BLP legacy (1999-2003): Gave annual finance to the Salvation Army to manage Lancaster House as a temporary residence for flood and fire victims; facilitated the Bereavement Support Services programme of the National Assistance Board in training people to effectively respond to grief-stricken individuals; helped provide accommodation at Wildey and Sterling as residences for young adults transitioning into independent adulthood.
Last Sunday provided Barbadians with an excellent opportunity to closely evaluate the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and Barbados Labour Party (BLP) as to their suitability for managing their country out of its worst crisis ever.
On the one hand, they heard and saw the governing DLP so badly rattled by the grim prospects of the BLP further exposing the economic and social mismanagement that has plunged people into a state of near hopelessness, that the country witnessed the unprecedented step of a Minister of Finance rushing to stage a live national Press conference at 2 p.m. – on a Sunday of all days.
Such a step was widely regarded as a rearguard action to hopefully weaken the expected onslaught by Opposition Leader Owen Arthur, speaking at 11 a.m. at the BLP’s 73rd Annual Conference, had it been reported afterwards by the media in the usual manner.
But fortunately, the BLP’s Political Leader was able to speak directly to the public through a live radio broadcast on VOB, a first for an Opposition Leader and for which the BLP paid.
But this was only made possible through the cooperation and flexibility of VOB in making available to the BLP the regularly sponsored time slot, thereby allowing the nation to hear and judge the former long-serving Finance Minister and Prime Minister for itself, free of any filtering, censorship and interpretation by others.
For this magnanimous gesture by VOB in the interest of fairness and democracy, the BLP and indeed the vast majority of Barbadians will always be grateful.
The value of this development was to be appreciated later by those who saw in CBC-TV’s coverage (sic) one of the most savage and distorted political hatchet jobs ever broadcast by the taxpayers’ funded and Government controlled entity.
Through BLP internet streaming also, people in Barbados and around the world were exposed to a statesmanlike and virtuoso Arthur who offered well grounded criticism of the DLP’s almost four years of government that has brought Barbados to a never before seen brink of economic and social ruin.
And like he did in the August Budget debate, Arthur also clearly outlined rational alternative policies born out of his many years as a distinguished trained economist, and his long and successful term in practice in the realities of government and leadership.
He truly lived up to the conference’s theme: Rescue, Rebuild, Restore.
On the other hand, Chris Sinckler never really justified why he chose to disturb the traditional quiet and relaxation that generally marks the Barbadian Sunday lunch period, since he did not say much that was new and bored and infuriated listeners hoping for glimpses of improvement in their depressed fortunes.
Of course, there are those who believe that it was simply a powerplay in the absence abroad of Prime Minister Freundel Stuart.
