We suspect that with all its other requirements, having a sense of humour and the capacity to maintain equanimity in the midst of all, are important prerequisites for successfully handling the job of Prime Minister. How else could the PMs abide the political perfidy, often from their own sides, and the obsequious rantings of the favour seekers without going mad?

We would be suprised, therefore, if Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller did not find extremely funny, Michael Gordon's fine photograph that captured her doodling in Parliament last week. We would also be surprised if she agreed with the asinine response of the House, seemingly sanctioned by Speaker Michael Peart.

They have now ruled that journalists, including photographers, will no longer be able to work from the area normally reserved for the Hansard reporters, or the areas directly overhead the Government and Opposition benches. Instead, journalists will be kept corralled in the tiny six-by-six space that was designated the press quarters, at a time when there was only a handful of media in Jamaica and few reporters covering the legislature. But in the last 15 years there has been an explosion of media in Jamaica. Far more reporters now cover the legislature, informing their audiences how the people's representatives conduct the people's business.

What is reported is not always deep and profound, which, we assume, is the reason behind the overreaction to Mr. Gordon's photograph. The fact the PM doodles is not a negative reflection on her competence. It perhaps says more about the persons who attempted to diminish her intellect for a habit she shares with many accomplished, distinguished and deeply intellectual people. It is absolutely crude to argue that the PM could not concentrate on the debate while she scrawled a geometric man, wine glass and beer mug. Indeed, Mrs. Simpson Miller should make light of the psycho-babble that has attended her drawings, leaving to themselves those seeking deeper meaning from her doodlings.

What is really embarrassing is the overreaction by the Government. It conveys from a Prime Minister who declares herself a champion of openness and transparency, a sense of fear of the press and its reporting of the people's business.

Of course, we do not expect that all and every aspect of Government can be conducted in the glare of the public scrutiny or that the public should have access to the PM's most private communication as a matter of course. But it is always a dangerous signal when the first move of Government is to darken, or appear to want to do so, the spotlight of transparency.

If Mrs. Simpson Miller places her doodles in the category of national secrets, she perhaps ought to be discreet in the House.

The answer to the mistaken, but perceived embarrassments such as Mr. Gordon's photo, however, can't be to restrict reporters, who already work under difficult circumstances at Gordon House, further into a cramped ghetto, circumscribing their capacity to do their jobs. That is of no value to the Government or the quality of governance. It is certainly of no value to the people.

In fact, this trifling episode should be one more reason to finally see to the erection of a building with adequate facilities and accommodation befitting a national parliament.