Another Hollow Speech

            Unless I’m mistaken, the very first post written in this blog was in reference to the 2012 Annual Conference of the People’s National Party, time has certainly flown as just yesterday the Peoples National Party held its 2013 national conference to culminate a month long of activities in which the PNP celebrated its 75^th anniversary as a movement having been founded by the Right Excellent Norman Manley in September 1938.

                            

As is traditional of party conferences on both sides of the political divide, the highlight of the day was the speech by Party Leader Portia Simpson Miller (who also happens to be the current  Prime Minister of Jamaica) , the speech of the Prime Minister was somewhat lacking, she focused much of the first half of her speech retracing the history of the party and its leaders from Norman Manley, his son Michael Manley and then to P.J. Patterson in which she over exaggerated the achievements made under various PNP administrations  over the many years while at the same time completely ignoring some of the failings that also happened in the same  period such as the great social-political upheavals of the 1970s and the Finsac Crisis of the 1990s which did much damage to the middle class and the productive sector, a big part of the reason why Jamaica is where it is today .

                       

                       

The latter part of the comrade leader’s speech was  just as uninspiring , the Prime Minister extended her speech by constant repetition,  glorifying the few achievements of the PNP since they retook the reins of power while failing to accept responsibility for much of the problems that are now facing the nation, choosing instead their populist tag line “it’s JLP’s fault”, how convenient of her to forget that the People’s National Party was in power for 18 years from 1989 to 2007, while the Labour Party had only a four stint from 2007-2011, there is no way that the multi-billion dollar debt that the country now has could be all JLP’s fault.  Comrade Portia in her speech missed the mark by failing to address important national issues such as unemployment, the debt burden and the crime rate, she also did not hesitate to cast cold water on those who criticized the secrecy of her dealings with the Chinese concerning the global logistic hub, though she mentioned a few points it was not enough to give anyone a real idea of what the vision of her government really was. Also surprising was her total silence on the matter of corruption, which given the scandals that are currently rocking the People’s National Party one would have expected that she would be more forthcoming on the matter yet she continues to give full support to both Philip Paulwell and Richard Azan who has now resigned his cabinet post as though they did nothing wrong (see http://jamaicatory.blogspot.com/2013/09/contractor-general-vs-pnp.html).

                      

In like manner as 2012, the Jamaican Tory must again classify the PM’s 2013 conference speech as being devoid of any real substance (see http://jamaicatory.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-really-must-comment-on-speech-given.html), a view shared by many political commentators and private sector interest groups ,The PM should take care to remember  that even though those  seated in front of her are primarily fellow comrades, her speech is broadcasted live to the entire nation in which Comrades, Labourites and all manner of other stakeholders are looking to her not only as Party Leader but more importantly as Prime Minister  to hear what plans her government has in store for the country, clearly her speech has fail to hit home with many audiences hence the reviews.