JOAN Gordon-Webley, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) candidate for South-East St Andrew, has thrown cold water on the party’s apology for her reported likening of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to Jezebel, the unsavory biblical character who met an untimely death at the hands of her servants.

The apology was made by the party’s general secretary Karl Samuda on Thursday, following Gordon-Webley’s reported reference to Simpson Miller as a Jezebel, as Gordon-Webley addressed a group of party supporters at a JLP divisional conference in Albert Town, Trelawny last Sunday night.

“Why should he apologise? He apologised for himself. I don’t know who he is apologising for. He made his apology and didn’t even hear the tape, so I don’t understand for whom he was apologising, or for what,” Gordon-Webley told the Sunday Observer on Friday.

Party leader Bruce Golding has, in the interim, confirmed publicly that Samuda’s apology reflected the JLP’s view on the issue, while noting he had met with political ombudsman Bishop Herro Blair to discuss it.

According to Golding, Blair had viewed the tape at the CVM studios, and had confirmed to him that what happened was, “in the course of making her comments, somebody in the audience said ‘Jezebel’ and Mrs Gordon-Webley’s response was, ‘yes, Jezebel'”.

“It wasn’t a comment that was initiated by her; it was initiated by somebody in the audience. Bishop Blair confirmed that to me yesterday,” added Golding, who was speaking at his post-budget briefing at Belmont Road on Friday.

But not withstanding that, he said there was a line that politicians have to be careful not to cross, and that this latest incident was a “thin part of that line”.

“We have insisted that our candidates observe that line because it is not just a question of decency alone, it is a question of – and I made the point yesterday – I intend to lead a government that is going to be able to command the support, not the voting support but the support in terms of nation building, of PNP supporters right across the island,” the Opposition leader said.

“They may not vote for us, but in terms of the kind of government that we are going to lead, we expect to get the goodwill of PNP supporters and, therefore, we have to build the foundation for that goodwill. Those foundations will have to be built by mutual respect, by being respectful of our opponents and, in that sense, Mrs Webley’s acceptance of this comment that came from the crowd does not conform with the standards that we want to lay down,” Golding added.

He concluded that he would be visiting Gordon-Webley’s constituency today and would speak with her on the matter.

But the JLP candidate has maintained she did nothing wrong, insisting she was simply reading from the Bible.

“I wanted to tell my audience that the Bible speaks of false prophets and it also told us about a Jezebel who used false prophets; and what she did using these false prophets and how she ended up. That’s all,” said Gordon-Webley, who is best remembered for her bitterly fought 1980 election campaign in which her People’s National Party (PNP) opponent, Roy McGann, was killed by police under questionable circumstances.

“In other words, I am not playing no prophet here. I am merely reading God’s words that we need to be careful, because the Bible speaks. I am not saying Portia is a Jezebel. I am not doing that. I am reading from the Bible,” she added.

At the same time, she suggested that people have been reading too much into what was said.

“Everybody picks a line and nobody reads exactly what happened before. It does not make sense. I spoke about Delilah. I spoke about Rebecca. And even the Jezebel that I spoke about, I quoted from the Bible,” Gordon-Webley said.

“All Jezebel was. was a queen. And she took unto herself some false prophets and she used that for her purposes. And it would be nice if someone took the time out to go to the Bible and see Jezebel inside of the Bible,” she added.

Trade Unionist Lambert Brown has, however, urged the JLP to take disciplinary action against Gordon-Webley.

“Someone says show me your friends, I’ll tell you who you are. That’s what the JLP needs to understand, that if they don’t take action against her, they will appear to be condoning it – notwithstanding any apologies,” Brown told the Sunday Observer.

He added that Gordon-Webley’s statements reflected a “throwback to the worst days of tribalism in Jamaica.

“It’s outrageous. It’s rude. It’s a throwback to the worse days of tribalism in the country. It’s not just her alone, the people who took her back in the party should also be held responsible,” Brown noted.

Gordon-Webley, for her part, insists she cannot be held responsible for other people’s interpretation of what was said.

“I can’t concern myself with people who want to put their own interpretation to it for their own reasons. I spoke from the Bible – the very Bible that Portia Simpson professes to love and know. I know it too. I know the Bible,” she said.

“I can’t be responsible for other connotations that other people want to bring to it. I opened my Bible. I am a Christian and I know about what I spoke about,” she added.

Asked whether her statement could be interpreted, if not as a slur at Simpson Miller then as a caution to the PM, Gordon-Webley said no.

“It is no word of caution. She is in her own right to carry herself the way she feels fit. I am only saying that in light of the fact that someone has held on to the Good Book, we must also understand that the Good Book gives us a number of lessons. If you read it you will see the lessons,” she said.

Gordon-Webley, described by some as a firebrand JLP politician, last made the headlines in September last year, following her claims that she was caught at the centre of a bitter feud between communist and moderate factions of the PNP within the constituency she hopes to lead following the next general elections. That constituency is currently held by the PNP’s Maxine Henry-Wilson, also the island’s Minister of Education and Youth.

At the time she spoke of the communist plot, Gordon-Webley also fingered Simpson Miller as being responsible for the violence that was being experienced in the troubled Mountain View community.

“She is the one that has spurred Mountain View into the situation you see there now. I lay the blame squarely at her feet,” Gordon-Webley said of the PM then.

Her statements attracted the rancour of the PNP and led to the postponement of a planned peace walk through the volatile community. Samuda responded then too, noting at the time that the particular matter would be reviewed by the party even as the “JLP has no intention of causing the campaign to get bogged down in wild accusations and counter-accusations”.

Additional reporting by Balford Henry

and Kerry McCatty.