Sorry Team

Harold Hoyte has definitely invoked the anger of Hartley Henry simply because he dared to question the tactics employed by the Dems in their so called election campaign.  On the surface it looked innocent but upon further probing it revealed deep divisions in the DLP’s camp.

      We now wonder about that institution’s suitability to lead this country. Henry fancies himself as a political strategist although his results to date are unimpressive.  If in doubt we could ask Lester Bird or Kenny Anthony or even Jennifer Lasslo should you need a character reference.  Henry has however managed to convince Thompson that he is the best thing since sliced bread. 

     Thompson, in his desperation for results, has put Henry in charge of the elections although he named Branford Taitt as the official campaign manager.   How has the mighty fallen! Branford has to take second place to Henry and this has galled him.  Taitt’s silence in recent weeks speaks volumes about relationships within the party and its readiness to take on a confident Arthur and his team. 

    Many top DLP members are also readily admitting that they have nothing to do with the planning of the campaign as only the favoured ones get phone calls.  Apparently very little planning goes on in George Street since the emphasis on the platform is to see who is the best at character assassination. Henry has the silly technique of giving election dates and when they pass always finding excuses. 

       He is like a weather forecaster predicting rain every day as he is bound to be right sometime.  He has Thompson convinced that elections were to be held in July and foolish Thompson started hitting the airwaves.  His platform has gone noticeably flat as expected since he has absolutely nothing to tell Barbadians. When the electorate quite rightly asked for policy prescriptions, the Dems are at their worse. Every one of them is now experts at all sorts of things.  The result is that we have Kellmanomics in St. Lucy, strict economic conservatism in St. Philip and absolutely nothing in St. John. 

          The fact that the Dems are now only attracting a few hundred per night is the direct result of utter confusion. But the Dems have been saying for some time that their problem is their leader who certainly has never taken his job seriously. Apart from the time when he is abusing somebody, his speeches are lack luster and patently empty.  He is now the clown prince of politics in Barbados — only good for a laugh.  To make up for his obvious deficiencies, Thompson surrounds himself with only those persons who can form a waving chorus.  Henry, Parris, Rowe and some others fall squarely into that category. 

         They bring absolutely nothing to the party and only serve as agents of confusions and disorder. People now speculate that they are just waiting for the fatted calf to be divided.  Barbadians are wondering what job Henry will get. They are asking if Thompson would be so bold as to really make the man at the “Hellum” the President of the Senate. What is in line for some of the other hangers-on?  There are more questions than answers. 

What a mess they have made of George Street. The Environmental Division and the Sanitation Service Authority have been called in to clean it up.  In the meantime Barbados is safe under the BLP so ably led by Prime Minister Owen Arthur.

BLP’s SUCCESS

The party of deception, lies and proproganda, the DLP has been boasting about the crowds attending their public meetings and has publicly stated that the support is an indication of the likely results of the upcoming election. By this logic, the poor attendance at their meeting at Oistins last Sunday night, is also an indication of the election results. 

The party that will lead this country following the next election is the party that best articulates and can maintain our social, economic and political stability and can provide imaginative development proposals for this country’s advancement The DLP lacks that level of maturity and intellectual grasp of the issues. When the current platform of personality attacks and the old talk about who is expired and tired is over, Thompson and the DLP would still have to tell Barbadians how they intend to maintain and surpass their current standard of living – a task which they have so far failed miserably to do. The DLP’s strategy for the coming election will be to attack the success achieved in the economy and attempt to convince Barbadians that nothing was achieved under this BLP administration.

 However, Barbadians know that much has been accomplished and even more is expected for Barbados from a continuing expanding economy. Since the BLP assumed office in 1994, the level of unemployment for forth quarter of 2006 has fallen to 7.6% as compared to 26.2% for the first quarter of 1993 under the DLP. The exceedingly high level of unemployment under Thompson and the Dems was a result of their disastrous economic policies that left thousands of Barbadians without jobs, homes and any hope for a real future.  Under this BLP administration, the tourism sector, in spite of the 911 disaster, has expanded to provide the necessary foreign exchange that has been instrumental in Barbadians being able to afford to import the large number of motor vehicles and consumer durables to make lives meaningful.

