In brief: A satirical opinion piece in Bailiwick Express asks whether toddlers could do a better job than Guernsey’s States deputies, citing public spats, reckless spending and a general deficit of grown-up behaviour in the Assembly. The piece singles out Scrutiny President Deputy Andy Sloan as a rare voice of reason, while lamenting that the promised collegiate spirit of this States has evaporated with impressive speed.
The Promised Land That Wasn’t
Cast your mind back to the last election. We were told this States Assembly would be different. Deputies would set aside petty rivalries, work together for the common good, and generally behave like the responsible adults their constituents elected them to be. As Bailiwick Express notes in its opinion piece, that spirit appears to have lasted roughly as long as Liz Truss managed in Downing Street. Which, for those keeping score at home, was 45 days.
The piece does not spare the details. Whether it is “tit-for-tat public spats” or spending taxpayers’ money “like a spoiled teenager with Daddy’s credit card,” the author’s diagnosis of the Assembly’s maturity deficit is delivered with surgical precision and only a light dusting of mercy. IT projects, hospital renovations, tax backlogs overrunning by years: the charge sheet is familiar to anyone who has been paying attention.
One deputy does emerge with his reputation intact. Bailiwick Express describes Deputy Andy Sloan, the Scrutiny President, as doing “an admirable job” of holding fellow deputies to account and urging them to show “restraint and judgement.” The piece notes, with some concern, that he appears to be in a “worryingly small minority” of grown-ups in the Chamber.
The Radical Alternative: Preschool Democracy
Having established the problem, the author proposes a solution of breathtaking ambition: let toddlers run for parliament. Guernsey, the piece suggests, could become the first democracy on earth to allow preschoolers to stand for election. The island, it notes, already permits 16-year-olds to vote, two years below the UK threshold. Why stop there?
The case for child deputies is, the author argues, surprisingly robust. Under-13s are banned from most social media platforms, meaning a private email dispute would stay private rather than erupting onto Facebook. A four-year-old, when insulted outside the Royal Court, is more likely to stick their tongue out than deploy a ruder gesture. The average UK six-year-old receives pocket money of £2.69 per week, according to NatWest, rising to £4.50 by age 13: fiscal discipline that might, the piece drily observes, come in handy on major public projects.
Older children, meanwhile, are required to submit homework on time and revise for exams. Transferable skills, one might think. Reception-age children are, the author points out, perfectly capable of building houses, albeit from wooden blocks or Lego and without the involvement of the Development and Planning Authority.
The piece also makes a pointed observation about how children respond to questions. Drawing on experience as a former teaching assistant and trainee teacher, the author notes that children asked a question will generally attempt to answer it, rather than launching a character assassination or demanding to know why their time is being wasted. Some even raise their hands. The contrast with certain deputies is left tactfully implicit.
Lord of the Flies, But Make It Local
The piece closes with a literary flourish, invoking William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies,” a novel about children who take over an island, turn on each other, and ruin everything. The author acknowledges it is a work of fiction, then adds that islanders could be forgiven for finding it eerily familiar.
The conclusion is not, in the end, a genuine call for preschool suffrage. It is a call for elected politicians to act like the adults they are supposed to be. The satire lands because the underlying frustration is real and widely shared: the island deserves better from the people it sends to the States.
Source: Bailiwick Express
