Tag Archives: UNC

Several readers have pressed me to say how I felt on the merits of the Prime Minister’s Pension (Amendment) Bill, which was passed by a special majority and took away from Stuart Young SC MP a very substantial pension. Young would have had this pension even though he held the …

This last week, those of us who follow cricket witnessed a South African batsman and stand-in captain refuse to chase Brian Lara’s world record. Wiaan Mulder was batting against Zimbabwe, a much weaker side. He explained his decision in these words: “Lara got 401 or whatever it is (400) against …

The recent article by Ashton Ford, former general secretary of the People’s National Movement (PNM), attempts to paint the PNM as a historic champion of labour. While it’s true the party has had moments of engagement with trade unionists and enacted key legislation decades ago, this selective retelling overlooks the …

“[…] Cepep was designed as a springboard—a transitional system for those facing barriers to employment, a way to build dignity through work and community care and structured training. “[…] Eventually, somewhere along the journey, the programme drifted… This drift turned Cepep into a make-work programme that, while providing some income …

I have re-examined the long-standing perils of our manipulable state enterprise system, focusing last week on how inadequately prepared we are for oversight in terms of appropriately trained personnel and available or reliable data. This week I wish to emphasise that it was into that same manipulable environment that the …

As Trinbagonians, we have an aspiration expressed in the phrase ‘all ah we is one family’. Lord Nelson, as a Tobago son, articulated it in song: Family! /Mama tell me since a baby/Doh pass people just so when you in Tobago/ Doh play proudy, tell dem howdy/ Ah say, What’s …

“[…] What kind of society are we building when the working class is always the first to feel the axe? When institutions are reshaped in silence? When accountability is demanded only of ‘the other side’? “[…] Too often, those who cry foul in opposition grow quiet once in power. Outrage …

It is usual for all attention to be put on Tubal Uriah Butler on Labour Day. This year, however, my thoughts were on CLR James, who is arguably our outstanding contribution to political philosophy. In 1962, he wrote an insightful piece called Party Politics in the West Indies, in which …

“[…] The 10 years under the Dr Keith Rowley-led PNM saw a vicious attack on the trade union movement and the working class as that government pursued its neo-liberal policies that result in the rich becoming richer, the middle-income struggle to make ends meet, and the poor not able to …

“There are two things that are important in politics,” said Mark Hanna, a 19th-century businessman and political kingmaker in Cleveland, Ohio. “The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Pete W Moore, the MA Hanna associate professor of politics at Case Western Reserve University in …

The level of divisiveness in our small island nation—about which I gave examples in my recent columns—will undoubtedly compound the difficulty of getting the country as a whole behind the serious fights to survive, which now so starkly face us. It seems to me that, despite the end of the …

Since her return from Opposition to the office of prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar (Kamla) has been putting great emphasis on her United National Congress (UNC) Government treating the battered population with empathy. On the occasion of the ceremonial opening of the new Parliament, a little over a week ago, the …