Martin Daly

One year ago, the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) brought itself into disrepute and tarnished the institutional reputation of the Judiciary by the blunder of the appointment and “un-appointment” of the then Chief Magistrate, Marcia Ayers-Caesar, to the High Court Bench. The JLSC never begged pardon for its blunder …

At the end of this column I will adopt the words of a recent editorial in the Trinidad Express newspaper on violent crime even as the murderers, whom we have undoubtedly empowered, laugh in our faces. Meanwhile, I have been dwelling on the richness of our culture and its potential …

“Stay in tong!” I shouted those words on Sunday last, in appreciation of the scintillating performance of Coffee Street, San Fernando band, Skiffle, in Adam Smith Square, Woodbrook, Port of Spain, at the second event put on by the Music in the Districts programme. This event confirmed that other pan …

What a weekend last week: Carib Dance made a brilliant and authentic statement of the legacy of Beryl Mc Burnie in celebration of seventy years of the Little Carib Theatre and Starlift steel orchestra got the memo that changeovers from band to band must not stall. Ten minutes between bands …

In parts of the Caribbean, including here in Trinidad and Tobago, fooling someone is referred to as “giving a six for a nine.” Last week, a High Court Judge was arrested and charged with—as it is popularly known—driving under the influence. After his court appearance, it was reported that the …

Sheku Kanneh-Mason, aged 19, was the cellist at the royal wedding Saturday before last. Just about the time he was playing Schubert’s Ave Maria, in a setting of style and civility, two things happened. The first was my train of thought that we had artistes of high calibre, who could …

Anyone with a copy of The Daly Commentaries or a good memory will know that these columns have repeatedly condemned the dreadful expression “collateral damage”. On Monday last, that phrase was disparaged in an editorial in this newspaper entitled “Crossing the 200-murder mark.” Unfortunately, it is “more than a few …

Within the last fortnight, the deadly weapons of privilege or perceptions of privilege in our socially fractured islands have again been assaulting us, albeit in very different contexts. The High Court gave a judgement in which the State, not for the first time, was ordered to pay damages to two …

Extensive comment on current events in Venezuela is not for me to make, but I am confident that events unfolding there are the outcome of a long-standing bitter polarisation between the Venezuelan political and socio-economic elite and the working class. When the poor and dispossessed eventually found a champion in …

Later today at the Tobago Jazz Experience 2018, Fantasia is scheduled to be a headline act. I do not know in what keys Fantasia sings her rhythm and blues, but her appearance in Tobago today is a case of Fantasia in G, because the engagement of such artistes is part …

Reliable sources have confirmed that a minister who is being re-assigned from one ministry to another is not required to be sworn in consequent upon his re-assignment. As a result of a mistaken belief that another swearing-in was necessary when Darryl Smith was moved from the Ministry of Sport to …

Scenes in the public life in Trinidad and Tobago have become so unreal that I have been listening to Brother Valentino’s “Life is a stage” to re-digest his opinion that in Trinidad and Tobago we live in a never-ending movie in which we all have a role to play. Ministers …