The more I think about it, the more it seems obvious that the way to fix the States, and give the people the government they have been crying out for, is staring us in the face. Richard Digard has been subtly pushing it again lately - his comment column in the Press alluded to it last week, and again in the Press blog today.
The easy step is this: Give the Chief Minister the power to appoint and sack the ministers.
The way the government is supposed to work is that the Policy Council sets the agenda for the States. No department can bring its policies before the house without the Policy Council's approval, and no department will waste its time drafting plans which won't get the council's backing. So, theoretically, the Billets should be stuffed with Big Vision Goodness.
Except it doesn't work, because the ministers in the Policy Council vote independently, and perhaps contrary to the Chief Minister's wishes. So in reality the Big Vision can go hang most of the time.
That is if you can find a Chief Minister who has any vision. Which you won't, because the Stuart Fallas and Peter Ferbraches of the world won't touch the post with a bargepole in its current form - it's a political death sentence. You're the only person anyone can really pin any blame on, but you get none of the real power needed to do anything about it!
Give the Chief Minister the power to sack the ministers, and the whole landscape changes. If the Chief Minister deems a matter important enough for a three-line whip, then dissenting ministers could simply be removed and replaced with ministers who will agree.
So, does that just give the power to some megalomaniac uber-Deputy, the worst of the worst?
On the contrary: It puts the power in the hands of the electorate. What brings this matter to the fore is the second post-Harwood general election being held next month. Looking at the candidate list, and especially reading the manifestos, the electorate once again basically has no choice but to elect the least incompetent people, who will just spend the next four years tugging the island in 45 different directions with predictable results.
If the Chief Minister is granted the power to push through his vision, the election is transformed, because candidates can declare their voting intentions for the post of Chief Minister at manifesto time. So then you've really got something to vote for - and it's 'island-wide', because whichever district you're in, you can vote for the candidates who pledge to vote for your preferred CM!
Of course all this change may not be in the interests of two groups of people. The first are those running the finance industry, because they like a nice stable jurisdiction and a parliament they can bamboozle; a government with a sense of direction threatens their cosy outlook. The second are incompetent sitting deputies who in all likelihood stand to lose their seats should the change cause a rush of able candidates to put their names forward next time.
Luckily one thing Harwood did get through was provision for referenda!
Monday, 31 March 2008
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Use fewer plastic bags: Save world
Following the Guernsey and Jersey supermarkets' recent announcement that they would charge for plastic bags, both the Press and the Beeb ran vox pops interviews with generally supportive islanders.
Although I'm a big old cynic when it comes to the supermarkets' motives behind this action, particularly chains like M&S which insist on including stacks of unnecessary glossy packaging on their own brands, I've got to agree with the sanity of the move on litter grounds, and as a libertarian, it heartens me that we got there without any legislation being necessary.
Plastic bags are an eyesore and a menace to wildlife. Charging for them means everyone gets a little reminder that the world needs some TLC every time they reach the end of the check-out queue. There's even a chance that charging for plastic bags will reduce our oil consumption by some microscopic proportion (though that's not clear-cut, because the re-usable alternatives involve a lot more oil in their manufacture).
But the madness of it is the vox pops still contain plenty of people talking about this as 'doing their bit for the environment'.
I predict that when such people pass away, their heads will be drilled open and their brains exhibited as curiosities in 22nd century museums. There is a vast, yawning chasm between using a jute bag once a week, and the kind of changes we are going to have to make to 'do our bit for the environment'.
Another oft-heard comment that tries but fails to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem is that this is a 'step in the right direction'. Sadly, it ain't necessarily so. Trying to step in any direction usually results in inadvertently generating more CO2 - for example by traipsing halfway across the island in a car to stick some bottles and a couple of cardboard boxes in a skip.
Then the assumption is if we make lots of steps in this direction then the world as a whole can arrive at the destination. In reality, any slack created by Guernsey in the demand for oil will be picked up oil being consumed elsewhere. I don't just mean that Guernsey can only have a small impact - I mean it will have no impact, because what drives CO2 emissions globally is fossil fuel production and callous economics.
Apart from a readjustment in the 70s, world production of oil has increased every year since the industrial revolution started. No economic forecast of world fossil fuel extraction has been adjusted down because climate change makes it less desirable, even with the Kyoto agreement and the EU's laudable pledges of big CO2 reductions. Guernsey can't stop oil being produced, all we can do is change where it is consumed.
