Have I ever lied to you before? And even if you did not believe me – after the Chief Minister’s exhibition of his reading skills, during the Budget Address, you will have to believe me now. The man can’t read. And he has reached the level of his incompetence. What we saw was a bizarre demonstration of a 1940’s Standard One child struggling to put a few words together.
It was sorrowful and pathetic because the un-rehearsed recitation was not coming from a kindergarten child but from Anguilla’s Chief Minister. “Lord have mercy! What a ting!” Fellow Anguillians, it is not because I am not in the Chief Minister’s corner — but I firmly believe that Anguilla deserves better. This island is in a political quagmire. The Speaker can’t write as witnessed by her recent public correspondence, and the rest of the “me too-ers” are saying that there is no need for education in Anguilla politics. Disgusting!
So what we are now confronting is a race to the bottom organized by these people and their handlers. Then when they meet someone who can read better than Mr. Hughes they call them elitist. But you who watched his performance, and heard his rendition of the Budget Speech, must now realize that he can’t cope. As a matter of fact, he should have released himself from reading the Speech in the first place. He should have allowed somebody else who can read at a more advance level to deliver the material rather than to expose his deficiencies.
With regard to his capabilities, one wonders: if he can’t deliver properly before people who he knows — what will he do in England and the EU in front of people he has never seen before. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt. Was he “couching” something? Because he seemed uncomfortable as he read. He interjected with hints that he did not like certain things and signaled that he felt forced to conform with them. But that’s him! He must always have someone else to blame.
But he is the Chief Minister and the chief mouthpiece for Anguilla, and yet these civil servants can make him say what he does not believe. He is contradictory because he denigrates British Governors as clerks. Then he comes on with his “mumbo jumbo” like a little boy reciting: “Hey diddle-diddle, the cat on the fiddle!”
When he talks like that, and then reads like that, they must be laughing and saying: “My gosh golly, it is time for Hughes and folly!” He intimated that things in the Budget Speech could be revisited and even changed. So the thing he was mumbling over is not the real thing. The vexing thing is: the more you tell them to raise the bar the deeper they fall in the political abyss.
The problem inherent in the expressions of the Parliamentary Secretary is that he feels any number plays – and why should Anguilla be like Barbados; Montserrat; St Kitts-Nevis, Antigua, Dominica Grenada, and the rest. To them the question is: “Why fly like an eagle when you walk like duck?” We cannot support such a debasing attitude in the political life of Anguilla. For your sake they have to go!
Anguilla should not be intimidated by the words of sacrilegious naysayers and other such behind the scene operators. They have done their worst – and we must do our best and make sure they are gone and have taken their inefficiencies with them.
Thankfully, fellow Anguillians, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This regime has been a crash and the light in the distance coming towards us is the next election because there will be better equipped representatives than before.
What was he couching? Was he reading like that because he is playing brer fox and cunningly signaling to the audience that he had no part in it, and was only doing it “per force”? In other words, “them boys give it to me read so I read it” or that he had not read the speech before.
However, and whatever the scenario, the Speech was poorly read and the Chief was also threatening changes as he went along. That raises the question of who is in charge of raising and spending money. The question is — given ”Haydn’s Law” that you do not need education to be a politician in Anguilla — then is Hughes able to handle the Ministry of Finance portfolio? Nothing in his background has prepared him for this. And you know what — the man can’t read! Then what cause him to get there? First you recognize the period of time; the state of politics; who was there; who wanted to get involved; and what were the requirements. Apparently, one of the requirements was the ability to cuss — he has always been the best ”cusser” so he cussed his way to the top.
Now that times have changed it is hoped that the Parliament Secretary acknowledges for “competence sake” the need for knowledge. He must see a country’s growth in terms of the presence of economic affluence but also consider the impact of ignorance on social impotence as well. He must listen to the poor performance of the CM in the House of Assembly then listen to a six year old anywhere in Anguilla. He will then conclude – quite fairly – that if the reader in the House is the CM — then that little boy should be King.
Finally, if the CM cannot read a Budget Speech given to him by others, can he prepare one himself?
