KINGSTON – As Prime Minister Bruce Golding ponders his next move  in the wake of the deepening Manatt, Phelps and Phillips scandal, two powerful private sector groups are now calling for him  to make full disclosure  to the nation and apologise for his handling of the matter.In separate releases over the weekend, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) said Golding had lost its respect and should apologise to the public, while the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association (JMA) said the prime minister must tell the full truth about the matter.Both organisations, however, stopped short  of joining the growing lists of organisations  and people calling for Golding’s resignation  as prime minister.“Mr Golding is expected to operate  at the highest level when dealing with the matters of state. The nation has been misled and,  as a result, the prime minister has lost our respect and confidence.  In order to commence the extremely difficult task  of restoring that respect, confidence and honour, the prime minister should start with an apology to the nation,” the JCC said.According to the JCC, governance is not only about doing what is morally and ethically correct, but also about ensuring that actions cannot be perceived  as being morally  or ethically incorrect.Said the JMA: “The actions of the Hon Bruce Golding of not disclosing the facts at an earlier opportunity have brought the country, government and position of the prime minister into disrepute.”According to the JMA, there is also a need  for more information  to be disclosed  on the matter,  as the information surrounding the issue remains baffling.Golding and his administration, the JMA said, should act speedily to restore credibility, dignity and honour  to his position as leader of the country and seek  to address the root cause of the issue, which has led to this predicament.“Transparent, responsible and accountable leadership from this point onward must be demonstrated  by all elected officials, and the JMA expects  that anything other than this will be met with immediate consequences and actions,” according  to the statement. (Observer)

The late Forbes Burnham once defined politics as the science of deals. As time passes, I am drawn to the view that he was right, and the Lib Dem/Conservative coalition which emerged from the horse trading in Britain, after the recent election, supports Burnham’s thesis.In this article I will touch lightly on “hung parliaments”, the position of Mr Gordon Brown after the election; the problem of unelected prime ministers and the office of deputy prime minister nowheld by the leader of theLiberal Democrats.The first truth of all political elections is that there is power in numbers, for he who has the numbers in his favour after the election becomes the country’s leader. As we saw in President Obama’s election, the magic number related to electoral college votes.But in a 650 member House of Commons the magic number was 326 seats, or half the number of seats plus one. The Conservatives won 305, Labour secured 258 and the Lib Dems held 57 seats. Since no party gained the magic number to entitle the leader of that party to form the next government, the question of who would be the next prime minister was left unanswered and “hanging”. Hence the expression, “a hung parliament”, for as Shakespeare wrote: “Thereby hangs a tale!”But we have seen this situation before. Readers will recall the 18/18 split a few years ago in Trinidad and Tobago, when the role and power of President A.N.R. Robinson to appoint a prime minister were vigorously debated and opinions sought from British constitutional experts!Even before then we hada classic hung parliament inSt Vincent. In 1972, Sir James Mitchell (as he is now) “successfully contestedthe general election as an independent candidate. He had first entered parliament in 1966 as a member of the St Vincent Labour Party (SVLP), but with the 1972 election ending ina 6-6 draw between the SVLP  and the PPP (People’s Political Party), Sir James, as an independent candidate, struck a deal with the PPP’s leader E.T. Joshua and became premier under the Alliance government”. Such is the power of numbers!Nick Clegg (the Lib Dem leader) has followed in the footsteps of Sir James for he has secured cabinet seats and other government posts for his team and the office of deputy prime minister for himself, proving that “politics makes forstrange bed fellows”. Now when elections produce no “immediate” new prime minister, the focus shifts, albeit for the time being, to the prime minister who called the elections, for he remains prime minister until the dust settles after horse tradingbetween  parties. Gordon Brown did not resign immediately and his decision was supported by precedent.In any event, the ship of state could not be abandoned, and Brown was constitutionally bound, in my view, to remainat the helm while “coalition” negotiations between theLib Dems and the Conservatives, and later between (Labour and the Lib-Dems) took place. As we also have in our regional constitutions, there are specific rules governing the appointment or re-appointment to the office of prime minister after elections. Order and not emotion governs the process. Akin to the Duckworth/Lewis rules, one cannot shift the rules to suit one’s inclinations, for chaos and not order will follow as night follows day!Anyways, Clegg, leader ofthe Lib Dems, now occupies the office of Deputy Prime Minister, an office repeatedly said not to exist under the British Constitution. I wrote a full article on this topic in 1987 when Barrow died, and pointed out that not only have Prime Ministers Harold Wilson, Harold Macmillan and Margaret Thatcher declared that no such office exists, but that King George Vl refused to appoint Anthony Eden as deputy prime minister when Winston Churchill sought to sodesignate him.However, Wilson’s assertion that “in normal times there is in the British Constitution no such animal as a deputy prime minister” may justify Clegg’s appointment, since coalitions, in British constitutional practice, are not “normal”. And in any event, in the wartime coalition cabinet, Sir Winston Churchill (Conservative) appointed Clement Attlee (leader of the Labour Party) as his deputy prime minister.My final point, for the time being, is that Brown, like Sir Harold St John in 1985 andSir Lloyd Sandiford in 1987, all ascended to the prime minister’s office as “unelected” prime ministers! True, Sir Lloyd won his own mandate in 1991, but that apart, Brown like Sir Lloyd felt intense pressures soon after he occupied the hot seat. Further, Brown, St John and Sandiford as unelected prime ministers succeeded charismatic leaders, (Blair, Tom Adams and Errol Barrow) whose political flair they did not match, even though they were all extremely capable and successful “deputies”.Brown’s defeat like St John’s in 1986 and Sandiford’s in 1994 supports my view that in politics, one must choose one’s leader on a “horses for courses” basis, since he who is successful as a deputy may not always have the guile and style suited to the role of leader. In 2007 I argued that it was not politically wise to force Blair from office. Other local writers argued that “fixed terms” for the office of prime minister, should be imposed and that the ouster of Blair was a good thing for the British Labour Party. Well now we know!

