Golding’s worrying silence on Lambert Brown
TWO weeks have passed. Yet, some of the nation’s citizens are still waiting to hear even a peep out of the more than quiet president of the People’s National Party (PNP), Mark Golding, about his Opposition Senator Lambert Brown’s outburst in the Senate in respect of taking the law into his hands.
No amount of body shifting, little of which Brown did while he represented Jamaica College at schoolboy football during the late 1960s, can allow him to worm his way out of the stupidity that he displayed in that Senate sitting, and it is an affront to this nation that his superiors — including his Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate, Peter Bunting, nor Golding, his ultimate leader — have not told the people of this country how they view the rubbish of this full-of-chat individual.
Golding in particular needs to trash the tagline out there that his critics are posting, which says ‘Silence is Golding’. But will he attempt to? Of the available PNP numbers, he is still best suited to serve as president, so those who think that Lisa Hanna would have been a better choice need not begin rejoicing. Even Phillip Paulwell would have been equipped to lead the party, but alas, he still has issues to sort out before he can contemplate anything like that.
Unless there are things going on that the public does not know about, Golding has been far too muted. And the situation which involves Brown is one in which that silence can be broken. He must be man enough to act, and do so firmly; for history, like it did to Dr Peter Phillips, one of Jamaica’s finest scholars, will be unkind to him.
My earlier suggestion for there to be a meeting at Golding’s office, after which Brown’s resignation should be sought, and if not received, the president should dissociate the trade unionist from his party’s efforts in the Senate, still stands.
Political leadership, by and large, entails tough decision-making. The matter involving Lambert Brown and the decision that ought to be made is anything but tough.
By the way, something is just not right with the PNP’S public relations machinery. In the afternoon of May 4 the party dispatched a statement from spokesperson on local government, Denise Daley calling for “equitable farm work programme overhaul”, and spoke at length on the failings of the programme while urging Labour and Social Security Minister Karl Samuda to set aside a “special quota” for new recruits.
Eight minutes later, another news release saying basically the same things about the farm work programme was sent out, this time attributed to General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell. That should not have happened. Firstly, the spokesperson on local government has no business preaching about the farm work programme. Secondly, two people should not be saying the same things eight minutes apart. It looked rather tacky.