commissioned to promote it. Oh yes, and that was when the votes voted in a Referendum overwhelmingly to keep the Constables, but never mind the ordinary bloke (or blokess, or trans-block, or bloke-fluid person) in the street, just bring dictat from on top - just as we have had recently with lots of decisions like the pay off for Charlie Parker and the appointment of a new CEO.

The Parish and the Parish Constable can be a bulwark against some of that creeping centralisation of power which, since the Pandemic, we have seen concentrated in even fewer hands - "The Competent Authority Ministers", and which with both that and the Citizen's Panels (membership unknown), have demonstrated a significant lack of transparency.

A Power Grab by the Constables? Truth or fantasy? 

The idea that the Constables, as Mike Dun puts it, will "evolve further after the 2022 elections as the ultra-exclusive party of one dozen" is a fantasy, and his continual obsession with the Constables, seems to be verging on paranoia.

It should be remembered that in 2014, nearly two thirds of those who voted in the Referendum voted in favour of retaining the Constables. Mike has stated in the past that was because his campaign was a one man band without support, so it might fairly be asked why other politicians who supported removing the Constables did not come together as a team. Might the deficiency lie with his own inability to work within a team? 

He has also suggested that the Yes Campaign was financed in a way that money was no object, and had powerful interests working for it. In fact, the core team was around 4 people, only one of whom was a Constable, and it was done cheaply but spending strategically to best effect - the website used the free Weebly system. Approval on strategy and written arguments did come from 11 Constables (not even all unified here) but development of those came from the core group.

A few more questions and answers:

Mike says of the Constables: "….once elected they decide for themselves how to keep busy and how to make best use of their time serving their parish, or the government aka “States” or their own personal interests."

The same is true of Parish Deputies, except they have no statutory obligations regarding their time apart from attendance of the States - which Constables also have. Deputies can be proactive or they can just sit back and take the money - much more so than Constables. Why on earth bring up such facile statements of fact and present them as exceptional?

"They are likely to become the “upper level” of government from which Ministers will be recruited –"

Very unlikely after a Constable was booted out after trying to combine Ministerial role and Parish role, and the Parishioners - the Parish electorate - felt neglected. That lesson was well learnt! They may become Assistant Ministers but they are well aware of the dangers of being Ministers.

"They are each provided with a comfy Parish office with a parking space and supportive staff"

Ministers and Assistant Ministers also get their own comfy States offices with supportive staff. In fact the civil servants there support them politically unlike Parish staff who do and must not get involved politically. 

"Constables presumably receive a free bus pass if they are old enough and their pension entitlements but what happens if they are sick or unable to “work” for either job is a bit uncertain."

The same is true of every class of States member. Why on earth bring up such facile statements of fact and present them as exceptional?

In fact, if Deputies are sick and unable to work, nobody deputises for them, while the Procureur deputises for the Constable for Parish matters (and if there is a conflict of interest, such as presiding over hustings for the election of a Constable).

Mike says: "once “elected” and sworn before the Royal Court it is not so certain how they can be removed – except by rejection through the ballot box which is very rare - or by Royal Court “decree."

There is nothing to stop anyone contesting a Constable's election in their Parish. Except for St Helier, Constables have to live in the Parish. St Helier - because of commercial interests historically - has had many Constables who lived in nice pleasant rural areas and have no real participation in living in the Parish until the current incumbent.

The case of St John shows that when a Constable oversteps the mark, they can be held to account by a Parish Assembly, and even by the Royal Court for violating their oath of office. The fact that a sitting Constable was able to persuade Procureurs to agree with him showed that clearer guidelines were needed to avoid such a convoluted process in future, but the fact that it did work demonstrated that Constables are accountable to the electorate of the Parish. 

The Real Secret Groups

Who sits on Citizen's Assemblies, such as the one for Climate Change? Surely it is desirable for people to know so we can see their background and expertise. But an FOI request tells you this is "a private matter". They do really meet in secret, publish a report with recommendations, but no minutes showing discussions they have, and are help accountable to no-one. 