by ALBERT BRANDFORDI do not trust Governments either of my own persuasion or of the other political persuasion when they say, Trust me’. – Iain Duncan Smith, House of Commons Debates, March 3, 2008.
IAIN DUNCAN SMITH, is a former leader of the British Conservative Party, and has just been appointed Works and Pensions Secretary (Minister) in the “extraordinary pact” that is the coalition government between his party and thecentre-left Liberal Democrats.Since governments are made up of politicians, Smith might well have said: “I do not trust [politicians] either of my own persuasion or of the other political persuasion . . . .” Two political events of the past few weeks have again given rise to the question of people’s trust in politicians: that Tory-Lib Dem coalition, which one British commentator was moved to describe as “the quickest marriage in political history”; and locally, Hamilton Lashley’s formal return to the fold of the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) which he had left in Opposition during 1999.“I am identifying with a cause,” Lashley, still an Independent, told the House of Assembly early in its postprandial session on Tuesday, March 4, “because if you cannot stand for something you will fall for anything.“I am, with your [the Speaker’s] permission,of course, now leaving this position as an Independent Member of this honourable chamber, to stand on the side of the Government and the people whoI represent.”Earlier, the St Michael South East MP had said he was fixed in his convictions and as such had taken a decision to continue the legacy of his cause “to always stand with the downtrodden and those who must always have a voice in a sacred place like this”.Political grasshopper“And, Sir, that voice can only be echoed from a position that validates the rights of those same people to be heard.”While acknowledging that some people may see him as a political grasshopper, a traitor or even a double-crosser, Lashley said his purpose in the House has never been about self-aggrandisement; rather, it was about improving the lot of his constituents, especially the youth, single mothers of large householdsand the elderly.Additionally, he was planning to work with the Government in a number of innovative programmes to develop self-employment opportunities. Now, Britain’s new Prime Minister David Cameron, who on a good day would not even give Nick Clegg – his deputy prime minister – the time of day, has been explaining why the Lib Dem leader is his new best friend.“I came into politics,” said Cameron, the youngest British prime minister since Lord Liverpool (42) in 1812, “because I love this country, I think its best days still lie ahead and I believe deeply in public service.Sounds like Hammie-la yet?“Nick Clegg and I are both political leaders who want to put aside party differences and work hard for the common good and for the national interest. I believe that is the best way to get the strong Government we need.“We are announcing a new politics – where the national interest is more important than the party interest, where co-operation wins out over confrontation, where compromise, give and take, reasonable, civilised, grown-up behaviour is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.”Not to be left out, Clegg added: “This is a new government and a new kind of government. Until today we have been rivals. Now we are colleagues.”How were these two 43-year-old bitter rivals so easily reconciled? Was it because Gordon Brown and Labour were so evil? Or was it simply that the “rivals” would do anything to “grasp the brass ring”? Did the British voters get what they voted for? Were their desires thwarted by a coalition of power hungry politicians who thought the voters could not be trusted to know what they wanted?Discredited and distrustedLook at a new study from Britain on the public trust and expectations of politicians and parliament in the wake of the recent expenses scandal.It noted that politicians have been rarely trusted, and research from the 1970s found that 60 per cent of the public believed  people involved in politics only told the truth some of the time.The study was conducted by the Hansard Society, the Political Studies Association and Centre for Citizenship, Globalisation and Governance.The report, authored by Dr Ruth Fox, of the Hansard Society, observed that in the political context, trust was conventionally viewed as essential to maintaining and strengthening the bond – the ‘democratic chain of command’ – between the elected and electors, “which underpins political consent in our democratic system and enables politicians to take difficult public policy decisions”.“In so far as politicians and Parliament are discredited and distrusted, then, so it follows, it willbe exponentially more difficult to take big, far-reaching and potentially unpopular decisions.“Trust is deemed essential because it breeds legitimacy and therefore facilitates a greater willingness among the public to abide by the decisions made by politicians.”The report noted that the 2007 Eurobarometer Survey of public attitudes found that only 34 per cent of the British public trusted Parliament, and the Committee On Standards In Public Life has consistently found in its biennial Trust In Public Life surveys that politicians were “among the least trusted of professions when it comes to telling the truth”.“Parliament was deemed to embody the traits of sly, greedy and deceitful creatures such as rats, weasels, snakes, foxes and vultures.”The report said perceptions of trust were rooted in public views of the truthfulness and honesty of their representatives.“But the public’s concept of trust is more complex than this alone: reflecting perhaps elements of how they determine levels of satisfaction with their elected representatives, the trust concept also appears to embrace a broader framework which includes perceptions of a representative’s competence, hard work, and local community commitment as well.“The public significantly value honesty over hardwork and political success but may be willing to trade on this occasion.”
 albertbrandford@nationnews.com