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Lindsay de Sausmarez, chief minister of Guernsey (Langlois Photography)

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“This is my personal theory: I like to think it’s down to our exceptional milk,” says Lindsay de Sausmarez, chief minister of Guernsey. “We have very good milk here – the best in the world.”

The island’s people, de Sausmarez explains, are living longer. Life expectancy in Guernsey is 82 for men and 85 for women, respectively three and two years longer than the UK.

With that trend come social and economic challenges to which de Sausmarez has been charged with responding.

The 48-year-old mother of four, who has a background in the creative industries, was elected to the island’s parliament, the States of Guernsey, in 2016. Like most of her colleagues, she is an independent and is reluctant to put a label on her ideology, saying it is “very difficult to overlay Guernsey politics over the UK system”. Online quizzes, however, tend to place her “bang in the middle” of the political spectrum.

In the summer of last year, de Sausmarez made history by becoming Guernsey’s first female chief minister. Officially, her title is President of the Policy and Resources Committee, as Guernsey’s government does not have a cabinet system and instead operates through committees.

“To be completely honest, it wasn’t a role I’d been eyeing up at all,” she tells The House. “I’d been very happy in my previous role, but we have a system where we go where the parliament thinks you can do the most good.”

Her elevation to the top job comes at a critical chapter in Guernsey’s politics, as she and her colleagues grapple with a health system in need of financial reform, a lack of affordable housing and unsustainable tax arrangements.

Guernsey, like Jersey and the Isle of Man, is a Crown Dependency, meaning it is not part of the UK and is almost entirely self-governing, with no MP representing it in Westminster. The UK is responsible only for its defence and international relations.

Guernsey, therefore, is not part of the NHS, and islanders must pay for primary care such as GP visits, prescriptions, A&E treatment and ambulances. Secondary or specialist care is covered by the public purse. According to a BBC analysis, the average cost of seeing a GP in Guernsey is £73.

But with the ageing population, de Sausmarez’s government has warned that “health and care services risk becoming overburdened and financially unsustainable”. The States of Guernsey will agree a new funding model over the current parliament.

Insurance-based systems of the kind used in some EU countries will be examined as part of that work, she says, as will elements of the UK’s system, while acknowledging that Guernsey is “never going to be able to directly replicate” how the NHS works.

“We are very fortunate in that we don’t have many of the problems that are experienced in the UK system,” de Sausmarez points out.

“For example, there was quite a wonderful complaint a month or two ago, where someone complained that they had to wait up to 15 minutes in A&E to be seen. There are many in the UK’s health system who would give their right arm for problems like that.”

Getting more homes built is another priority: “Unlike a town of a similar size in the UK, you can’t just jump on a train to commute in, so we have particularly high housing costs here because space is at an absolute premium.”

The average price of a home in Guernsey is almost £600,000. The island’s government has pledged to commence development at a site it owns called Leale’s Yard, with capacity for more than 300 new properties.

[Brexit] was frustrating for us, because we had no say in the referendum

Brexit has also brought challenges. The Crown Dependencies were never formally part of the EU but were deeply enmeshed in it as they belonged to the bloc’s customs territory. They also enjoyed free movement of goods with Europe, albeit without the single market’s other three freedoms of movement relating to people, services and capital. With the UK’s departure, those arrangements ceased.

“It was frustrating for us, because we had no say in the referendum that led to us [feeling those impacts],” de Sausmarez says. “But it affected us very materially. We’ve had to devote very significant resource to adjusting to a post-Brexit world.”

Should the Crown Dependencies have been given a vote in the referendum, as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar was?

“I think many people would have welcomed a vote, because it did affect us so much,” the chief minister replies. “But we didn’t, and there’s no point in dwelling in the past.”

Gibraltar, which was allowed to vote because it was fully part of the EU, plumped for remain by 96 per cent. Would the result have been similar in Guernsey?

De Sausmarez “wouldn’t like to speculate” on that, though from personal conversations she had at the time, she thinks islanders’ views on the issue fell “quite stereotypically along generational lines”.

She adds that Guernsey was “as well-prepared for the result of that vote as we possibly could have been” and points out that Brexit also has brought some benefits.

“We now have control of our territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles. That’s a very helpful thing in terms of our offshore wind and our marine renewable energy aspirations.”

Guernsey has nevertheless taken a “very keen interest” in the UK-EU reset negotiations and has made clear to the UK government that it wants to be included if a youth mobility scheme is agreed.

The island’s tax system, meanwhile, is overdue for reform. Guernsey has no VAT, no inheritance tax and no capital gains tax. Income tax is set at a flat rate of just 20 per cent.

For several years, the island’s government has been spending more than it receives in revenues and has relied on historical reserves to deliver public services. With financial pressures expected to “only intensify”, the States of Guernsey has committed to agree and implement “a final decision” on a future tax regime before the island’s next election.

“There’s long been a recognition, for the most part, that we do need to put our public finances on a stronger and sustainable footing,” de Sausmarez says.

“It’s really a question of how it’s done, and that’s where the political rubber hits the road. It’s a very difficult one. No one, ultimately, wants to pay more tax – that’s just human nature.”

