If ever there were to be a master class in political pretence, Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne could indeed teach it. The inveterate party-hopper who has come to be known more so for the number of times he has changed his allegiance from one political party to the next, than for his contribution to actual policy, indicated to President [Dame Sandra] Mason that he was no longer in support of the government and would now serve as the official opposition.
It was not that long ago that I witnessed Thorne, then draped in the brightest Barbados Labour Party red, take to the stage in Oistins at a pre-election meeting on Mother’s Day 2018, in full view of scores of loyal supporters. In a speech he himself titled “Dictatorship,” he likened the then Democratic Labour Party administration to “an authoritarian government… a dictatorship… reminiscent of Hitler’s Germany”, while comparing the then prime minister’s comments to those of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist. He began that speech proclaiming that he was on a “moral crusade”. His words, not mine.
You will understand then why the irony was not lost on me when Thorne standing in the “safe confines”, as he put it, of the premises in George Street once again proffered the term “dictatorship” as a description of the current government. Of course, Thorne’s hat-in-hand presence in George Street has only served to expose the many fractures that still persist within the Democratic Labour Party. Testimony to this was the unusual fashion in which his membership application, greeted by welcomed fanfare by some, was then called into question by their executive council and acceptance of said delayed before its eventual approval.
Thorne’s calling card of invoking a conscience guided by the Almighty to stand up against an alleged oppressive government is getting quite stale. He would do well to remember the commitment he made at the aforementioned meeting to those who would go on to become his constituents when he was elected a few days later. He declared: “Is this not a mission tonight that seeks to elevate the people of Christ Church South out of the abyss of non-representation?” It would appear that such a promise could as well have been written on water as he himself admitted that he had absented himself from his constituency for an extended period of time, a clear abdication of his responsibilities as the parliamentary representative of those good people.
Thorne seems to be trapped in old-fashioned party politics in which he has lost the use of his ideological and philosophical compasses. He now practises not politics of conviction but rather that of convenience. Indeed, some people view politics as a service to others while some view it as an opportunity for themselves. We must now wonder which side of that proverbial coin Thorne now resides.
Ross Maynard
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