Forgiveness all round! No hard-feelings over unholy row

Thursday 08 October 2015

Christian compassion and forgiveness has broken out in the States Assembly, after Deputy Montfort Tadier said he bears “no hard feelings” against the Bailiff for kicking him out of the States over an offhand remark about whether Jesus would attend the Conservative Party Conference.

The extraordinary moment happened during yesterday’s debate on States financial plans, when Bailiff William Bailhache ruled a comment about Jesus at the Conservative conference was “unparliamentary”, and asked him to withdraw it.

Deputy Tadier refused, and was then told to withdraw from the Assembly. He did so – after telling Mr Bailhache that he was abusing his authority – and the sitting was suspended for an hour, with Deputy Tadier being allowed to continue his speech on his return.

Neither of the two have apologised for their part in the disagreement, but Deputy Tadier says that there’s no hard feelings.

In a statement issued later yesterday afternoon, he wrote: “The Bailiff is not the Pope, and like all of us, he is fallible. He simply got the wrong end of the stick on this occasion.

“Had he followed Standing Orders to the letter he would have asked me to clarify my comments rather than asking me to retract them, and he would have understood the point I was making. Thankfully, after the hour’s recess, the Bailiff had obviously thought better of it and I was able to continue where I had left off.

“I am grateful for the solidarity shown by States Members, particularly the Chief Minister, who came to my defence, saying he did not think the comments were offensive, simply a political illustration and maybe a direct challenge to the Chief Minister’s policies as a Christian.

“The whole thing was quite Kafkaesque. I bare no ill feeling to the Bailiff. I was just slightly frustrated at being impeded in doing my job, in this case, of robustly fighting the Government’s austerity measures.”

The Bailiff's Office have not responded to requests for a comment.