The same is true of the Treasury Advisory Panel which gave us a Debt Strategy. How can we judge their expertise if we don't know who they are? All minutes of meetings are hidden behind a cloak of secrecy. The same is true of the Citizen's Panel to develop the criteria for choosing the site of the hospital.

These groups really are " making decisions in private meetings, behind closed doors that affect us all.". And we know that because apart from the bare and obvious fact that they do confer together, minutes are not publicly available, membership is not publicly available.

The Threshold of Exponential Growth

Bailiwick Express reported that:

More than 700 people are in quarantine after being identified as direct contacts of the island's 43 confirmed covid cases. The Government confirmed that there was no unknown spread, with the contact tracing team "able to identify each positive case back to a known source."

It's the direct contacts that are the issue. As we found at Christmas, there's a threshold to that - after which testing the direct contacts, getting results back, and then chasing direct contacts of positive cases takes too long. That's the tipping point after which other measures need to be taken rapidly, but are often delayed in the mistaken hope that contact tracing will succeed in keeping numbers down. The mathematics says that it will not.

By the third of December 2020, direct contacts of active cases had crossed the 3,000 mark and by that time, it was hopeless overwhelmed. Some time in the previous two weeks, there had been a tipping point, probably between  1,500 and 2,000 cases, when track and trace simply could not keep up with the spread, and despite vaccines, with faster variants such as Delta, it will be very much the case again.

We can see the beginnings of this with "seeking healthcare" statistics. Those seeking healthcare have caught the virus before the contact tracing team caught up with them. If it is the Delta variant, they may well have also spread it wider. It is a game of catch-up which will be lost if numbers rise.

The peak was when it approached 4,900 direct contacts of active cases, and as we can see from the 14 day moving average cases per 100,000 that was also rising rapidly. That was around 9 December.

On December 4, the first rules - closing hospitality venues - began, and the increased rules over Christmas began to reverse the trend, until at last track and trace could finally make headway again.

Another factor to consider is that double vaccinated individuals may become - as has been the case - asymptomatic carriers. In this respect, the government policy, which flew in the face of known medical knowledge, of allowing double vaccinated individuals to take a test on arrival, but not need to self-isolate until after a test result, was extremely short-sighted - just as allowing anyone from a green area to do the same last year was almost certainly a cause of the autumn rise in cases.

It must be remembered that while hospitalisations may not  go up at the moment, the threat of long covid, which can affect even healthy young people, is not going to go away - and those are the people doing most mixing, and least vaccinated. We have no published figures in Jersey on long covid, even though in the UK, the Office of National Statistics has published them. Looking just at hospital and death statistics is misleading, because it leaves out an invisible cohort of sufferers from covid, who often need repeated medical interventions. This website has a lot more about it:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-long-haul-covid-19-is-like-for-children-and-teenagers#What-is-long-COVID?

Long Covid affects around ten per cent of 18-49 year olds who get Covid-19, increasing to 22 per cent of people over 70. The researchers also found people with asthma were also more likely to develop long Covid.

And finally, while night clubs seem to be saying we can live with Covid and rising numbers, it should be remembered that while Jersey is an island, it is not, in the words of John Donne, entire in itself. Should numbers exceed 500 cases, it is very likely that anyone leaving Jersey will have to self-isolate for at least 8 to 10 days, and that itself will also have a bad impact on holidaymakers and tourism. This is a lesson that we can see from Portugal, where a spike in cases has led to reclassifications for tourists returning to the UK, and a large number of cancelations to that destination. 

When I met and spoke to an elderly couple at the Golden Sands Hotel, they told me they came to Jersey because it was the only place on the holiday map outside of the UK which was likely to stay green. If that was no longer the case, and there was even a growing risk of turning amber (as case numbers rise), we can say goodbye to summer tourism. And it is only June now, and the school holidays have not even begun. That is something the politicians, with their "safer travel" and "balancing act" need to consider, or they will fall off the high wire and come down to earth with a thud.

Other References

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/coronavirus-and-your-health/long-covid

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7334973/

Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change’s report: Some Unanswered Questions

Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change’s report.

