Guernsey election manifestos labelled 'dull' by leading academic
A third of manifestos printed in the States of Guernsey's election booklet have been labelled "dull" and "not very engaging" by an expert in Channel Island elections.Associate Professor in Marketing at Nottingham University Business School, Dr Christopher Pich has looked through the 278 page booklet online. He separated the manifestos into three categories of corporate, traditional and "Goldilocks".Dr Pich said the Goldilocks candidates "have got it right with a mix between personality, vision, a few pledges and principles."
The election booklet has been distributed by Guernsey Post to every household on the island.
'Six to ten hours'
Speaking to the Your Voice, Your Vote podcast, Dr Pich said reading it would take "around six to ten hours" on average.On the content of the manifestos he commented: "I've broken them down into three groups, the first is one that is quite corporate, not very exciting, not very engaging, quite dull I'm sorry to say."Then you have the traditional pre-island wide approach, focussing more on the values, the vision, the personality of candidates rather than any principles."The third group was labelled as Goldilocks.
Former Guernsey Party advisor David Piesing said he was impressed there appeared to be very little use of AI in the manifestos. The importance of meeting candidates face-to-face was stressed by former president of Employment and Social Security, Michelle Le Clerc.
'Lacking content'
Ms Le Clerc has also looked through all the manifestos and labelled some of them as "beige" and "lacking content and substance". "There's a lot of confirmation of what hasn't worked and what is going wrong with the island, but I don't see many solutions. "People are being particularly evasive as to how they will approach dealing with the financial deficit."She commented that some candidates had "sat on the fence" regarding their stance on taxation policies. Guernsey's States agreed to introduce a 5% GST, a new 15% rate of income tax for earnings under £30,000 and reform social security contributions last year. Previously the States Treasury had projected there would be a £100m deficit by 2040. BBC Guernsey has hosted four Your Voice, Your Vote events, with four more to go this week.
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