There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.
– Benjamin Disraeli, former British prime minister.
PRIME?MINISTER?FREUNDEL?STUART might believe this of some political parties; but certainly not of his own. Not if we go by his most recent utterances and self-revelations. He’ll be damned if someone can truly find no honour in his Democratic Labour Party under his watch.
The Prime Minister will not entertain the cynicism of the former British Conservative leader among his own. And if perchance he should stumble upon dishonour, we have been led to understand that Mr Stuart will not hesitate or fail to extirpate it. Fine phrase; tough task.
But I will give the Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt. I am prepared to rely on the values and life lessons instilled in him by headmaster Lee Skeete and Latin teacher Colin Reid. Their lessons, Mr Stuart says, he learnt quite well; and we shall hold him to that.
Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of the United States, once said that tricks and treachery were the practice of fools: those who didn’t have brains enough to be honest. Mr Stuart, Latin god as he was at school, cannot remotely be accused of having no brains. And I have full confidence he intends to present us with every ounce of honesty.
It’s just that we need to hear him sooner rather than later. He will have no part in treachery – an obvious retort to his critics who railed him for doing nothing during the months of late Prime Minister David Thompson’s illness. I wasn’t aware that David had given up being in charge of the country’s business, and that it was left for Mr Stuart to go helter-skelter doing his own bidding – or just trying a thing. Opposition politics must be seen for what it is: too often comic relief.
Mr Stuart’s conduct then as deputy leader and Acting Prime Minister was as responsible and proper as could be. His leader’s vision was to be secured; his leader’s programmes not compromised.
Tricks and treachery will not be the practice of this man, for he has the brains for honesty and the heart for the appropriate.
“Cleanliness”, however you look at it, “and order are not matters of instinct”, the same cynical Disraeli once said. “They are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them.”
That’s why the “profound mistake” Mr Stuart sees some teachers make in assuming they do not influence their charges deeply is critical enough to be corrected.
Disraeli might have subsumed himself in cynicism were he around last month to witness a former British minister losing his seat as an MP, by order of an election court, for knowingly making false statements about an opponent in May’s general election. And the court didn’t stop there; it ruled that the Labour MP “be incapable of being elected to the House of Commons for three years”.
It was determined that the politician lied on also suffered attacks on his “honour” and “purity”. There you go!
Disraeli might have opined that the most honourable act had been done: make it possible to have honour in politics after all.
In Barbados, politicians have been known to have been punished for defamation of and libel against colleagues: $25 000 damages here and $50 000 there.
But the election-winning respondent still stays in Parliament.
We accept in theory that it is dishonourable to lie about a political opponent, but so long as the lie has no consequences, passes as an Ossie Moore-type joke and carries no dishonour for the liar, then we think it’s really not.
Yes, Barbados is more than an economy; it is as well a society. But without values and positive principles inculcated from our infancy, Barbadians too will come to experience anarchy.
