Flashback to... 2019

Tuesday 31 December 2019

With 2019, and what we might call the 20-teens, drawing to a close, today we reflect not only over the events of the past 12 months but over what’s been a momentous decade.

It’s been a time of action and inaction, highs and lows as well as numerous comings and goings.

During the decade we’ve seen three States elections. In 2011 more than a quarter of those returned were new faces. Whilst in 2014 – in what was the island’s first true general election – more than a third of members didn’t face a challenge.

That election was also memorable for a recount, and Senator Philip Ozouf only just scrapping in. Similarly, in 2018, with two exceptions all the politicians seeking re-election got voted back. The news here was Deputy Tracey Vallois being the first woman to top the polls in 30 years, and an inkling of party politics with Reform putting up a host of candidates. 

Pictured: During the decade there have been three Chief Ministers and three Lieutenant Governors.

We’ve also seen three chief Ministers, Senators Terry Le Sueur, Ian Gorst, and John Le Fondré. Three Governors: Generals Sir Andrew Ridgway and Sir John McColl, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton. Two Deans: Bob Key, Mike Keirle. And a host of Police Chiefs or stand-ins.

There have been numerous attempts at changing the way politicians are elected, but little has changed. Members choosing to ignore the results of a public referendum. Likewise, numerous attempts over the decade to split the dual role of the Bailiff, have come and gone, with things remaining as they always have been.

In the early part of the decade it was former Senator Stuart Syvret making all the headlines, in the middle third Senator Philip Ozouf, whilst in the last third – perhaps an indication of a lack of charisma or desire to challenge the system – no one seems to stand out. Perhaps a recognition that it’s civil servants, not politicians that now run the island.

In 2009, Mr Syvret fled the island claiming he was being persecuted by the establishment for exposing the island’s widespread historic abuse on his blog, something that later led to him being convicted and sent to La Moye for data protection breaches and contempt of court. 

Historic abuse was continually in the news throughout the decade. In 2010, an independent report revealed more than £7m had been spent on investigating claims – but that much of that money had gone on first-class flights, and wining and dining tabloid journalists at top restaurants. Both police Chief Graham Power and the man who’d headed up the investigation, Inspector Lenny Harper, were heavily criticised. Although both continue to claim they did nothing wrong.

Pictured: The investigation into historic child abuse has dominated the news over the past decade.

In 2014, more than seven years after Jersey Police had first began investigating claims of historic abuse, the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry began the long process of hearing evidence which it hoped would reveal what had really gone on. It held 149 days of public hearings, heard evidence from more than 450 people who had lived in the care system or were otherwise connected to it, and  considered  more than 1360,000 documents, before finally publishing its report in 2017 Total costs were more than £21m. Its conclusion: authorities had failed the island’s youth. Eight recommendations were made including creating a Commissioner for Children. Some of those have still not been implemented.

For many Senator Ozouf, was Jersey’s Svengali – the man at the centre of things but always operating in the background. Whilst even his critics acknowledged his hard work, they also claimed much of what he touched went wrong – ‘the man with the leaden touch’. In 2010 as Finance Minister he was forced to ‘eat his own words’ after he went back on an election pledge ‘to robustly oppose any attempt to increase GST’. He put it up from three to five per cent. His actions prompted immediate calls for his resignation. But, only 200 people attended a union-organised protest rally at Fort Regent that November and he remained firmly in place. 

He was also on the periphery of two projects that were seemingly financially mismanaged – the building of a new police station, and the failing to ‘hedge’ the building of a new incinerator which had been quoted for in euros against currency fluctuations. On a personal level police also investigated him – but never charged him – in relation to alleged misuse of his States credit card. Finally, in 2018, having only just scrapped back into the States in 2014, he called it a day and quit politics – or as he put it ‘for the time being’.

Pictured: The site for a new hospital planned at the beginning of the decade still continues whilst the costs continue to grow.

The new hospital saga has rumbled on throughout the decade. It was back in 2012 the States voted 46 votes to one to build a new hospital. Health Minister Deputy Anne Pryke told members it was likely to cost up to £430m, but that no site had yet been allocated.

Since then, a number of sites have been suggested and rejected, with the costs rising all the time. In December 2017 the States approved Senator Alan Maclean’s scheme to fund the build by borrowing up to £275m, with an additional £466m coming from States’ reserves, the so-called ‘rainy day fund’. Almost double the original estimate. Then in January 2018 an independent inquiry concluded plans to build on the current site were out of scale with the area. in January this year it was announced £38m had been spent on the project, and, as the decade comes to an end there’s still no confirmed location.

One project that did eventually get built – although it too was 11 years late – was the Millennium or town park. It had first been mooted in the mid-1990s. But, it wasn’t until 2009 that the States agreed by just one vote to go ahead with the project – the famous ring binder incident – the finance minister accidentally pushing the wrong button. Built in less than a year at a cost of around £10m it opened at the end of 2011. As 2019 draws to an end there’s talk of extending it northwards – something that was originally discussed all those years back.

Pictured: Could the new decade see the Millennium Park extended?

Finally, with a nod to being more ecologically aware, the site of the former Pontin’s holiday camp at Plemont has been bought by the States and National Trust for Jersey, and returned to nature for the future enjoyment of thousands of islanders. It may well me the lasting legacy of the 20-teens locally.