Dawn Ritch, Contributor

The middle-class perspective on Jamaican politics is often too funny to be true.

Take, for example, the attitude towards Dr. Vin Lawrence, eminence grise of the Patterson administration, and now, thankfully gone. Much of what he is blamed for could not have happened without the complicity of certain people in the private sector. Those people are now floundering madly about looking for the next star to which to hitch their wagon.

Among the chattering middle classes, however, Vin's departure from the public scene sank like a stone. After his recent departure not a soul remarked upon it, nor the significance it must hold for the character of a Simpson Miller administration.

As far as the middle class is concerned, Phillip Paulwell is nothing but a bumbling idiot. As Minister of Industry and Commerce he has cost the country hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars through his serial and bad decisions, they say.

Yet, I am reliably informed that in Cabinet meetings he was against the selling of the cement company to the Trinidadians, and against giving them a monopoly even after it was sold. Paulwell was also against the sale of the Jamaica Public Service Company to Mirant. It seems a shame to shoot him now, merely because his objection to these decisions have been vindicated by subsequent events.

Disagreed with policies

He could have resigned in protest from Cabinet and gone to the back bench in Parliament. But he did not. Neither did Mrs. Simpson Miller when she disagreed with policies put through by the then Prime Minister P. J. Patterson. She has lived not only to see another day, but to be elected president of the People's National Party (PNP) and become Prime Minister. If it's good enough for Portia, then it's good enough for Paulwell. The hangman can reasonably put away his noose for another day.

We now have a Prime Minister prepared to take action, even though she may be slow, deliberate and determined. Faced with the repeated stumbles of the now foreign-owned cement company and the collapse of the local construction industry, Mrs. Simpson Miller announced the one-year duty-free import of cement. She now has a year in which to study its effect, and decide whether or not it is in the country's interest to allow competition to flourish in this area.

The middle class has long had a love affair with Dr. Peter Phillips, Minister of National Security. His tertiary training, his upper-middle class background and association with the remnants of Drumblair all recommended themselves mightily. The same ones who praised him in media were calling for his removal from that ministry once Mrs. Simpson Miller became Prime Minister. We don't hear much from him these days because he's still sulking in the background. So much for middle-class loyalty.

Much the same can be said of Dr. Omar Davies. For some unknown reason, many in the middle class publicly said he was the best minister of finance the country had ever had. Of all three candidates in the PNP presidential race, he had the richest bank account. It didn't even get him 300 votes.

Despite the financial support of some of the richest corporations in the country he still lost. And as soon as he'd lost, the middle class changed their tune and called for his removal as finance minister. I agree with their most recent position, but it only goes to show how quickly they change their tune.

Bruce Golding, now Leader of the Opposition, has been the darling of media and the middle class for a very long time. They say he delivers himself well when he speaks. They all gobble it up without pausing to notice that most of it is foolishness.

Background

No one takes the time to look at his performance when he was Minister of Construction in the JLP government of the 1980s. All they say is that no houses were built and that the Forum hotel was bought and sold a number of times. None of this is said in any disparaging way by the middle class, but merely as some sort of background.

How seriously therefore, can one take the political views of the middle class? In the absence of information, they form settled opinions. When information is inconvenient, they blithely ignore it.

Their poor views however on Maxine Henry-Wilson, Minister of Education, are at one with her performance. They don't like her, and there is no possibility that she can redeem herself. This has nothing to do with the perspicacity of the middle class. It has everything to do with the fact she always seems to be quarrelling in front of the television cameras, and is seriously overweight. In their eyes this means that she need not detain us.

Babsy Grange, JLP Member of Parliament, comes from the ghetto. The middle class will therefore, never admit that she dresses beautifully and has better manners than most people who sit in Parliament. She has a very good mind and a keen sense of fair play. But to the middle class and indeed her own party, she is destined to remain perceived as just Seaga's flunky.

There was a time when Audley Shaw, deputy leader in the JLP, was on everyone's lips, above all the middle class. Now the tongues have fallen silent. Even they, it seems, can sense when someone lacks the courage required for leadership.

If everyone could be a successful politician, there would be no end of candidates. But very few people are prepared to take the risk, much less endure the real possibility of obvious failure and public humiliation.

Roger Clarke, Minister of Agriculture, is a man the whole country loves to laugh at. He has a belly like a badly inflated rubber tube. Roger takes ridicule well, and always with a smile. Now he's presiding over the resurgence of Jamaican agriculture, and having the last laugh. Now that's a politician with guts.

He demonstrates that the race is not for the swift, nor necessarily for the pretty. Now that he has a prime minister who will take action, he may even sort out sugar and bananas.

Most admired Governor-General

When Clifford Campbell became Governor-General, the Jamaican middle class groaned in unison. He was short and black. But Sir Clifford became the most admired Governor-General the country has ever had.

I doubt that P. J. Patterson was ever admired either at the beginning or the end. He kept winning elections because the JLP found internal intrigue vastly more engaging than representational politics. From what I hear, that has not changed. The electoral outcome is therefore, likely to remain the same, only worse, because their new leader may have a touch, but not a common one. If middle-class wishes were horses, beggars would ride.