Dearest gentle reader, yes both of you, 

When we left off in part 2A, Prospective hopeful Deputy candidate Reed had been devoured by the octopus. His hopes for a vacant seat dashed.

Like the Zulu army of 160-odd years before, he had been conquered. The conqueror to write their own account of history, the vanquished to be forgotten, omitted from the record. Just 82 candidates contested the election they say.

A shakespearean tragedy.

But then that’s not quite the ending is it, otherwise I wouldn’t have a whole second part of the review to write. We haven’t yet completed the TURN.

Firstly, I drew parallels between the Loophole campaign and the Zulu wars.

160 years ago the British and the Zulu famously fought a bitter war, with the British emerging victorious. That’s how history tells the story – and ultimately, in the fullness of that conflict, it was a binary outcome. Win-Lose. Victory and conquest for one side, the domination and submission of the other.

Whilst I draw parallels between the demise of my Loophole Campaign and that legendary conflict, history has moved on, we live in a different time now. 

Why should both campaigns have to end in the same way?

Why did they have to be enemies?

If we never learn from history, we become doomed to repeat it. We have the power instead to create new narratives by embracing the power of Truth and the power of reconciliation.

Magic is coming back into the world, miracles are possible. We can change history, because we are all busy making future history in the present, we shape our world.

The divisions we create between ourselves are artificial, amplified by those who wish to exert their own influence and control over us. 

Imagine, if you will, an alternate storyline where the Zulu and the British paused for a second, thought about the other side and not what separated them but what they had in common. Realising they were singing from the same hymn sheet, they put their weapons down, joined together and sang united with one voice. 

Different but in harmony with one another, to produce something even greater and more profound than the sum of its component parts. That is a re-boot sequel to Zulu (1964) that I would like to see, perhaps including a narration by Michael Caine as well.

This alternate storyline echoes a concept in Africa they have which they call Ubuntu. It embodies the idea of togetherness and that we are all part of one whole. An ecosystem where what impacts one, also affects us all. 

One needs to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope, and then act accordingly.

That idea resonates too in Guernsey, it is the Guernsey Way. It is in Guernsey, How We Live Together. We are all connected, we are different parts of a wider harmony. What harms one, harms the whole.

To embody the spirit of that ideal, we should embrace the ideals of good neighbourliness and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

That being said, back to the matter of the campaign and the events that led to my withdrawal. 

First of all, I do not know Deputy Hansmann Rouxel (‘DHR’), never met her, don’t know who she is. What I do know is that Guernsey is my home and because of that I am bound by a Code of Conduct, the code of the Guernsey Way. The reality is that we are all connected by very few degrees of separation. In a place like Guernsey the impact of even small acts of generosity can have profound multiplier effects.

From the very beginning I knew if I submitted that nomination form and proceeded on to be an election candidate, that campaign would have seen me elected. That was the conundrum I had to grapple with in the nomination room on 12 May because evidence and feedback gathered suggested it was likely to do very well at the polls.

However I didn’t want to deprive Deputy #38 the opportunity to do their thing, whoever that turned out to be. I had come to an ethical crossroads and to proceed would have been unconscionable. Saving £200k is neither here nor there, it was the Spirit of the message of the campaign that was important.

What did I stand to gain anyway by continuing onto the ballot? I had demonstrated my point, withdrawing at this point was the rational choice.

Consider there were many things I could have done or said subsequently, given the circumstances of my withdrawal, but didn’t. Even my rebuttal letter to DHR, in the interests of fairness, wasn’t shared widely on social media, even though I might have: it would have influenced the election. It would not have been in the best interests of the island to pursue any further action after I withdrew. In any event, I was dead by then, how could I?

The letter was sent to the Guernsey Press and they took the same stance, only running it the day after the election. Only my emissary was left behind, Dave Reed from Accounts – my scribe. However the master, Deputy Reed, was gone. Busy being digested by the octopus. 

When the Guernsey Press did finally publish my letter though, crucially they omitted the final sentence. That sentence read: “I do however want to wish Sarah Hansmann Rouxel good luck in the forthcoming election, Improbable as that may seem.”, and I meant that. I forgive her trespasses, and hope that she may forgive mine, because, if we are to be balanced, she deserves kudos for being the only candidate to have the courage to challenge my Loophole campaign.

There were always going to be a spectrum of views on my campaign, that was a known risk at the outset, and she was serving the public interest by calling me out and giving voice to this, to her cost. Her improvised response had given me the opportunity to state my case. ‘You succeed not by grabbing the spotlight but by setting up the people around to shine. In return, they do the same for you. The end result is something that none of you could have achieved alone.’

I noted in my covering email to the Guernsey Press, that this rebuttal letter would close the matter. That appeared to be the natural end of the Loophole campaign by all accounts, you would never hear from me ever again. My campaign was dead, there was nothing left to do.

But the Spirit of the Guernsey Way would have different plans. It was not finished with me yet because this is where the tale takes on an unfathomable twist – it was indeed time for something completely different! It is the story I have been brought back to witness.

It’s a situation that is so extraordinary that if I hadn’t been part of it I wouldn’t have believed that it even happened. In my facebook post on May the Fourth, my final words before the Octopus made a meal of me, I said: “I believe in democratic miracles because I am the product of one”. In the end, that is precisely what has been delivered!

A miracle, or perhaps some kind of Madiba magic trick? You make up your own mind.

What are the odds that the one person to take the risk of calling me out for my unorthodox campaign would also be rewarded by being the beneficiary of my ethical withdrawal? Who would have imagined that election spot number 38 would be occupied by the name Sarah Hansmann Rouxel. In the end DHR finished just 21 votes ahead of number 39.

If I had not withdrawn, DHR would not have been elected! 

This campaign, from the very outset, has been a tribute to Guernsey, and so too is the second term of DHR… a gift.

This outcome was the gift of the will of the Spirit of the Guernsey Way.

“There is nothing more important in life than giving. Tolerance is forged when people look beyond their own desires”

nelson mandela

To end, let’s acknowledge the octopus in the room.

It’s time to let the mask slip and reveal my true face.

You see, in my encounter with the octopus, as its sucking cups entered my flesh and it began to consume me, the opposite also happened, the cupping-glass also meant I began to enter the octopus.

I became it and it became me, the circle of life. We both became one, and then… the dream came upon me.

When I came to, somehow I had returned, by which devices I could not say, I came back as an apparition, a wraith, a ghost of Natal present. However, the attempt on my life had also left me scarred and deformed.

Let it not dismay or alarm you though, do not be afraid. Remember that fair is foul and foul is fair, all that is gold does not glitter. In this world behind the loophole everything is indeed upside-down, or is it right-side up?

Nor does it change the ending of this story, for it has already been written.

It’s time now for something completely different.

If you’re coming to this fresh, and this all seems rather perplexing, Dave Reed from Accounts, my clerk and messenger, has been kind enough to document the journey every step of the way. It has all been published in the public domain [HERE], because if it hadn’t been documented in this way, who would ever believe it had even been done?!

Read the very first letter published in the Bailiwick Express on 31 March 2025, written in December 2024, consider what has unfolded since, and then perhaps you will see. 

I’ve already indicated how this will end, so I have left you clues, easter eggs, along the way.

There is just one final instalment to this review trilogy, to appear in due course here in the Bailiwick Express, and then I shall consider the matter of this campaign closed and you will never hear from Deputy Reed ever again. I swear by the Code of Conduct.

This may all sound terribly cryptic for now but patience will be rewarded, as is usually the case in life.

This is the Way.

2B concluded.

Valar Dohaeris and compliments of the season

anti-Deputy Reed

Vale