Juliet Holness standing up for her man
ADDRESSING A Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) constituency conference in St Catherine last Sunday, Juliet Holness, member of parliament and wife of the prime minister, stated, to huge acclaim and thunderous applause, that in addition to her husband’s abundance of intellect, “We lucky, we have a young prime minister. We have a prime minister whose body tight and firm; a prime minister who sexy cyan done.”
That was only the first serving from the lady in a country with the highest percentage of women in senior management when compared to others. Pushing her ‘woke’ agenda, she added of her 47-yearold husband: “We have a prime minister who can run fi di whole day with probably about three to four hours of sleep. Him nuh sleepy sleepy none a tall – straight work.”
This is, of course, politics, and because it is we need no independent medical examination to prove the veracity of Mrs Holness’ words. We accept them at face value on the basis that she would best know the quality of his work from workplace to the sanctity of their home.
OBAMA’S TROTTING
In the US presidential campaign leading up the election of Barack Obama in the fall of 2008, the 47-year-old Obama made it a deliberate habit to break out into a brisk trot up every flight of the podium steps. I don’t believe he was trying to deliberately show up 72-year-old Republican competitor John McCain but, if one feels the pulsing energy in one’s legs, why not trot to the top?
Of late, the political heat has been significantly moving the political thermometer. One senses that it is likely to happen in the first six months of 2020. And that ‘it’ is the next general election.
PM Andrew Holness leads an administration that must contend with Jamaicans united on little, contentious on too much, and seemingly hell-bent on maintaining too many pockets of incivility and inhumanity. In trying to add to the 2016 win, the JLP will be pulling out all stops to ensure that the 2020 election will be Phillips’ last stand.
The opposition PNP faces more than a double whammy. In the bruising internal challenge made of the leadership of Phillips by a significantly younger Peter Bunting, at no time was the proven intellect of Phillips questioned. What was spread out for full display on the table was a plethora of poll findings indicating that, one: Phillips was less popular than the PNP, and two: significantly way out of the runnings when compared with Andrew Holness.
Even with the squeaker of a 76-vote win for Phillips, I would be shockingly surprised if an opinion poll at this time is showing Peter Phillips in a trajectory different to his downward electoral path in all previous polls.
Someone like the very influential Juliet Holness has stuck her moist finger in the air and she has sensed the direction of the political wind. In Jamaica, we are used to our male politicians ‘bigging up’ their wives seated on the political podium. Applause, standing ovation then back to the man because the lady did her bit as political prop. In this instance, a strong Jamaican woman, who just happens to be an elected member of parliament and is also wife of the prime minister, has proudly acclaimed that her man, her husband, has the intellect of a sage and the physical hardware to conquer any hill.
JLP supporters love it and many of the younger likely voters will endorse her approach. Politics is a trade show. The message must be wrapped in happy colours, and the delivery presented to earn the best theatrical reviews. Juliet Holness knows this.