Par­lia­ment is the high­est po­lit­i­cal au­thor­i­ty in any coun­try for ad­dress­ing and solv­ing na­tion­al prob­lems, so even as our Prime Min­is­ter and his par­ty col­leagues seek to por­tray them­selves as the best can­di­dates for the min­is­te­r­i­al and lead­er­ship po­si­tions they cur­rent­ly en­joy, what mat­ters more is ev­i­dence of their fit­ness for of­fice by their ex­am­ple and per­for­mance whilst in the po­si­tion.

Events of the past few days evoke the ca­lyp­son­ian Ex­plain­er’s un­der­stand­ing of what is re­quired from our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers. The open­ing lines to his clas­sic ca­lyp­so,“Kicksin in Par­lia­ment” clear­ly out­line what cit­i­zens want and ex­pect of their rep­re­sen­ta­tives: “I feel the Gov­ern­ment in this coun­try should treat the coun­try more se­ri­ous­ly. When they have their Par­lia­ment meet­ing some­thing con­struc­tive should be hap­pen­ing.”

What mat­ters are the stan­dards set by our ex­em­plars whose per­for­mances are broad­cast live to the na­tion on the Par­lia­ment Chan­nel. To whom much is giv­en, much is ex­pect­ed.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s child­ish and un­ac­cept­able com­ment re­flect­ed a sense of en­ti­tle­ment and hubris. His words were as un­wise as they were un­se­ri­ous, de­struc­tive, in­ju­di­cious and in­tem­per­ate. In de­mean­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader and the con­stituen­cy she rep­re­sents, he de­meaned him­self and his par­ty.

This is hard­ly good pol­i­tics in an elec­tion year in which the race will be close. The Speak­er was cor­rect in rep­ri­mand­ing Mr Young for “deroga­to­ry”, “ho­mo­pho­bic” and “misog­y­nis­tic” com­ments. Mr. Young’s apol­o­gy ought to have been the end of a dread­ful episode.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter could not miss the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play his favourite card once again. He de­flect­ed from the cur­rent is­sue and por­trayed him­self as a vic­tim by res­ur­rect­ing al­le­ga­tions made in 2015 by then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship MP Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, a fel­low To­bag­on­ian. Rather than mov­ing on, or un­der­lin­ing the les­son for all, there­by af­firm­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tion’s com­mit­ment to a high­er stan­dard of con­duct and ac­count­abil­i­ty, he sought to im­ply that the Op­po­si­tion Leader was at fault.

This is not the ap­proach of a leader or a states­man. His words im­plied that Mr. Young’s con­duct was some­what less rep­re­hen­si­ble be­cause the oth­er side is/or was guilty of the same type of con­duct in the past. His words could be deemed an at­tempt to de­val­ue the ef­fect and im­pact of Mr. Young’s apol­o­gy. Mr Young is yet un­sea­soned in the pol­i­tics de­spite his ap­pren­tice­ship with the Prime Min­is­ter and ap­par­ent se­nior­i­ty.

Lan­guge is a pow­er­ful tool that can be used to bring be­hav­iours in­to be­ing. We all know and un­der­stand that an elec­tion is due in the next 12 months and there will be the in­evitable jock­ey­ing for po­si­tions of promi­nence on the lad­der of po­lit­i­cal ad­vance­ment. How that bat­tle is fought will have reper­cus­sions. Af­ter the elec­tions, the var­i­ous par­ties must work to­geth­er to solve the coun­try’s prob­lems in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

Par­lia­men­tary time is too valu­able to be wast­ed on puerile mat­ters or to give in­to un­ac­cept­able be­hav­iours. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are elect­ed to solve prob­lems not to cre­ate them. These are try­ing times and the coun­try’s deep-seat­ed eco­nom­ic prob­lems should not be sub­or­di­nat­ed to friv­o­li­ties.