Among the action points the group has suggested are that no new petrol or diesel vehicles should be allowed to be registered in the Island from 2025 and that a full ban on such vehicles from Jersey roads should be in force by 2050. (JEP)

It's fine to have a vision and strong ideals, but if there is no practical way of implementing them, it is a pipedream. Part of my gripe with the recent report that it is a set of goals, but no homework seems to have been done on how to get there.

Unanswered Questions:

It’s estimated that around a third of the UK’s 27 million households don’t have off-street parking, so many EV owners will need to use public charging points. What is the estimated number of households for Jersey households with cars?

If no figures are available, when is it estimated they will be available?

Who is developing plans for implementing street charging points (such as lamp-post charging used in the UK) for users with street parking in St Helier? No details are mentioned.

How much will this cost and who will pay for it? No figures are given.

How much does a single public charging point cost to put in place? (as there are existing charging points in public car parks, this should be available). No figures are given.

Are there plans to retrofit chargers into multi-occupancy property parking? No details are mentioned.

How long is all this going to take? If we start now, will we have enough electric charging places by 2025? 2030? 2050? No figures are given.

Mention has been made of States support and incentives. How will this work, how much, and can the States afford it. No figures are given.

None of these questions have been addressed, and if there are calculations, they have been well hidden away. Obviously if there are, they will need to be examined carefully to make sure they stand up to scrutiny and the finances are properly costed.

Some Cases to Show  

Les Quennevais - blocks of flats have shared tenancy parking, and there are no electrical points there. How are those occupiers going to manage to charge electric cars, assuming they can afford them? Who will pay for electric points?

These people have their own driveways, and can implement (at their own cost) electrical connections. 

Some of the parking at Les Quennevais - and of course a lot in St Helier - is on the roadside. Are these going to be excluded from electric cars?

Haves and Have Nots

Two stumbling blocks can keep drivers from switching to EVs: the lack of chargers and the cost of a new car.

A lack of enough cheap second-hand electric vehicles is likely to remain an issue for at least a decade; another is the high cost of new cars, although manufacturers say prices are coming down - but not that quickly, and increased post-Covid and Brexit costs are slowing that process.

It is the poorer who usually live in the blocks of flats, with communal parking, or on-street parking, while those with more means live in dwellings with driveways into which electric points can be placed. They are also going to find it harder to afford an electric car.

If we are not careful, we will have a lower-class population having to drive increasingly aging cars because the infrastructure for charging them is not available, while those well to do will have their shiny new electric vehicles. The gap between rich and poor will increase.

The Lesson from Germany

A report highlights some of the issues:

"Germany, like many other countries, offers subsidies of up to €4,000 ($4,400) to offset the cost of a new electric vehicle. On Friday, the government said it would hike those incentives within two years to help it meet a target of cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from vehicles in half by 2030. The subsidies will be paid out of the proceeds of a new carbon tax."

"Most governments in the world are trying to hit two important targets: on environmental issues and inequality. By protecting the environment, we're actually in danger of creating more inequality," Miguel Angel Tovar, co-author of a 2017 research paper on electromobility for the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), told DW.

"Tovar likened the German government's electric vehicle policy to the subsidy scheme for solar panels, which he said allowed wealthier households to benefit financially by selling their excess electricity to the national power grid. This income stream is often unaccessible to low earners in public housing."

"Similarly, higher-income households will quickly absorb the cost of installing home charging infrastructure for their new battery-powered cars, while low-income groups may be the last to get connected and be forced to rely on higher-priced public charging stations."

The Cloud-Cuckoo Future

A 2019 report by Bloomberg indicated, due to dropping prices for EV batteries, that electric vehicles should be more cost-competitive with combustion-engine cars within three years. Three years have passed, and it has not come to be the case. Technology will certainly have a gradual effect in reducing prices, but if anyone thinks it is going to be swift, they are living in cloud-cuckoo land.

The Australian noted in 2020 that electric cars "almost everywhere cost more across their lifetime than their petrol counterparts."

The Financial Times noted that:

Electric cars will remain significantly more expensive for European carmakers to produce than combustion engine models for at least a decade, according to new research.

