Newly elected Deputies and Members of Reform Jersey, Nick Le Cornu, and Sam Mezec, have given their first official, and exclusive, interview since being elected in St Helier No.1 and 2 respectively. They kindly accepted an invitation from VFC to discuss their victory at the polls, to explain who, or what Reform Jersey is, what it/they hope to achieve before the October General Election, what is the long-term goal of Reform Jersey? Party Politics, Citizens Media, Blogs (Jersey's only independent media) and plenty more subjects we hope will be informative to those who care about Jersey politics and the direction this Island is heading.
Deputies Le Cornu and Mezec, as part of Reform Jersey, have a vision of bringing Jersey politics into the twenty first century. Both have been Blogging for a number of years, have a fairly high profile across Social Media, to include Twitter and Facebook accounts (links at bottom of post). Professor Adrian Lee, an expert in politics in small jurisdictions, believes their online presence on Social Media played a part in their successful election which would suggest that Blogs (Jersey's only independent media) and Social Media, as a whole, IS becoming more influential in 21st century politics.
Reform Jersey believes the way forward for the Island's politics lies with a party system which they say will bring an end to "personality politics" and offer more (at least some) accountability at the Ballot Box. This is something that is being talked about, and has been for some time, across the political divide and is starting to look like a reality.........Finally!
If you, the reader/viewer, would like to get involved with Reform Jersey, either as a volunteer, a member, a potential candidate or if you have an issue where you need some political representation and believe they can help you can e-mail them at reformjersey@gmail.com. They don't, as yet, have a government e-mail address but when they do we will publish it in the comments section of this post.
Deputy Mezec's Blog can be viewed HERE. He can be followed on Twitter @SamMezec.
Deputy Le Cornu's Blog can be viewed HERE. He can be followed on Twitter @NickLeCornu.
VFC can be followed on Twitter @TheVoiceJersey
By far the best result we could have hoped for in the election and I'll be contacting reform Jersey to apply to become a member. Thank you to Sam and Nick for giving an interview to citizen's media as the state media is all but redundant on subjects such as DEMOCRACY.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AT4xlwklb0
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, it was a great interview, i was absolutely taken by Mezec speech. More and more you see young genius and he has incredibel speech skills, absolutely love it (i have only have to say that would love that mezec cut his hair.... please nothing to do with judgement is just a women tast, you speak like a genius and the hair makes you look like a young boy) sorry for the comment but with hair or no hair you two were great but mezec i was stunned by your speech.
ReplyDeleteWell done, good video.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Nick's success this time was due to it being a by-election, a low turnout one for a limited term. This means only the hardcore followers of the political scene turned out to vote, allowing his core supporters to outnumber the opposition. It could be very different in October, so he really needs to make his presence felt in the next precious months. Good luck!
Congratulations to the two of you, your a breath of fresh air in the Jersey Politics. Good luck in the Big House.
ReplyDeleteTJW.
Good luck in the Big House, indeed, and well done to voters. We can predict oligarchy obstruction of anti-establishment efforts, every step of the way, let's just hope they are not maliciously bankrupted to oust them from office.
DeleteIt's become a common refrain in western democracies to dismiss voting as irrelevant, to even encourage non-participation in the belief that nothing changes. I would counter that by citing Stuart Syvret as an example of voters having a real voice through his twenty years as senator, and of his official service (even now) having a strong, if less direct, effect. Had he not served as a popularly elected representative, Stuart would not have been in a position to become an inside whistleblower.
How can anyone doubt the difference he has made in terms of countering control of state media information?
Since he was removed from office, he has been utilizing his former position to educate well outside of Jersey. His persecution, police raids against him, and especially his political imprisonment have only brought him much wider recognition internationally as an evidenced blogger and whistleblower.
That has also brought steadily increasing international awareness of this blog and Rico Sorda's, as well as other key Jersey blogs which now define evidence-based investigative journalism in Jersey.
Interviewing elected representatives who actually want to answer a journalist's questions and get their message out to the public, now offers Jersey a working partnership between the electorate and the Fourth Estate. That media role simply did not exist in Jersey before blogs like this were established.
If the Data Protection Law or other nefarious means are used to try and silence blogs like this, we now know there are international allies to step in and re-publish them. The outside awareness of the Jersey oligarchy's problem with truth is due, in part, to the media publicity Stuart Syvret first brought to the problem when he was still a senator, and because he was a senator.
It isn't a perfect or complete solution, but voting can have a measurable impact. This blog empowers political progress put forth on behalf of those voters.
Comment number one is my favorite....
ReplyDelete"By far the best we could have hoped for in the election".
What, employing two lawyers? Are we really that screwed for choice we have to vote in two lawyers? Lawyers created the enslavement you all now experience on an daily basis, putting in place the legislation whereby they force you to pay simply to live..
