“When a head has to roll, it has to roll, and it wouldn’t be mine.”
Sir James Tudor, a founder and strategist of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and of successive governments headed by Errol Barrow, Barbados’ first Prime Minister, who made that statement, was warning people that when a major foul-up occurs, they can expect to pay a painful price.
Chances are if Sir James were alive today, that’s precisely what he would be advising some DLP parliamentarians and Cabinet ministers to do for demanding and failing to get Prime Minister Freundel Stuart to meet and discuss the country’s leadership and the way forward.
For at least a week after the Sunday Sun published a bombshell story about the existence of a letter to the Prime Minister, members of the public went from shock and disbelief about the existence of the now famous or infamous letter to a realization that it existed and that it wasn’t a figment of the imagination of the newspaper as some would have them believe.
Barbadians at home and abroad were treated to an amazing display of a lack of intestinal fortitude.
Actually, about a week before the story was published, word began to circulate in some discrete circles that something was afoot and that a move would be made shortly to confront Stuart, either to get him to resign or to change his ways of communicating with the public.
I was informed about the plans by a reliable source who requested anonymity. An assurance was given to me and the newspaper that once the plans were finalized by the parliamentarians and ministers they would be given the green light to publish, backed up by concrete evidence to support the story.
Along the way, when the Prime Minister was in New York for a United Nations meeting, another assurance was given to me that things were proceeding according to plan, meaning that several ministers and backbenchers were fully on board – “110 per cent”.
But when the front page story hit the streets and the heat was turned up on the group by the Prime Minister’s supporters who saw the move as an act of political folly, if not suicide, then the public was treated to a parade of denials and even threats of legal action.
In his interview with the SUNDAY SUN, Chris Sinckler, said: “Yes, I can confirm that a draft letter exists.”
But he was quick to deny that he was the driving force behind the effort.
“It didn’t originate with me, but, of course, some people put me at the centre of it, but I am not somebody who runs from responsibility.”
Equally intriguing was his emphatic denial of any interest in becoming Barbados’ leader, now or in the future. That was an unwise pledge. Future events could force him to backtrack on it and then he would have to explain why the change of heart.
That brings us back to the late Sir James and his warning about heads rolling. The person with the guillotine is Stuart who can determine whose heads should roll. The attempted coup may be the best Christmas present Stuart has received this year.
For it has fortified his position as party leader and Prime Minister.