Of course we could - as the Action report suggests - penalise those still driving petrol cars, but who will that hit the hardest - rich or poor?

In Conclusion

I still have to see a solid, costed strategy for providing electricity to charge vehicles who are on roadside parking permits in St Helier, or even for that matter, on road sides in Les Quennevais for that matter. There are numerous flats which have a nice communal parking space, but that would need to be fitted out with charging points. 

As usual, the model being worked with is one which favours those who have their own house and parking space, i.e. mostly (but not always) the better off. It hasn’t been thought through at all! I can see panic as deadlines approach, and I suspect the UK is not in any better position. You cannot even with fast charging, just pull into a charging station and top up your electricity in a couple of minutes as petrol cars do. Even the fastest can only manage 20 minutes, and there is a risk of shortening the lifespan of your car batteries as well.

This reminds me of the Chief Minister and his gardens with outside entrances (if you have a garden at all) all over again.  Remember  how in the first lockdown, people could meet in gardens (if they had them!) and when John Le Fondre was asked about back gardens with only an entrance through the house, he expressed surprise that situation existed!

This strategy is a present clueless because they don’t think about ordinary people, they’ve been living in a comfortable, cosy place for far too long.

Most private EV owners are currently middle-aged, male, well-educated, affluent, and live in urban areas with households containing two or more cars and with the ability to charge at home. Evidence from various sources has found that private owners charge their EV mainly at home, on a daily basis, and generally overnight.

Why should I care? I have a driveway, so it is not such a big issue for me, but why should I not care? If we do not give adequate consideration to these matters, we will become an island in which the poorer are also power-poor. And penalising petrol cars will add further to the increasing division in our society.

The Shades of Micawber

We do need a properly thought out and costed scheme for moving everyone to electric cars, but this recent report doesn't provide one. 

It reminds me of the sunken road in the original Waterfront Masterplan. It was decided to lower the road, build on top of it, and bring it out at the bottom of Gloucester Street, which has been prone to flooding. How to solve that problem? All the wonderful plans said (in a footnote, no less!) was that "an engineering solution will be found".

It's the equivalent of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield - lots of brilliant ideas, and no practical homework done on how they may come to fruition, but just saying "Something will turn up." 

If I was to endorse this current wish list - and I wish I could - I'd need the Citizen's Panel to do a lot of homework, real research for practical outcomes, well thought out, well costed. Then I could take it seriously.

References

https://www.dw.com/en/electric-cars-low-earners-may-never-get-to-drive-one/a-50517095

https://www.stantec.com/en/ideas/power-poverty-the-new-paradigm-for-social-and-economic-inequality-of-electric-vehicles

https://grist.org/justice/making-electric-cars-more-equitable/

https://www.ft.com/content/a7e58ce7-4fab-424a-b1fa-f833ce948cb7

https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/020221-expect-lithium-supply-crunch-by-2025-as-ev-market-booms-piedmont-ceo

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/464763/uptake-of-ulev-uk.pdf

Grumbles from the Pulpit: The Jim Hacker Award for Cover-Ups

The Empty Political Promises of our Government

Jersey Evening Post Reports that:

FORMER government chief executive Charlie Parker received a £500,000 severance payment after leaving his job, it has been revealed. The pay-off was made despite Chief Minister John Le Fondré giving assurances shortly after Mr Parker’s resignation last November that there would be ‘no additional payouts beyond his contractual entitlement’.

Bailiwick Express reports that:

"The Government is refusing to release the minutes of crucial meetings in which its former CEO’s second job and £500,000 departure payout were discussed – despite having previously pledged to publish them “as soon as they are ready.”"

Just remember them next year when it is election time, and how much their pledges are worth - nothing! This government's only pledge to is to absolute secrecy when anything might emerge which could lead to criticism of them. And they have a shed-load of excuses to avoid presenting anything which could be damaging. 

It so reminds me of Yes Minister:

"The Official Secrets Act is not there to protect Secrets, it is there to protect Officials."
— Sir Humphrey, Yes, Minister