Your Eyewitness breathed a long sigh of relief after Finance Minister Ashni Singh finally wound up this year’s Budget Debate. And having, as is customary, the last word. But after his marathon 5-hour-plus opening salvo, one suspects the almost 2-hour ending one was a breeze!! What was surprising to some – but NOT your Eyewitness – was that it was Harmon who gave the customary Opposition Leader hour-and-a-half closing speech in response!!
For some reason – unfathomable to yours truly – it was thought that with Nicolette Henry’s resignation, Norton was gonna be shoehorned in to do the honours. Clearly, they weren’t reading your Eyewitness!! Firstly, the first tip-off was that Nicolette hadn’t even submitted her “resignation” formally to the National Assembly!! Can’t get in space if a space ain’t there, can you?? And your Eyewitness had warned that even if the space had opened up, there was the immovable force of the Sanctimonious Gangster to deal with!!
All of this dithering opened up the PNC and the Opposition to all sorts of digs – sly and otherwise! The PPP wags just couldn’t resist the temptation. An Opposition claiming they could run the country better than the PPP Government and they can’t even run the appointment of an Opposition Leader?? Well, there’s a long, long letter from that old ex-magistrate Maxwell Edwards – who’d been an advisor to Basil Williams – on a legal approach for Norton. And if you know Ganger like your Eyewitness knows Granger, once the matter goes to the Courts, Norton might as well call it quits!! That’s a long, looong road!!
So, what were the highlights of the last day? That it was a zinger by AG Nandlall to Roysdale Forde, SC – his shadow across the aisle – kinda summarizes the entire 5-day debate. Forde claimed during his speech that Nandlall had used Forde’s notes in law school!! Yes…that allegation was made somehow relevant to the legislative agenda of the Government in the coming year that the AG was expounding on!! The latter replied that it would’ve be quite infra dig for a QUEEN’S COLLEGE old boy to depend on notes of a ST ROSES one!! In an analogous context, Burnham had retorted, “No day canoe can bore punt!!”
Nandlall subsequently apologised to St Roses and its alumni when he realized that while his retort might’ve been quite normal when he was a schoolboy, he WASN’T a schoolboy any longer!! But seriously, folks, the Opposition better get its act together soon, or they might just go the way of the dodo. And leave their constituency high and dry!
Next week, the PPP starts spending that HALF-A-TRILLION-dollars!! and they’ve already declared they’ll go after the PNC’s constituency!!
…for Whoopy
Whoopy Goldberg’s a public personality – famous for being uninhibited in offering her opinions. After a very successful career in the movies, she became a fixture on a female-focused but politically divergent panel, The View, discussing topical issues. Your Eyewitness always liked her candid opinions. So, it was somewhat of a surprise to him when he heard she’d been reprimanded and suspended.
So, what’d she say that was so offensive? Seems the panel was discussing a banned novel involving the Jewish Holocaust. Whoopy interjected that the Holocaust wasn’t about race, since the Jews and Germans were all White. It was about “man’s inhumanity to man”, she insisted. She was then tutored on the nuances of the Nazi ideology, which was based on them seeing Jews as an “Inferior race”. She apologised but it wasn’t enough.
There is a lesson here for us in Guyana, where our politics are normalising quite racist statements – even though no Whites are involved!!
…on a unipolar world
Last week, your Eyewitness claimed the Ukraine standoff meant America was now operating in a multipolar. NATO might be a passé dinosaur.
Russia’s link-up with China on Ukraine and Taiwan proves the point!!
