February 9 2013
Dear Editor
With the difficult problem facing him and his party, the AUM, as a consequence of the arrest for indecent assault of Walcott Richardson, Chief Minister Hubert Hughes has adopted his favorite political ploy, namely “the best defense is an aggressive offense.”
First, Hughes holds a press conference on Tuesday, 2-5, in which he conveys the impression that he and the Governor are communicating in a mature and cooperative way on how to address the problem of the arrest of an elected member of the Council who has ministerial responsibilities. When asked about the letters he exchanged with the Governor, he suggested that they should be treated as being confidential, a cautious and credible position to take.
But then, the very next day (Wednesday), the Chief Minister releases to the press the letter he had sent to the Governor, which avoids a discussion of the Richardson arrest, and instead covers only the “points” he wants to raise, which are clearly aimed at shifting attention from the travails of Richardson and the AUM.
Among several extraneous points he presents is one that goes back a few years to when Kenneth Harrigan was charged with not having a license for a gun he owned, obviously an embarrassing oversight by the former minister. Hughes goes on in his letter to demand that the Governor provide him with all of the papers in the Governor’s office which relates to that old event.
Hughes further has the gall to say that the gun charge, a minor offense without any victim, is the equivalent crime-wise with the indecent assault charges against Richardson. (He claims that the charges against Harrigan and Richardson fall “within the same category of seriousness.”) So how does the Harrigan situation have any relationship to what most people would recognize as the far more serious charge against Richardson? Other than a clumsy attempt to assist his colleague, by changing the subject while also advancing the ridiculous argument that the charge against Richardson is no more serious than an unlicensed gun charge, what relationship does one event have to the other? The answer: None; but even a poor offense is sometimes deemed to be the best defense.
In last week’s Anguillian, it was also reported that the Chief Minister would be spending several days in the Falklands attending a conference of the BMIR, a European organization which does not involve Anguilla. So apart from it being just another expense paid trip among many, why is he attending this conference on a distant island? What does he expect to learn? At the same time, he is accompanied by the Speaker of the House, Ms. Webster-Bourne, having in mind the limited role she plays in the workings of the government, one might wonder how her attendance at this event will benefit either herself or Anguilla.
Perceptive Citizen