 The increase in the imports of construction materials and capital goods has resulted in the expansion of the construction sector and greater industrial plant capacity hence creating substantial job opportunities. A major point of significance of the success of the tourism sector is the fact that at no point in the life of this BLP administration has our largest hotels – Sandy Lane, Hilton, Paradise Beach and Sam Lords – been all functioning at the same time. With no more than two of these hotels operating at the same time, the sector expanded. The projected loss of income to the tourism sector through the closer of any of these hotels could be of the order of $120.million and this would seriously impact on the employment opportunities of many Barbadians   

  Considerable expansion in the housing stock has been achieved as Barbadians continue to purchase homes and the commercial banks continue to show mortgage lending at an all time high. Higher incomes and improved employment opportunities have worked to produce the strong demand for goods and services.  The manufacturing sector has rebounded as seen by the high level of exports of locally produced goods due mainly to the many incentives extended to the industry. Domestic exports (other than sugar and molasses) have expanded from $208 million in 1994 to over $480 million in 2006 – an increase of $272 million. In comparison between 1986 and 1994 under the DLP, the domestic exports (other than sugar and molasses) fell from $364 million to $207 million – a fall of $157 million.  

These are some of the successes of this BLP administration.

The Plot Against Estwick

 

 Death of Caesar at the hands of his colleagues.

 

It was Thompson’s turn to sweat in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, June 5^th, 2007 when Deputy Prime Minister Mottley dropped the bombshell of the plot being executed by the top echelon of the DLP and its insurance financier to unseat St. Philip South MP David Estwick. It was news that would not surprise Mr. Freundel Stuart former MP for St. Philip South and for which Thompson could easily identify.

The announcement by Ms. Mottley threw the entire House debate into a tale spin and drove Thompson to his feet in defense. However, at the end of his intervention, he had only managed to confirm Ms. Mottley’s charge. During Thompson’s intervention Mr. Estwick remained speechless with only the agonizing expression of the truth of the charge etched across his face. The very thought of having to face his constituents knowing full well that the leadership of his party does not want him must be a very painful experience.

With the plot against Mascoll resulting in his subsequent departure from the DLP still fresh in people’s mind, Thompson finds himself under the political spot-light again. And why? The answer to this most soul-searching question can be found in Stuart’s declaration to Thompson when he said words to the effect that if he was in the dessert dying of thirst and Thompson was the last man to bring him a glass of water he would choose to die. It is pellucid that the question of trust is at the heart of Stuart’s statement and all Barbadians should take note.

This ongoing plot against Estwick, the departure of Mascoll from the DLP and the countless others before him, now begs the question why the members who fled the DLP were accused of being wrong but Thompson is right? When will the DLP realize that the albatross around the neck of that party is their English born leader? Thompson’s method of dealing with members of his party in whom he feels threatened may well explain why he enjoys the distinction of presiding over the largest exodus of members from the DLP. With such poor management skills, Barbadians would want to ponder on the prospect of having a leader who is constantly in an apparent state of “persecution psychosis”.

We have taken note that Thompson’s behaviour towards ordinary working class Barbadians differs greatly from that of the black moneyed class and the white elite class in our society. One is forced to conclude that he sees working class Barbadians as objects of use for his personal advancement. This recent plot against Estwick reinforces that belief which can be attributed to the kind of socialization to which he was exposed during his early childhood in England.

Estwick can feel no confidence or sense of belonging within the bosom of the DLP where friendships are purchased and commitment has no value. We all will share his pain when he will be forced in the not too distant future to share a platform with Thompson or pose in a group photo to give the impression that the DLP is a united party.

To date the DLP is no closer to unification than they were on the evening of the debate of the No-confidence of 1994 and while Estwick ponders on his political future in light of the revelation of the plot to unseat him. his pain is made deeper because the seniors of the party will do nothing to help his cause. Thankfully the people of St. Philip West have an alternative a young, bright eloquent speaker and trained Lawyer, the Hon. Lynette Eastmond.

