PM: Panday should shut up

By Clint Chan Tack Friday, November 30 2007

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday ought to shut up and stop criticising the Government about the upsurge in crime, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said yesterday.

“He ought to be told to shut up. I think that would help all of us.

The comments I made on the crime situation had nothing to do with the Honourable Leader of the Opposition. It had to do with the levels of security that our people enjoy.”

Manning gave this response to remarks Panday made that the Prime Minister was irresponsible for saying he found the rise in crime since the November 5 General Election “very strange”.

This was Manning’s reaction when questioned by reporters at the post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall on the spate of murders on his return from Uganda, where he attended the Common-wealth Heads of Government summit, on Wednesday night.

“I could easily invoke the comments of the very distinguished King of Spain when he was dealing with the President of Venezuela,” Manning quipped. He was referring to King Juan Carlos I who told Venezuela President Hugo Chavez to shut up at summit of Latin American leaders in Chile on November 10.

The King had chastised Chavez for his interruptions during the summit and the Venezuelan leader retorted by inferring that Spain new of the plot to overthrow him in a previous coup attempt.

Manning hit out at Panday and said his concession speech after the election demonstrated that the UNC leader was in no position to lecture anyone about national responsibility.

Panday had lashed out at the electorate who he said should not complain about murders and kidnappings because it got a government it deserved.

Hours before the press conference, Panday said Manning’s comment about the crime upsurge being “strange” and hinted that it may be political was “most irresponsible.”

Panday said it was another admission of the PNM’s “total failure” to deal with crime. He added that as Prime Minister and chairman of the National Security Council, Manning could not make any inferences about the crime wave without evidence.

Why the fock Manning doh stop pussyfooting and get started on running the fockin country.

First he and all he fockin baboons run up to Salybia to fockin fete after the election and as if that wasnt enough, he gone to some fockin useless Commonwealth shit to spree with the fockin guerilla leaders in Africa.

For God sake, Panday is not the fockin leader of the fockin government and ah doh know when some people will realise that. He not running the fockin country man.

The people have spoken in the election and all yuh get wa d fock all yuh deserve.