Martin Daly

As readers are aware, I take an empathetic side with those who are dealt blows in a society, which—although mitigated somewhat by the prodigious work of volunteers and the voluntary organisations—has a cruelly indifferent socio-economic structure compounded by unenlightened governance. As recently as April this year, in connection with the …

At the end of last week’s column, I described the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) after the results of its recent internal election as “the Kamla Persad-Bissesar re-embedded UNC”. In the week since that column was written, factionalism has broken out in the UNC. The governing People’s National Movement (PNM), …

I was in Barbados last week. For five days, I was relieved of the need to think about the possibility that someone might try to hold me up or invade the minimally fenced home in which I was staying. Many readers who travel abroad will be well aware of that …

Last week I closed by referring to our democracy’s dysfunctional concentration on personalities and tribal loyalties. This dysfunction acts as a distraction and an excuse for our politicians having to propose policy-based resolutions to our problems. It is a dysfunction with a long history. In July 2003 I asserted as …

With increasing frequency, our editorial writers and commentators treat with our dismal crime situation, which is now oppressing the entire country. The Trinidad Express newspaper has emphasized the link between deadly gang warfare and government make-work contracts that have been issued without credible accountability and safeguards for 40-odd years. This …

With great dismay last Tuesday, I read the lamentation of three government ministers concerning the state of crime in Trinidad & Tobago and the incidence of drug use amongst youths. One of them, Minister Camille Robinson-Regis, felt “helplessness” in the face of violence. The obvious response is to invite her …

An indication given in a weekly column to deal with an identified topic “next week” is one that is difficult to implement. Things keep rapidly falling apart and the nasty quarrels between those in public life who are responsible for our governance burst into the news cycle with an intensity …

I begin this week with a thank you to those in the airport who welcomed me home on the Saturday after Easter with the knowing look of having ‘made me out’. That includes the officers on duty commencing with the friendly immigration officer and I specially acknowledge the charming smile …

It is 22 years to the day that my very first column appeared in the Sunday Express newspaper. It has done so every Sunday since, save and except odd days when I let my caring editors know in advance that I will not submit a column on a particular weekend. …

Last week’s column was forced to return to what I assert is the government’s unwillingness to take any responsibility for the prevailing rampant killings, particularly for the easy passage of guns and drugs into our island for well over a decade. If not government agencies, who else is expected to …

For some weeks this column had been focused on the good, the bad and the ugly of Carnival and its component parts. Last week, I returned to commentary on the government charades that are passed off as effective governance—on that occasion, dealing with the haphazard situation in respect of the …

The centrality of the Panorama competition to the steelband movement cannot be doubted.  However, there are some downsides to it receiving paramount attention. In the Newsday, early last week, Mark Lyndersay penetratingly labelled Carnival as “an entrenched competition economy” and summarised the deficiencies of Carnival in its current form as …