DLP at Crossroads

EIGHT MONTHS IN OFFICE, its strongest members and supporters are concerned that since the January 15 general election, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) has not picked up momentum. This Minister of Finance has never been good at managing the economy. The whispers by DLP insiders are getting louder.

 

 

DLP supporters are extremely nervous about the Prime Minister’s recent comments about who is connected to big business. They are aware that there has never been a leader of the Democratic Labour Party who is as connected to big business as Thompson. Card-carrying DLP members and ordinary supporters feel disappointed that while they have to wait for their share of the fatted calf, the privileged have either benefited from a petroleum price increase or the award of insurance contracts. One person was so happy with his slice of the cow that he told the entire country that he was able to get in five days from Thompson what he could not get from the former government in 14 years.

You cannot go anywhere in Barbados without running into a disgruntled Dem, who is only too happy to stop you to complain about not getting an overseas pick, a pick in the Cabinet or some other job. The cracks are widening and the term is ticking by faster than Peter Wickham can count.

Despite trying to ride on Barack Obama’s popularity with a Hartley Henry staged photo op, which incidentally was also the diplomatic gaffe of the century, the Prime Minister and the DLP went into its conference flat and came out totally deflated.

The incessant bleating about what they found on assuming office is like three-day-old cou cou – scummy, sour and indigestible. Nothing the Dems say now will appease a public that is openly grumbling that they are not performing. Having given the DLP a chance, Barbadians are beginning to agree that it does not have what it takes to move this country forward, far less keep us where we were.

Thompson’s address to the DLP’s conference was as predictable as it was empty. We have heard various versions of this speech so many times during the past 14 years, that we can recite it.

It lacked innovation, vision, empathy and solutions to the problems which the Government are compounding daily. Barbadians do not expect this from a party that promised change. It was typical DLP old-style politics.

There was no progress report on the number of houses built by the National Housing Corporation; no report on the integrity legislation that was promised and not a word about the act requiring a two-thirds majority of Parliament to remove land
from agriculture.

It gets worse. David Thompson is reported to have said: “Let me make it clear that the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) will not dictate the work schedule or the pace of work of this Government. The Barbados Labour Party did not vote us into office and they will not set the agenda of this administration. Not now, not ever!”

Here is the rub. The BLP is not trying to dictate anything to the Government. It is the people who are calling for things to happen. Perhaps the Prime Minister should mothball his frequent flyer card and spend some time with his ears to the ground.