Government Using Throne Speech to Signal Fresh Guard
The eagerly awaited second session of parliament is set to restart today from about 10AM- see Order Paper. The decision to prorogue parliament from the 8 August 2020 caught political pundits by surprise and has been the source of robust debate.
The Government has determined that it is necessary that we take fresh guard. The Parliament of Barbados will be prorogued on the 8th of August, 2020, with us resuming in a new session on the 15th of September with a new Throne Speech and with a new direction as to where we must go in order to meet these extraordinarily different circumstances from the original Throne Speech of two years ago
Prime Minister Mia Mottley
Even before the pandemic struck the global economy, Barbados had been struggling with a non performing economy. The Mottley government took an immediate decision to enter an IMF program (BERT) on winning the governbment in 2018 that included a restructure of domestic and foreign debt with the contracted services of White Oak. The big concern was carrying the risk of low foreign reserves with a junk status credit rating and a high debt to GDP load- reported in 2018 as the third highest in the world.
If was not difficult for the Barbados government to manage an economy in free fall and at the same time whip confidence in a proud people who were suffering from economic fatigue, along came COVID 19. The prime minister in her wisdom- time will tell- decided to leverage the parliamentary tools at her command “to take fresh guard”.
It would be remiss of the blogmaster if the minority view offered by the contentious Pachamama in this forum was not added to this commentary.
We have been telling this PM, here on BU and through back-channels, that this ‘reset’, so-called, is highly misconceived.
Our suggestion is that an election should be called to ‘reset’ the political-economy. Not the farcical and ritualistic contrivances as planned for sometime this week.
Her sequestration, seclusion, on the gold coast should have been unnecessary as neither she nor those beating a trail to meet with her has anything of material importance to tell her beyond pomp and pageantry.
Pachamama
We are living in an unprecedented time. We are attempting to navigate uncharted waters. The challenges confronting Barbados is not a binary problem to solve. Those who enter the debate by injecting absolutes should be viewed with suspicion.
The blogmaster urges the Prime Minster and other leaders in civil society to ignore the power of this moment at our peril. This and future generations will be affected by decisions taken today.
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Shakespeare’s Henry IV. Part II, 1597
– See Parliament TV
Barbados Underground 
What nonsense Ezra Alleyne is talking? His reference to the recent Queen’s Speech as a masterpiece of political craft is, to put it politely, silly? The Queen’s Speech should be about the nation’s new economic direction, following the impact of CoVid, instead it was nearly three hours of waffle.
His nonsense about the government inheriting an economy is party propaganda; it did that over two years ago and has gone on to make things worse. His almost weekly reference to Walter Bagehot will give the impression the great man would recognise the UK constitution in 2020. It is tiring and nauseous.
Is the Queen the ultimate power in the UK? Therefore, why the reference? Ezra gives the impression he is well versed in constitutional law, but his writings do not display any of this knowledge. In fact he is a one-eyed man in the land of the blind. He was the expert on the CBC show on the speech and failed, in my mind, to display his expertise.
The independence constitution did not make Barbados a de facto Republic, it confirmed Barbados as an independent sovereign state, a grown up who had left its parents’ home.
His claim the speech contained proposals for reordering and rebuilding the economy says more about his economic illiteracy than it says about the speech.
References to George Pilgrim were malicious and wicked. Pilgrim did not react to the Queen’s Speech because he is not party leader.
It was a long and boring speech with repeated policy proposals and nothing that speaks to the medium and long-term future of the nation.
Ezra should take a break from ranting about the constitution. Bagehot died nearly 150 years ago; admittedly that is what Ezra Learned at law school in London in the 1960s, but the complexity of the British constitution has moved on. He needs fresh reading matter.
LikeLike
The speech was 2hrs 10 minutes.
LikeLike
@Hal
99/100
Based on David’s review I penalized you for stating the incorrect time
LikeLike
“Trade unionist Senator Caswell Franklyn had been criticising Government, saying it was hurting workers by changing legislation which left them with only four weeks to apply for severance.”
don’t mind that shite, if Caswell don’t stay on top of these traitors in 12 months ya will hear those victims of government crying just like the NIS victims and the disabled who are still not getting their money….never listen to the liars of parliament.
LikeLike
LikeLike
LikeLike
LikeLike