…in the House
New Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, had to pull up several MPs on the PNC benches, notably Chris Jones, their Chief Whip, for their crude language. In the case of Jones, he insistently called PPP MP Juan Edghill “a liar”. Now this is exactly what some warned Granger about when he decided to exclude all the old heads and send in the present bunch of kindergartners to Parliament!!
Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Parliament would know there are certain words that just aren’t used…and “lying” is right up there at the top. You just don’t use the word…it’s verboten! And Jones will certainly be hauled before the Privileges Committee.
This lot is a real embarrassment to their Founder Leader Forbes Burnham, who was a past master of Parliamentary Rules, and knew exactly how to bypass them. In this case, he certainly would’ve used the conventional alternative if he felt it necessary – to suggest that “the Honourable Member Edghill is guilty of uttering a terminological inexactitude”!! Or that he was “economical with the truth”!
In the “mother of Parliaments”, the House of Commons, they’ve determined that the following words would earn censure if they are uttered in the House: bastard, coward, blackguard, deceptive, dodgy, drunk, falsehoods, hooligan, hypocrite, git, guttersnipe, idiot, ignoramus, liar, pipsqueak, rat, slimy, sod, squirt, swine, stoolpigeon. tart, traitor and wart!!
So, you don’t know what’s a “git”? Well, it’s a proper English word denoting “an unpleasant, silly, incompetent, annoying, senile, elderly or childish person”!! And we know there’s a lot of them on the PNC benches!!
But even when you try to skirt the rule, some jurisdictions would still censure you. Like the MP in New Zealand who didn’t want to describe his opposite number as “stupid” and came up with: “his brains could revolve inside a peanut shell for a thousand years without touching the sides”!! Didn’t work…as did the chap who tried, “the idle vapourings of a mind diseased”!
And every jurisdiction has their local touch as to what’s forbidden. Like in Hong Kong, where you can’t get away with referring to someone as “foul grass grows out of a foul ditch”!
As you may suspect, Canada is quite strait-laced, and in their Parliament, you dare not refer to anyone as “devoid of honour”, or “a trained seal”, much less “like a piece of shit” or an “old fart”!
The point of all of this is that Granger better get someone to school his neophyte MPs in the minutiae of Parliamentary Protocols if he wants to fulfill the legacy of Burnham.
Even if he’s a Sanctimonious Gangster!!
…in elite schools
Well, it was just yesterday that your Eyewitness was kvetching about the whole country pushing 14,000+ 12-year-olds through the needle of the “elite schools in Georgetown”, which can accept only a couple of hundreds. His point, of course, is why can’t each region have schools like these, so that everyone of these harassed kids can get into an “elite” school. Didn’t that Swami fella over in West Coast Demerara create just such an elite school within a couple of years?? Shows it can be done!!
Anyhow, that’s grist (or sugar cane) for another mill!! Today your Eyewitness wants to look at the consternation of the elite schools at the CSEC and CAPE results they were privy to before us mere peons. The kids, of course, can now access their results directly. Imagine the kids from Queen’s, THE Bishops High School and St Joseph overcame their inbred hostilities against each other to stage a protest together!!
One prominent placard read, “Keep yuh grades, cause they ain’t mine”.
She certainly should’ve passed Caribbean Studies!
…with Parliamentary dress
The Speaker also warned Parliamentarians that they shouldn’t be wearing “revealing, brightly coloured, and/or denim-material clothing”. Was he slyly referring to the mode of dress of his deputy Schuman’s costume that’s a tad revealing?
It’s the man’s native dress!! Down with the colonial mentality!!
