Pe­ter Bal­roop

Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) pres­i­dent Er­ic "Pink Pan­ther" Tay­lor has slammed The Orig­i­nal De Fos­to Him­self for bring­ing the late Lord Kitch­en­er's lega­cy in­to dis­re­pute and gen­u­flect­ing at the al­tar of the almighty dol­lar. Both De Fos­to, re­al name Win­ston Scar­bor­ough and Ed­win "Crazy" Ay­oung will ex­pe­ri­ence fall­out from their con­tro­ver­sial po­lit­i­cal ca­lyp­soes, he pre­dicts. Tay­lor, al­ready on the cam­paign trail for the rul­ing PNM seek­ing to keep the To­co-San­gre Grande seat for the par­ty in the up­com­ing May 24 polls, says he was shocked at the an­ti-PNM tone of De Fos­to's lat­est hit Ah Not Vot­ing For Dat. It was a com­po­si­tion that would have Kitch­en­er, who was in­stru­men­tal in hon­ing De Fos­to's ca­lyp­so skills, turn­ing in his grave, Pink Pan­ther slammed.

He said he gave both De Fos­to, and Crazy, who al­so has an an­ti-PNM ca­lyp­so, full marks for be­ing quick on the draw with their com­po­si­tions to have them on the road well in time to be cap­i­talised on dur­ing the course of the snap elec­tion cam­paign. But he hoped they could live with the fall­out when the polls are over. "There def­i­nite­ly will be fall­out. When you take a po­si­tion you have to abide with the con­se­quences. "They will have fans who are PNM, UNC, COP... "Some of the fans will take what they are singing per­son­al­ly. "Peo­ple in T&T are se­ri­ous about their pol­i­tics and their re­li­gions. So they can ex­pect some mea­sure of fall­out," Tay­lor pre­dict­ed.

"De Fos­to al­ways claimed to be a fan of Kitch­en­er; he was al­ways up un­der Kitch, but his stance now says that was nev­er true.... "He sur­prise me. He is true to Jack Warn­er and them and their mon­ey.

"Some peo­ple's re­li­gion is mon­ey. You have to re­spect that too..." Tay­lor added. De Fos­to in TV and ra­dio in­ter­views this week ex­plains he felt moved to cre­ate the ca­lyp­so be­cause while he was a Man­ning and PNM sup­port­er at heart, he felt the par­ty was stray­ing from its moor­ings and need­ed a jolt to get back on track. Peo­ple might love the PNM, but they need­ed change, De Fos­to ar­gued. Food, wa­ter, hos­pi­tal beds and im­proved old age pen­sions are what the peo­ple need, and what they should get, De Fos­to ar­gues in de­fend­ing his ef­fort.