In fair Sarnia Cherie where we lay our transition,
unknown, Book of the Wills
Come tales borne from Bank-woe and Volting ambition,
a Red dual of fates, one of toil, one of trouble,
Of phantom reflections, a menace, a double
An ancient grudge witnessed, breaks new mutiny
The veiled ending lifted, the why’s out to sea
This is the third and final instalment of this review trilogy of the campaign that made the 2026 by-election possible. You already read part 1 and part 2, so this follows.
The final instalment of this 3-part conclusion will be published before 29 April, then the bi-election will happen, the vacant seat will be filled, and then my anti-Deputy position will cease to be.
This shall be the last of these reviews and then Deputy Reed will be gone.
You can take my word for it.
So to the review, part 1 of 3.
The Loophole Campaign; promising to do nothing and leave a vacant seat.
What was it all about? What did the campaign hope to achieve?
- Was it a political campaign? A powerful truth, a novel idea, that vested interests would rather not acknowledge ever happened? A campaign that successfully identified and closed a loophole by doing nothing, thereby making the 2026 by-election possible.
- Was it satire? Were you not entertained? Perhaps it was something from the Horatian camp, a modest proposal, that we must cultivate our own garden.
- Or was it just creative writing? Tilting at loopholes, an ode to literature and universal learning. 2026 is the National Year of Reading after all!
The campaign is difficult to place, as even when you attempt to do so, there’s no way of observing precisely which situation is exactly true. Maybe it was all three at once.
I can’t let the cat out the box, it’s not for me to say, I shall tell you the origin story, the genesis of this campaign, and then you can apply your own mind. Let the reader decide for themselves.
What follows is a true account of the origins of the Loophole campaign, so that I might expel all doubt from your minds.
In the beginning…
It all began one sunny spring afternoon on L’Ancresse Common. I often come here, exploring different paths and occasionally am surprised at the new routes I may discover from time to time.
On one particular run, an experimental wandering, I took a route that was even more ponderous than normal. Taking a left at the bunker I’d always run straight past. Going straight along the coastal pebbles where normally I might have ducked inland. Heading between two rocky outcroppings instead of running around. I was lost in my thoughts, vaguely aware of the scenery when suddenly my mind snapped back into awareness. I found myself in a spot that seemed out of place somehow, though I didn’t know why. It was just an intuition. I hadn’t been to this spot before. It was very odd.
Observing the unknown strangeness of my surroundings, I stopped, as there in front of me, as you’ll often find on the Common, was a little rabbit. The usual kind you might see except that this one hadn’t run for cover the moment I appeared on the scene. This one just stood there defiantly and looked me dead in the eyes, challenging me in some way. We both stood there for a while, neither willing to move and then, after what must have been a good minute, without breaking eye contact, the rabbit slowly walked off the path.
This was peculiar, I’d never played chicken with a rabbit before. I crept forward, slightly bemused by this encounter, reaching the spot where the rabbit had left the path, and looking into the long grass, there he still was, watching me with that glare and then, its face softened, if a rabbit’s face could soften, and I felt that I was being called to follow.
I had unexpectedly entered some obscure wildlife documentary, but it was not my realm. I was the one being observed, and now I had apparently been summoned.
I left the well-worn path underfoot and stepped into the long grass. Why? I could not say. Curiosity? An open mind? Adventure? Who knows. I followed.
Walking for a little way into the grass I followed the rabbit for a time, it paused at intervals, seemingly waiting for me to catch up. Then the undergrowth and gorse began to grow thicker and I found myself having to scratch and scrape to get through. I had lost sight of the rabbit now, having come to an old broad pine tree, I had become entangled in its branches, my bearings now lost in this web of leaves and twigs.
I pushed through this green barrier, with its carpet of discarded pinecones underfoot, and finally, after a lot of effort, I emerged on the other side of the shade of this enormous obstacle.
That’s when I saw it.
Something I hadn’t expected to see here. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I thought they had all been accounted for.
I thought I knew all their locations.
How could this possibly be here?!?
There, standing in front of me, on L’Ancresse Common…
Was an undiscovered…
Full size…
Massively conspicuous…
Loophole!
I couldn’t believe it. It shouldn’t be here! This hadn’t been recorded on any map I had ever seen. I thought there was nothing new left to discover in the world, and yet here was this thing: an uncharted loophole. An obvious undeniable loophole! Surely someone had seen it before or had realised it was here?! I couldn’t be the only one to have seen it. They don’t just appear out of nowhere!
