The Prime Minister and his handlers may feel they won the battle of the news conference last week; but the more critical assessment required is one to determine how the PM and Govern- ment fare in the war for minds and hearts of the watching public.

Indeed, it could be that the Prime Minister and the Government scored even lower in the public opinion stakes because of Mr Manning’s manoeuvrings, wanderings, circumventions and in a few instances outright re-fusal to answer questions which had a clear public interest involved. The information revolution has created a more informed and sophisticated audience. Viewers, listeners, readers are connected to and are interacting with major media of the world. And they are not merely absorbing information, but sharpening their analytical skills and are not easily fooled by political spin. In immediate feedback to the Manning news conference, viewers of the three major television news stations on the evening gave Prime Minister Manning a disapproval rating of over 90 and 75 per cent for his performance at the news conference. On the radio talk shows, the audience was quite scathing in its response to the Prime Minister’s chosen reactions to the questions. Sure there is no science to the polls and the reaction on the radio and television talk shows, none-theless when opinion received on three different television stations, with three different audiences, and a variety of radio stations bears such similarity, can it be dismissed as not being indicative of a wider view?

Moreover, the callers and those on the news media were quite castigating of what they interpreted to be prime ministerial arrogance and continuing blind loyalty to Calder Hart, and this in the face of the fact that the Attorney General found there was compelling evidence that Mr Hart does “have questions to answer.” Politicians have an infinite capacity to delude themselves; their advisers perpetuate the delusion by telling them only what they want to hear; the result: the PM and his Government live their delusion. At the news conference, the Prime Minister followed what has become the mantra decided upon by the Cabinet. “As of now Mr Hart is guilty of nothing. There have been a lot of allegations in the public domain, there have been investigations going on and that it would be absolutely wrong for the Prime Minister to have behaved in a manner to suggest that Mr Hart was guilty or otherwise” was the line taken by Prime Minister Manning. But judged by his own stipulated standards has the Prime Minister been truly neutral in not seeking to determine “guilt or otherwise” of the Harts? In his contribution to debate in the House of Representatives on October 21, 2009, Manning adopted the statement of Udecott “that the executive chairman of the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago and his wife, Mr and Mrs Calder Hart, categorically deny any interest or involvement in CH Development and that any member of their family was involved in the award of the contract for the construction of the Ministry of Legal Affairs towers.

“The spurious and untrue allegations levelled by an Opposition Member of Parliament, under parliamentary privilege, are a blatant attempt to publicly tarnish the reputations of private individuals and were unfortunate.” But the PM did not leave it there. He slammed the Opposition spokesmen in the House of Representatives who “prefer to rely on the evidence of a jilted lover; that is what it is,” said the Prime Minister with a certain amount of authority that the information given in a statement to the Uff Commission by the former husband of Sherrine Hart, Carl Khan, could not be trusted. So here is one instance in which Prime Minister Manning did not stand on the fence. He took a position on the innocence of the Harts, and this even though his Attorney General had found cause enough to initiate an investigation into Hart. Whatever he has said about Calder Hart since this matter broke fully in the public’s eye back in May of 2008, the Prime Minister through his statements on the issues has been uncompromisingly, in his non-verbals, in the corner of Hart and quite hostile to any suggestion from any quarter that Hart could possibly be guilty of anything. Indeed, the Prime Minister had to be publicly weighed-down by information that Hart and his wife are allegedly connected to Sunway before he grudgingly determined to establish the commission of enquiry into the matter.

But even then, the Prime Minister sought to defuse the focus of the enquiry by adding the entire construction industry to the Uff Commission. Contrast that approach to the Prime Minister’s action in the Rowley matter when he took it personally upon himself, with even less compelling evidence than that brought against Hart, to demand of his former minister answers as to where the $10 million gone. Then there are these other contradictions: the PM refuses to speak of his conversation with Hart, yet he gave verse and chapter about his meeting with Chief Justice Sharma, the issue being allegations against the CJ and his alleged desire to resign. What is the difference? The state-directed investigations of September languishes, the report is kept secret, and is overtaken by the investigations of COP; when his Housing Minister raised questions about seeming runaway power of Hart, Manning fired him without giving Dr Rowley the opportunity to defend himself; very different from the position now that Hart must be allowed to defend himself without conclusions being drawn against him. There is also the unacceptable position adopted by the Prime Minister and his ministers in relation to Udecott that the corporation had to be given a certain amount of autonomy in these matters.

But if the Cabinet, the minister, the Government do not have full and detailed responsibility for supervising the expenditure of billions of taxpayers’ dollars, then there should be no cabinet, no minister and no government. These are but a few of the reasons why the Prime Minister and the Government continue to score low points on the marking sheets of what must be large segments of the population. Recently, the PNM chairman sought to make a case that the party has not been tarnished by all of this: continuing delusion.