Thompson Born Loser

The DLP’s Campaign for the upcoming Election has been launched with a declaration from its embattled leader that he is “Going for Owen”. The slogan is a corrupted version of a former BLP’s slogan “Going with Owen”. This sort of copy-cap behaviour is further proof that nothing creative can come from Thompson.

What should now interest Thompson is the slogan being seriously developed about him since his ungracious comments about senior politicians. The slogan being adopted by the seniors of the DLP is that they are now “Going for Thompson”. They are considering Thompson’s future as their leader not only because all political indicators show that he will lose this election but also because his lack of economic skills and poor intellect offers no real hope for the future of the party. They have concluded that he is a born loser.

It is clear that this once “great white hope” of the DLP has fallen into political despair. What could have driven Thompson to stand on his party’s platform on May 20, 2007 at Brittons Hill and declare that he was bringing back the “old guards” of his party, who incidentally are all over the age of fifty, to assist him in this election and without pause for breath or thought mounts another platform a week later (seven days) and viciously attack the involvement of senior politicians in politics? It is an act for which only psychiatric evaluation can explain.

In mirroring the view of a caller on Brass Tacks for Tuesday, June 5 2007, we thought that a political leader who is clearly now staring down the barrel at his political demise would have launched a campaign of political freshness – a campaign of ideas to excite the Barbadian electorate. For if it is true that this country is being managed badly by this BLP administration then clearly Thompson and the DLP must have by now thought of a plan to rescue it. Instead Barbadians were served the same old “cuss bird” politics for which Thompson has become renowned. What is shameful is that he actual believes that that kind of intellectual inadequacy and political folly merits chauffeuring him to Government House to waste the Governor General’s time swering him in as Prime Minister of Barbados.

It has been repeatedly argued that one’s political relevance is not determined by age but by the ability to impart new ideas that defines a people, harnesses their creativity and inspires a sense of confidence and hope in oneself. In this regard the most Thompson can earn from his political current status is that of a “brand new second hand politician”. Thompson is certainly not new in the politics of Barbados nor is he new to the leadership of the DLP. His stint as Minister of Finance resulted in the worse economic times this country has had since internal self-government and his leadership of the DLP continues to amuse political observers. Under Prime Minister Arthur our unemployment rate stands at 7.8%. Under Thompson it stood at 26.2%. Our international reserve stands at $1.9 billion. Under Thompson it stood at a mere $13 million.

The only rational explanation one can offer for Thompson’s erratic political outburst is that he is a very desperate and politically confused man. We are of the view that if his thought process can be reflected on a floor plan of a house one would see the bathroom positioned at the front of the house and the bedroom next to the pig sty. Such is the state of his mind and the depth of his confusion.

 

Guarantee for Cruise Ship No longer Necesssary

GOVERNMENT yesterday withdrew a resolution that sought to guarantee a $30 million loan by the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA) to lease the Carnival Destiny cruise ship as extra accommodation during the recent Cricket World Cup.

Deputy Prime Minister Mia Mottley told the House of Assembly that Minister of Tourism Noel Lynch informed her the resolution was no longer necessary.

Asked to clarify the situation last night, Lynch told the MIDWEEK NATION the guarantee was never really necessary, given the set-up and operations

of the BTA.

Last weekend, while addressing a meeting of the

St Michael North East branch of the Barbados Labour Party, he explained that even though the decision to use the cruise ship as “additional accommodation” turned out to be a loss, Government was already involved in initiatives to minimise the impact.

One option, he said, was exploring the possibility

of “netting off” money owed for the Carnival Destiny against any contract obligations the cruise company might not have had to incur.

Government’s decision to charter the luxury cruise ship proved controversial when it was announced last year, with hoteliers and Opposition politicians questioning its necessity when Barbados still had hotel rooms available.

However, Lynch explained there was originally an expectation the country would not have been able to accommodate all the visitors projected, and the cruise ship arrangement then kicked in as a condition in the “bid book” for “supplemental accommodation”.

Having the cruise ship was a requirement to get the final for the CWC in the first place. It is unfortunate that it did not make the money to cover the cost however when taken in the context of the huge success the whole final was one must come to the conclusion that it was still a good investment to achieve the wider event of the Finals.