I should tell people about this, make them aware of it, and report back what I can discover.
Taking a step closer, I went to do a bit of investigation. Did it have any windows or slits? Was there a door? Could I get inside?
Walking around, I looked for an opening, inspecting every aspect as a new curiosity on the Common and there was indeed a hole in the back of it I found. So I went in for a closer look. It looked like a hole made for some kind of purpose, probably an opening to admit light or air or to allow for observation but as I lent in to get a closer look I misjudged the angle of the slope. I let my interest get the better of me. I lost my footing, and tumbled headfirst into the Loophole.
There was an immediate extinction of day. Blindness took me.
“Man is at the mercy of events. Life is a perpetual succession of events, and we must submit to it.
We never know from what quarter the sudden blow of chance will come. Catastrophe and good fortune come upon us and then depart, like unexpected visitors.
They have their own laws, their own orbits, their own gravitational force, all independent of man.”
I couldn’t see anything around me. I paused and waited, breathing, trying to stay calm. I don’t like enclosed spaces. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness.
This place was different somehow. The air no longer felt the same as just a moment earlier. It was an odd sensation, I’ll tell you.
To my surprise a wind began to stir and caught my face. I thought I was inside the Loophole but apparently not, I was out in the open now. It was still dark, but I could see the faint glow of the sky above now. I was outside and day had somehow passed into night. The clouds parted, the bright glitter of stars appeared above. I was no longer on L’Ancresse, but found myself on the cliff paths and above a massive precipice. I was trapped with nowhere to go.
I’ve walked the cliffs many times and, like earlier on L’Ancresse, didn’t recognize this place. North had become south, light had turned dark, inside to outside, low up on high. Everything felt otherwise. Where on earth was I? It was certainly still Guernsey, but where?
In every direction every step I could possibly take would result in me falling to my doom into the dark Abyss. I wasn’t quite sure what I ought to do. Why had I been sent here?
Again I paused and waited, I watched and observed my surroundings in silence. Once I had quieted my mind, the stars themselves seemed to somehow light the way, I began to perceive a path where you couldn’t imagine a path might be. A path began to shine beneath the silver rays of starlight. It began to glow with just the faintest hint of yellow. That was the way I must go, I didn’t really have a choice, there was nowhere else to venture. There was only one possible way. I followed the gleam of the spectral cliff path.
The path went along the edge of the cliff, uneven under foot, treacherous, but with the starlight as it was, sufficient to carefully put one foot in front of the other in safety. Every step required utter concentration though otherwise I would fall to my fate. My eyes became accustomed to this dim light and then I began to navigate this path with more certainty of purpose. I could faintly see where it descended down into the bay ahead and then back up the other side and so I followed this way as it rose and fell. Not sure where it was going, but I could not see any other path to take. I had to move forward.
My ears also began to tune into my surroundings. I now began to hear something, a peculiar faint whisper. I could not make out what it was. An absent mind might mistake it for nothing more than the wind in the grass or the emptiness of silence, but there was something else there. It was more than just the natural environment or my imagination. It was something else but my mind could not place it.
Continuing to follow the way, the sounds around me grew louder, I began to hear them either side of me now and then I began to see other paths. They glowed with the same dull light as the path I was currently walking on and they began to join it. Like tributaries joining the main branch of a river.
I carried on along on the path, determined to move forward. The peculiarity of this setting might otherwise have made a person afraid but somehow I was able to let the fear pass over me and through me, it took no hold. I was resolved now to see where this led.
More and more paths began to join the central way and then I saw movement to my left and right.
Something was coming.
Something was coming.
Movement but no footsteps! What could it be? I stopped and paused yet again, waiting for these things to emerge from the undergrowth and join the path ahead of me.
And then I saw…
…
…
It was Pisces!!
“When ignorance becomes daring, she has sometimes a sort of compass within herself—the intuition of the truth, clearer oftentimes in a simple mind than in a learned brain.
Ignorance invites to an attempt. It is a state of wonderment, which, with its concomitant curiosity, forms a power. Knowledge often enough disconcerts and makes over–cautious.
Da Gama, had he known what lay before him, would have recoiled before the Cape of Storms. If Columbus had been a great geographer, he might have failed to discover America.”
A la perchoine and Best Regards,
Deputy Reed
Fief St Michel, Vale