Guernsey remains an attractive location for offshore banking and fund management. Is it fair to call the island a ‘tax haven’, as many in the UK would see it?

“It’s not in any way accurate at all,” de Sausmarez replies. She accepts the island is a “low-tax jurisdiction”, but when it comes to suggestions of financial crime she points to an evaluation last year by Moneyval – the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body – which awarded pass ratings to Guernsey in six out of 11 categories.

While the report praised Guernsey for its implementation of targeted sanctions against the financing of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, it warned the island’s government that “fundamental” work was needed to improve the way it investigates, prosecutes and convicts money laundering offences.

De Sausmarez insists her government is “actively investing” in such improvements and takes the issue “very seriously”, while acknowledging that small jurisdictions like Guernsey will always face an “inherent challenge with the rate of prosecutions”.

In Westminster, meanwhile, Labour is heaping pressure on the Crown Dependencies to be more transparent about the ownership of companies registered in the islands. None of the dependencies have publicly accessible ‘registers of beneficial ownership’, which has become a growing source of frustration for the UK.

In its 2025 Anti-Corruption Strategy, the UK government said it expects the islands to introduce “broad and inclusive” access to the registers for those who have a “legitimate interest” in viewing them – such as journalists, academics and civil society organisations. The UK says it “anticipates” that the dependencies will have introduced this change by July this year, and that this will merely be an “interim step” towards fully publicly accessible registers.

The States of Guernsey will soon launch a consultation on how that interim change could be implemented.

Is de Sausmarez confident of Guernsey meeting the July deadline? “We can make it happen, but [not] until we’ve carried out the consultation. It’s really important that it’s workable – that’s why we’re undertaking a consultation – but we’re very much hoping to make it happen as quickly as we possibly can.”

She adds that the issue was discussed “in some detail” with Justice Secretary David Lammy at a meeting in December 2025.

According to a briefing note from the island’s government, shared with The House, Guernsey “has repeatedly expressed concern about the UK government’s suggestion that legitimate interest access to beneficial ownership registers should, in its opinion, be fully implemented by July 2026”.

It adds that while Guernsey “shares the objective of the UK… in seeking to fight all forms of financial crime”, the UK government should “continue to respect the constitutional status of the Crown Dependencies and avoid attempting to take unilateral actions which seek to impose UK parliamentary decisions or will upon Guernsey”. Failure to do so “would cause unprecedented constitutional problems”, it warns.

The matter is certain to be discussed at the UK’s Countering Illicit Finance Summit in June this year, just weeks before the July deadline.

As far as full public access to the registers is concerned, meanwhile, a spokesman for neighbouring Jersey tells The House that such a move “would not be compatible with Jersey’s international obligations, including those enshrined in its domestic laws”.

The Crown Dependencies point to a 2022 decision by the European Court of Justice, which found public registers to be incompatible with the rights to privacy and the protection of personal data.

De Sausmarez stresses, too, that Guernsey’s register of beneficial ownership has higher standards of verification and due diligence than the UK’s, and that full public access to it cannot be introduced on a whim.

“We’re not trying to hide anything,” she says. “We’re just trying to make sure that it actually works, because you can’t pick up something from another jurisdiction with a very different system, superimpose it on ours, and expect it to work.”

Responding, a Home Office spokeswoman tells The House: “As responsible international financial centres with close ties to the UK, the Crown Dependencies have an important role in championing high standards globally to reduce illicit finance.

“Our approach is collaborative and focused on practical delivery. The Anti-Corruption Strategy sets expectations, and we are working through them together.” 

At the end of 2008, Ford Motor Company was only months from running out of cash. It had a lackluster product lineup and a dys­functional culture of infighting, backstabbing, and excuses. Sound familiar? Kemi Badenoch has been reading about how under the leadership of a bold new CEO, Alan Mulally, the company came back from the brink and returned it to one of the world’s most successful carmakers.

That, she has told her MPs, is inspiring her model for the Conservative Party.

After another strong outing at PMQs – skewering Sir Keir Starmer for “stuffing government with paedophile apologists” – Badenoch headed to her office for lunch. Unusually for her, one that included sandwiches (though she opted for a ham and cheese croissant). She has been hosting a series of these meetings with her MPs, and this week it was the first of two sessions with members of the 2024 intake.

Badenoch explained that Mulally’s insight at Ford Motors was realising the company had become distracted by its luxury brands like Aston Martin, rather than focusing on Ford itself and what it originally did so well. Her own lesson was similar: invest in the party’s “stakeholder products” — the core Tory vote, what it wants, and what the Conservatives can credibly offer.

And she wants a “fresh” Conservative Party to do so, with a Tory insider saying “Kemi told them she wanted these new MPs to be the future face of the Tory party”. It went down well with the group, some of whom have recently been getting their first outings at the despatch box like Peter Fortune.

He understood Badenoch’s Ford comparison, I’m told, likening the Conservative Party to a failing business: first stop the crisis, then stabilise, and then rebuild. Right now, he suggested, the party is still in the early stages. 

