If we step back and look at this election in a different way; if we take a simple round figure and say each deputy is paid £50k per year, what we are voting on in this election is a £7.6m spending project through which 38 lucky participants will be guaranteed £200k each over 4 years. 

Every vote you cast is a £200k spending proposal!

What tangible output will the island(s) have after this spend? Based on the achievements of successive groups of deputies this is not a system of government, it is the Channel Islands Lottery.

The primary issue is the size of the obligations and commitments of government and the limited means to fund that. Solutions like GST do not solve that problem, it just pushes the problem down the road where it grows. The people of Guernsey know that and so it was rejected because we recognize that we are at a crossroads. Our problem is more fundamental than simply needing more money. How does the current system of voting give us any option to address that or take any other route?

I am sure many manifestos will promise change, commit to addressing the size of the government and its effectiveness but it is ironic that the only way for us to achieve that is to approve a further £7.6m spend that sends us down the same path as before. Voting for this campaign will at least give us a different way to express our preferences through this election process, there are other ways, if we choose to see them.

Could we survive with fewer deputies immediately? 

Is the current setup an appropriate allocation of resources? 

How much time and money are we prepared to waste with a new Assembly, more debates, committee reviews and consultants on something there is already clearly overwhelming support for? 

Let’s explore alternatives and start the journey now. 

In December 2024 if someone had lodged a requete to reduce the number of Deputies to 37 in this election, based on the voting pattern, I expect it would have seen unanimous approval. 

We could already have been in the position I am proposing, so let's do what the Assembly was unable to do itself already!

I have no great interest in politics, the irony continues, this proposal is based on principles from the world of finance and classical economics, and my belief that when government or centralised control becomes too large relative to private enterprise, it makes us less resilient, more fragile. 

Like a fledgling bird that never leaves the nest it encourages an unsustainable dependence on promises and expectation of interventions from government and central authority. This creeps in and grows quietly over time in ways we don’t even realise but this is reflected more and more in society today and we need to discover a different way.

This is a theme that repeats over and over in Guernsey as I've observed. A progressive movement to allocate ever more resources into centrally planned thinking, at the expense of the quality and resilience of anything on the periphery. The solution to any problems on the outside is to allocate yet more resources to the centre. 

This is a doom loop into oblivion! This is NOT the way. 

On the path we are on, the States of Guernsey will in due course completely fail to meet its obligations, that is, it will not be able to pay salaries, suppliers, pensions, social payments, etc. . You can already feel that squeeze happening today and, although the timing of that day of final reckoning is unknown, it will arrive one day on the path we are on, certainly in the lifetime of our children and grandchildren and, when it does, it will come like a thief in the night. How will we have prepared them for that life?

Unless we find a way to unwind those expectations and dependencies, what will be left for the next generation? Imagine what we would do differently in our daily lives if we knew that government pledges due to us were going to run out next week, or next month, or next year. One day our children will face that exact situation if we don’t change.

To be clear, government does serve a purpose, in a sporting sense, they are the governing bodies who outline the field of play and set the rules, they are the coaching staff who can influence the activity on the field. However, when push comes to shove the head coach cannot come onto the field to score the winning points. They do their job up to a point and then step aside to let the players do their thing. In other words, private enterprise drives economic activity in the long run, not government.

If we lean too far towards excessive layers of management and oversight at the expense of the players, we go from competing productively in the spirit of the game to a rigid, uncompetitive farce, or worse. How many examples of this can you think of across your private and professional lives?

We are ultimately governed by the Invisible Hand of the human spirit, not by the cold machinery of some anonymous authority in their distant tower that muses on the appropriate depth of bathing pools!

We need to take our power back one brick at a time through small acts of boldness and courage to re-ignite the flame of the Guernsey spirit. Individually our voices are lost on the wind but collectively we can project our power to those who will not hear. 

Guernsey in the past has successfully reinvented itself from knitting to maritime trade to horticulture to finance and now we need to reflect on our personal expectations of government and turn as the world turns.

Our Guernsey identity is so unique and that is represented by our democracy. How many democratic elections are there on the planet where a person calling themselves 'Dave from Accounts' has the ability to speak to the nation through the democratic process and have their ideas set on the highest platform. This is the ultimate expression of democracy. 

We should not be afraid to embrace our identity, to embrace our human spirit, to follow the way and dare to do great things, even if it means being different from the crowd. We need to celebrate what makes us unique and what makes us Guernsey.

Self-governance is at the heart of the islander identity, this is the true Guernsey Way, but if we don’t use it, we will lose it! 

Join with me in this Guernsey Way!

This manifesto is only a token gesture in the sense that it’s a drop in the bucket of the challenges we face and doesn’t achieve much on its own. I am just one person. However, it is the tiny seed of an idea, the idea that less is more and that the way to fulfillment lies in less centralised government, not more.

This is the true Guernsey Way.

Vote for David Reed and, if the States Assembly acknowledges this as the democratic will of the people, we will leave a vacant seat and take a tiny step forward by immediately having a smaller government. That is the only thing I have the ability to do, as I have set out here. 

All I commit to you are these two things:

1. If elected, we will save the island £200k over 4 years by leaving a single vacant seat, which is, rounding up, £1 per islander per year.  Hopefully this isn’t the only real change we get from this election and that's where the second part comes in, the fundamental spirit of this manifesto.

2. The idea that there is always a way and, if we can dare to be different, there can be a true Guernsey Way. This is a re-imagining of how we can engage in the democratic process, and it doesn't require any changes in law, the only thing we need to adjust are our own expectations. True change can come from each of us.

Less is more.

Let it be so.