Well, well, well. According to information leaked to me through the tomato vine, this week is going to be one of the most explosive weeks in the recent political life of Barbados.
This week, I have been told, is going to be the week everybody has been anticipating since the untimely passing of late Prime Minister David Thompson, a week in which his successor, the Honourable Freundel Stuart, will stamp his authority as Prime Minister by appointing a Cabinet of his own choosing to replace the one he inherited.
In fact, since I am writing in advance of today, the possibility exists that this is all stale news and that what I am hinting at has already been made public. However, I am going on the assumption that the revelation will not come to pass until later in the week, so I will continue.
Obviously, the main question you all want to have answered is ‘who and who’ is going to get shifted. And just because people still associate me with my investigative past, for weeks now many have been pulling me aside at meetings, receptions and other gatherings to ask me in hushed tones if I know ‘who and who’ getting dropped off the team and ‘who and who’ retaining their pick.
The fact of the matter is that it has all been a guessing game, which really heated up to boiling point after the St John by-election with the overwhelming victory of my girl Mara and, by extension, her (new) prime minister.
In fact, I have been assured that a decision has been made and sooner, rather than later, the big announcement will be made about what is known in political circles as a reshuffle.
My sources are impeccable and, therefore, I have no reason whatsoever to doubt the veracity of the information on my tomato vine (I have never seen a grape vine in Barbados). Even more revealing is the fact that in addition to letting me know that the announcement of a reshuffle is imminent, they have also been provided with the new batting order of the team.
Unfortunately, my journalistic training restrains me from revealing that information because even though my sources are indeed impeccable, I have had the belittling experience of seeing the entire staff of the newspaper being forced to eat humble pie by a previous prime minister, after we jumped the gun and published the list of his Cabinet reshuffle before he announced it. So in order to save face, he reshuffled his reshuffle and left us looking like a bunch of incompetents.
So, don’t try calling me, texting me, emailing me, BBMing me or dropping by the house on the pretext of delivering belated birthday greetings or presents in order to pick my brains. My lips are sealed. What I know is what I know and nobody will ever again get the opportunity to reshuffle a reshuffle on me.
Al Gilkes is head of a public relations firm.