The climate change scenarios predicted now even by most moderate scientists constitute a monumental international crisis. The only realistic solution is a virtually impossible unification of world leaders behind some incredibly tough and painful decisions to reduce fossil fuel extraction in the face of relentlessly rising demand - economics would deal with the rest of it, as long as global thermonuclear war doesn't break out first.
But in any case, the alternative to us solving climate change is that climate change will solve us.
In the meantime, we are not powerless. The chattering classes can remove their heads from the sand, educate people to face up to this problem, and lobby for however long it takes for real action to reduce global CO2 emissions instead of token measures.
Although I'm a big old cynic when it comes to the supermarkets' motives behind this action, particularly chains like M&S which insist on including stacks of unnecessary glossy packaging on their own brands, I've got to agree with the sanity of the move on litter grounds, and as a libertarian, it heartens me that we got there without any legislation being necessary.
Plastic bags are an eyesore and a menace to wildlife. Charging for them means everyone gets a little reminder that the world needs some TLC every time they reach the end of the check-out queue. There's even a chance that charging for plastic bags will reduce our oil consumption by some microscopic proportion (though that's not clear-cut, because the re-usable alternatives involve a lot more oil in their manufacture).
But the madness of it is the vox pops still contain plenty of people talking about this as 'doing their bit for the environment'.
I predict that when such people pass away, their heads will be drilled open and their brains exhibited as curiosities in 22nd century museums. There is a vast, yawning chasm between using a jute bag once a week, and the kind of changes we are going to have to make to 'do our bit for the environment'.
Another oft-heard comment that tries but fails to acknowledge the magnitude of the problem is that this is a 'step in the right direction'. Sadly, it ain't necessarily so. Trying to step in any direction usually results in inadvertently generating more CO2 - for example by traipsing halfway across the island in a car to stick some bottles and a couple of cardboard boxes in a skip.
Then the assumption is if we make lots of steps in this direction then the world as a whole can arrive at the destination. In reality, any slack created by Guernsey in the demand for oil will be picked up oil being consumed elsewhere. I don't just mean that Guernsey can only have a small impact - I mean it will have no impact, because what drives CO2 emissions globally is fossil fuel production and callous economics.
Apart from a readjustment in the 70s, world production of oil has increased every year since the industrial revolution started. No economic forecast of world fossil fuel extraction has been adjusted down because climate change makes it less desirable, even with the Kyoto agreement and the EU's laudable pledges of big CO2 reductions. Guernsey can't stop oil being produced, all we can do is change where it is consumed.
The climate change scenarios predicted now even by most moderate scientists constitute a monumental international crisis. The only realistic solution is a virtually impossible unification of world leaders behind some incredibly tough and painful decisions to reduce fossil fuel extraction in the face of relentlessly rising demand - economics would deal with the rest of it, as long as global thermonuclear war doesn't break out first.
But in any case, the alternative to us solving climate change is that climate change will solve us.
In the meantime, we are not powerless. The chattering classes can remove their heads from the sand, educate people to face up to this problem, and lobby for however long it takes for real action to reduce global CO2 emissions instead of token measures.
Saturday, 1 March 2008
Brief introspective moment
I haven't posted to this blog for 197 days. Which is a shame, because I've often thought of things to post about and then forgotten about them. And then later I might hear something on the radio or read something in the paper which made me wish I'd posted them. In fact that's happened a lot.
The reason I stopped posted is partly because I have a lifestyle which very rarely permits me to sit down for an hour, in private, and collect my thoughts - unless I get up at 4am and do it.
I've also been thinking about what the point of this blog is (if any) and, basically, whether any bloody good will come of it. Anyhow, I thought seeing as there's a general election soon, I might as well give blogging another shot.
That's quite enough about me. Me is a terrifically boring topic, and there are far too many bloggers already writing about it. And anyway, my private blog-writing idyll is just about to be shattered...
The reason I stopped posted is partly because I have a lifestyle which very rarely permits me to sit down for an hour, in private, and collect my thoughts - unless I get up at 4am and do it.
I've also been thinking about what the point of this blog is (if any) and, basically, whether any bloody good will come of it. Anyhow, I thought seeing as there's a general election soon, I might as well give blogging another shot.
That's quite enough about me. Me is a terrifically boring topic, and there are far too many bloggers already writing about it. And anyway, my private blog-writing idyll is just about to be shattered...
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