To say that this week will be an unprecedented one in Manx politics is a bit of an understatement. For the first time, the Keys will vote on whether it has confidence in Capt’n Cannan. Seemingly goaded into doing so by the Chief Minister -Tim Glover has pressed the proverbial ‘nuclear button’, and set into motion a chain of events which threatens to end the ‘Team Isle of Man’ consensus which has guided Manx politics since well before my birth.
The vote is still out on whether the VNOC will pass but whether change sweeps through the Keys or the current government continues to stumble toward 2026, the root cause of how we got here and questions about what comes next have got us thinking - will this VNOC actually make a difference and will the government (whether it’s the current or a new one) be able to deal with the issues facing the Isle of Man?
We’re not going to get into the details of how the process will work (Professor Peter Edge has a great blog on it that you can read here) but the long and short is that this week if 13 MHKs vote against the government, it will mean the end of the Cannan administration.
This crisis was caused by a resignation born out of disagreements about the long-term funding for the health service.
Resignations and summary sackings have been something of a recurring thing with this administration, with the current crop of backbenchers featuring 5 former ministers and 4 former departmental political members. Churn is nothing new in the Manx ministerial system but churn of this scale creates an issue when it comes to filling vacancies.
Thanks to the CoMin Act, the Government relies on picking its ministerial team from a puny pool of politicians. Whilst theoretically, the magic number is 31, in reality when you remove LegCo, it's closer to 22. With 8 in CoMin currently, 9 on the naughty step and 1 naughty step adjacent due to their MLP credentials that pool is shrunk to 3, all of whom are first-term MHKs.
It’s important to remember that this isn’t a bug of our system, it’s a feature. The Ministerial system is modelled on other Westminister-style setups which pulls its executive from its legislature and follows a set ‘pathway to power’ which is supposed to be centred on ensuring there is accountability for the Ministers.
If the trend continues and the ‘Team Isle of Man’ consensus breaks down further we may see Alf Cannan wearing eight very fancy hats and resembling a sweaty octopus attempting to sail the ship of state.
That’s fine when you have a big pool to pull from or everyone is reading the same music and people stay in post but increasingly it is apparent this simply isn’t the case for us. If the trend continues and the ‘Team Isle of Man’ consensus breaks down further we may see Alf Cannan wearing eight very fancy hats and resembling a sweaty octopus attempting to sail the ship of state.
And it raises a bigger question, of those remaining are they suitable equiped to deal with the seismic issues facing the Isle of Man?
But it’s also important to remember that this isn’t the only way to do it. Other systems bring in ministers or Cabinet Secretaries from outside of Parliament, this extends in some cases even as far as the Prime Minister. France, Sweden, Monaco and the Netherlands all operate with variants of this and whilst some may scoff at the idea of further distancing the Government from the electorate, the rationale behind this approach is fairly simple.
Doing government this way means that the selection pool for Ministers is larger and it ensures that those who have been elected to represent a specific constituency are able to do so and don’t spend all of their time dealing with Ministerial business at the expense of their constituents.
Being a legislator and being a minister are very different roles and the skills required to do each aren't always compatible.
It also recognises that being a legislator and being a minister are very different roles and the skills required to do each aren't always compatible. An MHK is a public representative, who needs to analyse bills and deal with constituent issues.
A minister is effectively the CEO (or Chairman) of a massive organisation. Theoretically removing the pre-requisite for a minister to hold a seat can help to ensure that people who are better suited to running a department are put into post, serving at the pleasure and with the conditional confidence of the elected chamber.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, there are only really two options currently on the table and both will result in a Council of Ministers pooled from an ever-shrinking shuffled deck working within the same constraints of our system. Whatever happens, the same question remains, are we really equipped to deal with the big issues facing us?
( The image for this blog originally contained an incorrect reference to David Ashford being 'sacked', this has been updated to reflect the fact he resigned)
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