Ministerial Question Time - More questions than answers?

The Jersey Chamber of Commerce organised the local equivalent of the BBC's "Question Time" at the Pomme D'Or Hotel tonight. To a packed audience Senators Le Sueur, Walker, Cohen and Ozouf faced a broad range of questions from GST to Pensions.

Compared to the real question time, this one proved to be a rather tame affair, there seemed to be a lot of consensus between the ministers and if there are any divisions internally they certainly weren't going to let the paying public know about them.

For me there seemed to be a lot of "Jam tomorrow" rhetoric from the ministers. Given that ministerial government is still very new it was hard to argue against their optimism. Maybe we need to wait 2 or 3 years for a clearer picture to emerge.

Freddie Cohen though almost inadvertently put his proverbial foot in it towards the end and left the audience with that slightly uneasy feeling that we all need to keep a very close eye on what our political masters are up to.

Following a question about the current state of play on the Waterfront, Freddie was at pains to highlight the importance of "sinking" the main arterial road that divides the waterfront from the main town. Freddie told us how when the latest planners suggested that this road should be sunk it dawned on everybody that this was the solution to the problem of joining the waterfront development to the main town. It was "such a simple and obvious solution"!

Now this begs the question, if it was such an obvious solution why hadn't previous planners thought of it. Well of course two of those who sat on the previous committee were Messrs. Le Sueur and Walker. Freddie didn't quite point his finger and say "it was them", but the point was highlighted by the compere of the night James Filleul.

Senator Walker made some lame excuse at not being a very good planner, and Senator Le Sueur made some comment about different advisors having different views. But of course the main point is that these individuals who had been talking about how badly the past had been run were the very same individuals who were telling us how great the future is going to be and that they had simply been hamstrung by the old system.

Isn't the real answer that Jersey Plc. has had a wakeup call from the rest of the world and now we've all got to get our act together to ensure our future properity. But then that would be taking credit away from our politicians wouldn't it?