"I'll be contacting reform Jersey to apply to become a member".
To "Apply" in lawyer-speak (Legalese) means to beg....He who begs knows exactly what he is begging for. Bang go your rights dude!
"The state media is all but redundant on subjects such as DEMOCRACY".
Democracy? Do you even know what the word means?
Black's Law Dictionary: "DEMOCRACY"
"That form of government in which the sovereign power resides in and is exercised by the whole body of free citizens directly or indirectly through a system of representation as distinguished from a monarchy, aristocracy, or oligarchy".
Now taking into consideration the fact that having the status of a "Citizen" means that you have pledged allegiance to her majesty as a subject (slave), what do you now consider the meaning of Democracy?
Not sure? Please visit my blog posting of LAST NIGHT to find out.
Two lawers who are on the side of the people? Anyway, I was cheering from England-ish, when I heard the results.
ReplyDeleteWell done you two. I notice on facebook there is a serious question being asked of forming a Jersey green/eco party on a group that has 400 followers. Is multi-party politics finally taking root here?
ReplyDelete400 followers out of a population of 100,000, how does that work?
DeleteWhen almost 60% of the population don't vote it works perfectly well.
Delete0.4 percent of the population. Conservative party membership is 134,000 , Labour around 187,000. As a percentage of the UK population those figures are 0.2% and 0.29% respectively. 0.4% would make them green with envy.....
ReplyDeleteVFC
ReplyDeleteYou said on Nick's blog that the Law Office closed your original 2005 blog down in 2008.
Are you free to elaborate on this?
A post maybe?
Will elaborate a little later today. Have limited access to Internet at the mo.
DeleteI'll not say too much about it at the moment, for legal reasons, but I'm sure all will come out at a later date. It is not that dissimilar to what has been done to Stuart.
DeleteThanks. No pressure.
DeleteThank you for this post and interview VFC.
ReplyDeleteAnyone wishing to follow Reform Jersey can also follow us on Twitter and 'like' us on Facebook.
Sam
Twitter
DeleteFacebook
Hopefully that should work.
Sam the facebook link is incorrect.
ReplyDeleteBoth don't work for me.
DeleteSam is a good speaker but Nick is also a clever and well researched guy. They both need to respect the fact that as good and honest as their intentions and politics are, Jersey is an ultra conservative enclave. Their policies need to bare this in mind and also appeal to the right not alienate them. Most business types, who may be family people have a social conscience few are hollow dog eat dog types.
ReplyDeleteAs an example should they decide the minimum wage needs to increase in an expensive island, make an effort to speak to small businesses that will need to fund the increase and understand the problems this may create in this recessionary climate, and before regulating accommodation find out if this is actually a sinister ploy to drive people into the wonderfully shiny new but expensive Dandara type many vacant shoe boxes with more being built.
Left is good - Right is good - radical gets kicked out come election time, tread carefully
Boatyboy.
I agree with Boatyboy.
DeleteSam does risk alienating "Middle Jersey" by trying to tinker with the 20% tax rate. "Middle Jersey" people are good people on the whole, but they will defend that 20% tax rate to the grave. It's indoctrinated into most finance industry workers who, along with pensioners, are those that vote. In any event, I do not think it would ever be possible to get a majority of States members to agree to such a change, so it's a pointless battle that will only end badly for Sam. Why waste energy on a non-starter? He should pick the right battles. Messing with the 20% rate is not the right battle, even if he only proposes if for very high earners. Concentrate on stopping the waste, cover-ups and ineptitude instead.
It's ironic that most people who will defend the 20% tax rate to the death probably don't pay 20% themselves. 94% are on the marginal rate which by definition is less than 20% of income. Raising the 20% rate for earnings over say £150 will affect a tiny proportion of people. I suspect those people would be more accommodating than we might think. It's the middle earners paying the marginal rate that we have to persuade.
DeleteI think you'll find the marginal rate is 27%
DeleteYep, anon at 09:04 needs to do more research. Whilst it is true that most people on the marginal rate (which is 27%) do pay less than 20% after allowances, it is not correct to say "on the marginal rate which by definition is less than 20% of income".
ReplyDeleteI suspect anon also means to say "Raising the 20% rate for earnings over say £150,000 will affect a tiny proportion of people. Not £150. Obviously that's a typo.
But that misses the point entirely. It should be possible to run a small island government by taxing all or your people no more than 20%. Old Labour policies of soak the rich will not go down well with Middle Jersey. Trust me. I'm as Middle Jersey as they come. I want to see Nick and Sam succeed, I want to see them reform a number of things. But I don't want to see the worst excesses of the Labour party at work.