As discussion ranged around the Leader of the Opposition’s office, MPs aired familiar frustrations and enecuragements. John Cooper urged the party to “get onto talking about the economy” as the route back to power, while still addressing the wound of immigration. Joe Robertson argued for a “more optimistic tone in how the party communicates” and “not just criticising the government”. Inevitably, the conversation drifted to the question that always arises when talk turns to renewal and making Badenoch’s New Conservatives: what to do about the past.

Both Lewis Cocking and Greg Stafford, I’m told, commented about the shadow cabinet. There were “too many faces reminding people of the last government”, and it being “frankly not very good”, with some not pulling their weight.

They are not alone. One LOTO figure told me: “Real surgery is needed at the top of the shadow cabinet – we’re talking the three great offices of state: Treasury, Foreign and Home.” That would mean shadow chancellor Mel Stride, shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel and shadow home secretary Chris Philp.

A senior Tory agrees in principle but not without caveats. “Every change has a cost,” they said. “What do you offer Mel and Priti? They’re already knighted and with a damehood. The Lords is an option, but that’s a way off.” One shadow cabinet member confided: “It needs to happen, though I fear it won’t any time soon.” Another said movement was inevitable, but only once Badenoch herself reaches that conclusion.

The argument for change is the freshness Badenoch has begun championing. “In the top jobs,” one shadow minister says, “we shouldn’t be so tainted by the past.” Patel, in particular, attracts criticism. Her association with the ‘Boriswave’ – an issue raised at this week’s lunch – and her robust defence of that record in a disastrous interview with Harry Cole are cited as reasons she should move on.

But she is loyal, and loyalty counts. “Kemi is very loyal and appreciates it,” one insider says. Another shadow cabinet colleague tells me they are “very keen for Tom Tugendhat to come into the fold,” and I’m told discussions have taken place, and may yet happen in the future.

When it comes to Philp those around him acknowledge “improvement in the job”, an “eagerness to get the message out”, and a grasp of deteialed Home Office legisaltion. Other colleagues say that same eagerness “comes across as too intense” and “doesn’t land well” with the public.

“The Home Office is such a vulnerability for Labour that we need our absolute top performer there,” one insider says. “Unfortunately, he probably isn’t.”

Stride, meanwhile, has two camps of defenders and detractors. Supporters describe him as offering “steadiness and reassurance” on the economy. Critics complain he lacks “punch” and “fight”. Polling has the Conservatives once again trusted most on the economy, which his allies say reflects his steady approach and resistance to gimmicks. “He has rare experience of both business and the Treasury,” one Tory notes. “That’s a big risk to give up.” Those less convinced argue he is “not dynamic enough” of a choice and “doesn’t cut through”.

Stride hosted a dinner for MPs at his London home on Tuesday, shoes removed at the front door, lubricated by wine and Vesper martinis “that would kill a horse”. Some attendees wondered whether it was an exercise in wooing. One guest told me: “I suspect Mel was doing a bit of self-promotion given rumours about a reshuffle.” But I understand the dinner was arranged weeks ago, part of a tradition he has maintained since 2011.

A Tory source, however, pours water on the suggestion of any movement: “There isn’t a reshuffle, let’s put it to bed. It is not going on, the idea is nonsense. It’s just not going to happen. Kemi is very happy with her top team.” They pointed to Badenoch’s leadership, new policies, and Nick Timothy’s arrival in the shadow cabinet as evidence of renewal. “Kemi has massively changed the party under her new leadership,” they added.

Both Stride and Philp are regularly in the top three of ConservativeHome’s members’ poll, with them coming second and third respectively at last publication.

Even at last night’s Winter Ball at The Peninsula hotel, Badenoch spoke warmly of “the team”, namechecking Stride and Helen Whately on welfare savings, and praising Claire Coutinho and Andrew Bowie for fighting for British jobs in energy.

Still, the question remains: how to balance experience with renewal. For a leader promising a fresh start, there is a sense that too much of the old guard lingers at the top. As one attendee at Badenoch’s lunch put it: “The mood is different. Things feel positive. But we need to look like we’re renewing – not just talk about it.”

Another framed it more philosophically: “Fresh is what Conservatives should always be. Things should be better tomorrow than they are today. That’s the Tory way.”

Whether Badenoch can pull off a Ford-style turnaround – rescuing and rebranding a damaged political entity – is the real test of her leadership.

Director Simon Draper apparently put the hour-long documentary together with iPhone footage, having initially hoped to create a podcast centred around Miriam.

However, the candid footage was later used to create Miriam Margolyes Made Me Me, which will air on the BBC later this year, and explores the friendship between the two pals and collaborators.

Simon told the US outlet: “I thought getting Miriam Margolyes to make a podcast would be easy, after all, everyone’s doing them, but Miriam’s lifestyle is bonkers.

“In two years, we made just five episodes, but hanging out with her was life-changing. Mim’s a woman with strong opinions and a weak bladder, and I feel lucky to have been able to capture all the chaos and sparkle of the bravest, most honest person I know.”