Tweet
<span style="font-weight: bold">EDITORIAL - Golding and Simpson Miller failed to lead
</span>
We wish to make two observations. First, when politicians are short of cogent and workable solutions, their default position, usually, is a reach for populist distractions - drawing the red herring, as it were.
We have been drawn to think on these issues in part because of some of the tone of the parliamentary debate on Jamaica's proposed Charter of Rights, especially remarks by Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller. They reached for the lowest common denominator and played to the gallery, which, of course, was not necessarily the people sitting in Gordon House. Rather, it was an appeal to their ever-narrowing political base.
The Charter of Rights is a good thing, which has the broad support of this newspaper. It seeks to set out, in enumerative fashion and relatively simple language, the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Jamaican people. Importantly, it seeks to place greater limits on the capacity of the state to derogate those rights.
----------------------
I have to agree with the basic premise of the Gleaner here. Golding is using a wedge issue to play to the gallery and to those he perceives as his political base. My value system is conservative so I am from the one man, one woman school of thought and anything outside of that is morally objectionable for me. But why the government is trying to make this issue central in its debate on a charter of rights is ludicrous. For the last few weeks almost every time I log into the gleaner or observer to check the latest headlines my heart sink. Jamaica has many complex and pressing issues, government needs to get its priorities right. Golding as the gleaner correctly points out has failed to rise to the occasion when presented with many opportunities to do so and has failed to lead on both the small and big issues.
Comment