To thine own self be true, Holness Cabinet

THE EDITOR, Sir: POLONIUS, OF Shakespeare’s

Hamlet, would have some advice for the members of Jamaica’s Cabinet:

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou can st not be false to any man.” A story in the online edition of

The Gleaner stated that the recently constructed North Coast Highway is to be renamed in honour of Edward Seaga.

The reason, according to the Cabinet decision, is to allow Seaga to “(join) a list of prime ministers to have highways named after them”.

If this stated reason be true, how can this particular highway being named for former Prime Minister Edward Seaga, whose national service was so far removed, take precedence over it being named in honour of former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was a member of the Cabinet at the stage of its planning and Jamaica’s head of government during the construction phase?

Surely, history records and places the coincidence of it being ‘opened’ by Prime Minister Holness in its proper context.

Would not the naming of another highway in honour of Edward Seaga, in these circumstances, remove any hint of a platform for controversy and, moreover, would tend not to import even a single false element?

Our Cabinet would do well, therefore, to learn that there is great merit in following the eternally sound and sage advice of Polonius. A.J. NICHOLSON Former Cabinet Minister