Farnham says his government reflects the Assembly. The maths says the opposite.
Defending his ministerial line-up to the Jersey Evening Post this week, the Chief Minister reached for a principle that sounds unimpeachable. "It's important that the new government reflects the make-up of the new Assembly," he said, "in line with the results of the election." It is a fine sentiment. It is also, on his own list, the reverse of what he has done. And the numbers are not close.
What the Assembly actually looks like
The States Assembly has 49 elected members. Twelve are Connétables — one for each parish. Nine are the island-wide Senators returned this month. The remaining twenty-eight are Deputies. So by composition, the Assembly is roughly 57% Deputies, 24% Connétables and 18% Senators. A government that genuinely reflected that make-up would be built mainly of Deputies, with a decent bench of Connétables and only two or three Senators at the top.
What the government actually looks like
Now set his fourteen-strong ministerial team beside it — counting himself and the Planning role still to be created. Eight of the fourteen are Senators. Five are Deputies. One is a Connétable. That is about 57% Senators, 36% Deputies and 7% Connétables. The Senators' share of the Cabinet is roughly three times their share of the Assembly. The Connétables, a quarter of the Assembly, get a single seat. It is not a reflection of the Assembly. It is very nearly its mirror image.
The figure that settles it
The cleanest way to see it is to ask, of each group, how many ended up in government at all. With Serena Kersten confirmed for an assistant minister's role covering sport, the answer for the Senators is all of them. Nine elected, nine in the executive — a clean 100%. Against that: five of twenty-eight Deputies, around 18%, and one of twelve Connétables, about 8%. Far from reflecting the Assembly, the Chief Minister has swept the entire island-wide bench into office and sprinkled the two largest groups thinly around them. Had the Council been built to mirror the Assembly's actual proportions, it would contain something like eight Deputies, three Connétables and three Senators — almost exactly the reverse of what he chose.
Two claims, quietly merged into one
The slip is worth isolating, because it is doing a lot of work. The Chief Minister offered two justifications in a single breath: that the government reflects "the make-up of the new Assembly," and that it is "in line with the results of the election." These are not the same claim. The first is about composition — the balance of Senators, Deputies and Connétables in the Chamber — and on that measure his own list flatly contradicts him. The second is about the vote — the fact that the Senators topped the island-wide poll, so rewarding them honours the electorate's choice. That is at least an argument, though it is the one we have examined before: an island-wide ballot is a route into the Assembly, not a rank within it, and it is no answer to the question of why a Connétable elected by a whole parish, or a Deputy by a district, should be three times less likely to govern. What has happened is that the second claim has been used to smuggle in the first. The election-result argument is wheeled out to defend a composition that the election-result argument does not actually produce.
What about "different views"?
The Chief Minister's other line of defence — that he wanted different views around the table and ministers who would be challenged — deserves more scrutiny than it first invites. There are, on the face of it, two genuine outsiders on the list: Jonathan Renouf, a trenchant critic of the last government, at Infrastructure, and Catherine Curtis, the lone Reform Jersey inclusion, at Education. Their views are, literally, now in the room. But being in the room is not the same as shaping what comes out of it. The Council of Ministers decides by consensus and, where it must, by majority. Two outsiders among a dozen-strong bloc of loyal Senators can argue a case, but they cannot carry a vote on the direction of government; on anything contested, they are outnumbered before they speak. And the Ministerial Code expects ministers, once the Council has decided, to fall in behind a single public position and not undermine their colleagues. So the structure quietly converts a defeated minority's dissent into public alignment. There is a reason this matters. Bringing a persistent critic inside the tent is one of the oldest ways to quieten him: on the backbench, Renouf could speak and vote freely against the government; as a minister, the team-unity norms press the other way. The same logic co-opts a slice of the main opposition by handing its lone representative a brief. Whether that is "different views around the table" or the neutralising of inconvenient ones is, at the very least, an open question — not the unambiguous credit it first appears. The one thing that stops it being pure containment is a quirk of the Jersey system. Unlike Westminster, Jersey imposes no formal collective responsibility, and Farnham himself said in 2024 he would not enforce it. Ministers here keep an unusual freedom to break ranks, speak out, and vote against the government on matters of conscience or manifesto. So the door to genuine challenge is not locked. But a door left open only matters if someone walks through it. The real test of "different views" will not be that Renouf and Curtis were appointed — it will be whether, from the inside, they are still willing to say no in public, or whether the seat was the price of their silence. And in any case, "different views around the table" is a different promise from "reflects the make-up of the Assembly." The first is now an open question. The second — the claim he actually made — is flatly contradicted by the very list he was defending when he made it. When ministers face election on Monday, it is worth remembering which of those two things the maths supports, and which it does not.
Discussion (4)
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Interesting piece this …..IF you centre purely on the Chief Minister’s claim that it represents the Assembly then it’s 100% correct that Farnham has made an assertion that is not true . It maybe that it does reflect the electorate though under our current flawed system where only certain members are elected on an all Island basis . As for having people inside the tent rather than outside p*ssing in this is largely because of the ridiculous Troy rule which means the council of ministers have to be in the minority ,then if you have persuasive back bencher such as Kristina Moore the Assembly can find itself in a bizarre situation where the back benchers have control and wield disproportionate power.
So why didn’t you change the Electoral system when you were in there ?
I was never in the States Assembly, you are thinking of my twin brother Scott.
Whether the Ministers who are appointed are the best person for the particular post is more important than whether they are senators, constables or deputies. Constables one would think should be the last to be considered for ministerial appointment as they should a substantial part of their time devoted to running their parish. It does highlight the fallacy that ministerial government is a better form of government than the previous committee system which enabled all states members participated in government rather than now where there is a one party government namely the Ministers and assistant ministers where the remaining states members who form the scrutiny panels can be ignored with impunity. There some questionable appointments in the light of the records of the appointees in such roles when there are newcomers with better qualifications and greater ability available for those positions. Perhaps instead of electing states members we should have elections for ministers.