Patrick Hanley, CM Hubert Hughes and Keithstone Greaves
Radio Anguilla’s weekly feature programme, Talk Anguilla (with Keithstone Greaves), provided much public interest in that, for the first time, it involved members of the Government, the Opposition and non-elected persons aspiring to political office – all sitting together at the microphones.
In addition to Mr Hubert Hughes, there were his newly-appointed Special Adviser, Patrick Hanley; Parliamentary Secretary, Haydn Hughes; Opposition Leader Evans Rogers and his colleague Othlyn Vanterpool of the Anguilla United Front; and Sutcliffe Hodge, who will be contesting The Valley North constituency seat.
The lead was initially taken by Chief Minister Hughes who spoke about his recent trips abroad in particular to Gibraltar and the United Kingdom. He said that among other matters his talks in London included the two indigenous commercial banks and the intervention of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to prevent them from collapsing. “If the two national banks had collapsed, obviously the island would have been declared a failed state by Britain and I am not sure that’s not exactly what Britain would want,” he charged.
He went on: “Everyone knows the situation in Montserrat. With the volcano situation there, Montserrat ceased to be a state and Britain now controls Montserrat – and Britain is pumping a lot of money in Montserrat because she owns Montserrat. And I am not sure that Britain does not want to own Anguilla. For all that went on in our history, I still believe that there are elements in the Foreign Office who still see Anguilla as a prize that they would like to win.”
On his visit to Gibraltar, he was in agreement with the Chief Minister there, that there should be regular meetings of the Caribbean and Atlantic Overseas Territories. He said that such meetings would enable the leaders to come up with a common approach to the similar problems facing each of the territories.
Chief Minister Hughes said that among Anguilla’s needs were a new airport, increased airlift, financial assistance and economic development. These and other matters were discussed in detail by all the persons in the Radio Anguilla studio.
Another matter which led to much discussion between Mr Hughes and Sutcliffe Hodge was that there were elements of corruption in Anguilla which needed investigation.
Although the matters raised were regarded as serious issues of national concern, there was a general spirit of cooperation and camaraderie among the diverse discussion group.
