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I could never figure out how Ashfield Devent’s experience as a television court reporter qualified him to be Minister of Works & Housing. It’s obvious now that his sole purpose was to be the fall guy for the incompetence of previous Ministers.

Alex Scott was the Minister of Works when they broke ground at the ‘Berkeley Money Pit’. He was the one who hired ‘Pro Active’, but rather than be ‘the Man’ he got Ashfield to fire them — then he fired Ashfield. Someone had to pay for Alex’s mistakes and it can’t be Alex.

That’s the beauty of our political system — there’s collective responsibility, but no one is to blame. Except Ashfield.

Of course, now the Premier says he expects Cabinet Ministers to perform and actually do what they promise.

That sounds to me like an admission that this was not the case in the past.

Anyway, if he’s really going to remove Ministers who do not accomplish anything he’ll have to do more than a simple ‘changing of the guard’.

It’ll require something more along the lines of ‘Extreme Makeover: Parliamentary Edition’ and there just isn’t the talent available for that.

And now Colonel Burch is back in the cabinet. At least this shows the PLP is committed to recycling.

And am I the only one who noticed the irony of someone as notoriously hard-headed and inflexible as the Colonel finding himself in charge of a cement company?

Another Throne Speech brings ANOTHER housing strategy — maybe this one will actually include building houses.

The past seven years have shown that the PLP was more interested in ensuring that their cronies owned the Cement Company than actually using cement to build houses.

And I can’t decide which ‘plan’ was worse — bringing in prefab houses without knowing where they will put them, or holding a lottery for low cost home purchasers when they didn’t have the land, or financing secured to build them.

Collective responsibility, but no one is to blame. Except Ashfield.

But, with five Housing Ministers in seven years, the Premier must be running out of political suicide bombers — fanatical followers willing to blow up themselves (and their political careers) for ‘the cause’.

And I see The Department of Education is moving ahead with its plan to rename our schools. Talk about ‘fiddling while Rome burns’.

I don’t care if you call them all ‘Alex Scott Academy’ (and don’t think that hasn’t crossed his mind) as long as you teach the kids. The name of the school is irrelevant if the ‘graduates’ can’t spell it!

But the PLP has always been more interested in changing the appearance of things without actually changing how things are. That’s why they continue to push for Independence instead of concentrating on housing, education, crime, and health care.

Part of the problem is that education is not sexy. Right now cricket is sexy. Government gave $1 million for the ‘Legends Match’ and another $11 million for CBC.

There’s lots of glamour in cricket right now — and more importantly for Government, lots of travel and parties.

Football would be getting the same treatment if the BFA could get their act

together.

But as long as ‘Central Defence’ refers to police in anti-machete gear they’ll have to find other benefactors.

I guess we’ll have to make reading and mathematics our national sports before they get the attention they deserve.

And as for Berkeley’s vanishing Spanish teacher — Madre de Dios! Pida Fidel! What’s the point in having a super-secret memorandum on cultural exchange with Cuba if we can’t get a Spanish teacher when we need one?[[In-content Ad]]

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