Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke didn’t hold back dur­ing a spot meet­ing in Mt Grace on Sat­ur­day night, mock­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s priv­i­leged back­ground ask­ing him to say if he’s ex­pe­ri­enced pover­ty or hard­ship.

Duke ac­cused Young of be­ing out of touch with the re­al strug­gles of To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“You ever wear your broth­er jock­ey shorts be­fore?” Duke called on Young to say be­fore adding,  “When I was go­ing pri­ma­ry school, things like jock­ey shorts was a lux­u­ry — re­served for church and when you go­ing out.”

He used the mo­ment to slam the new­ly ap­point­ed Prime Min­is­ter, paint­ing him as a man who has no un­der­stand­ing of hard­ship.

“Stu­art Young is a priv­i­leged man. What he know about be­ing bare­foot? You know how long I walk bare­foot be­fore I get shoes? When I got a slip­per, it was a big thing for me. I didn’t born big so. It’s the ex­pe­ri­ences that make you tough.”

Duke said Young couldn’t re­late to To­ba­go life and had no busi­ness try­ing to lead the coun­try.

“He on­ly know about white fowl. He nev­er catch a yard fowl yet. What he know about roast bread­fruit with a lit­tle bit of but­ter? What them know about life?”

He con­tin­ued, “Man, Stu­art Young rock so eh. You can’t run no coun­try here. You don’t know about hard life.”

Duke al­so took shots at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s To­ba­go East and West can­di­dates Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy and Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, call­ing them “two lit­tle pom-pom girls run­ning around say­ing vote for Stu­art Young.”

“No To­bag­o­ni­ans will ever vote again for the PNM,” he said. “They have dis­re­spect­ed you.”

He al­so ac­cused for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of walk­ing away from To­ba­go with­out help­ing his peo­ple thrive. 

“We have a prime min­is­ter who re­tire and say he worked for To­ba­go. What work he do? What has he done for you?”

Duke said un­der the PDP, To­ba­go would no longer be tak­en for grant­ed say­ing “re­al bad men” are need­ed to de­mand To­ba­go gets every­thing it needs from Par­lia­ment.