MS Emily Crooks of Nationwide Radio is quite correct in stating yesterday that the biggest challenge going forward for Mr Andrew Holness is how to regain the trust lost with the people of Jamaica after his dangerous sleight of hand in ousting two Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) senators.

Our call for reform of the Senate, in this space just two weeks before the JLP leadership elections, has proven to be quite prophetic. In that editorial on Sunday, October 27, 2013, we expressed grave doubts about the usefulness of the Senate as is. We wrote: “Since the Constitution allows the party commanding the majority in the House to appoint 13 of the 21 members of the Senate, it acts merely as a rubber stamp for anything the ruling party does in the House.

“In addition to its arranged inability to act independently of the House, its capacity for informed debate and constructive review is further undermined by the practice of both the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party of appointing persons who have failed to win a seat in the House, retired politicians who need to be fed from the public coffers, those who aspire to contest for a seat in the House, and wealthy financial contributors to the political parties.”

We, therefore, suggested the need for reform, or abolition, of the Upper House. And this is all before we witnessed the latest action of Mr Holness, who has dealt the Senate its most crippling blow since Independence, by using distastefully contrived resignation letters to achieve the forced removal of senators Christopher Tufton and Arthur Williams.

What this demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt is that Mr Holness is, immutably, a creature of the old divisive culture that kept the JLP out of power for 18 1/2 years. This is no transformational leader who can be expected to soar above petty partisan behaviour and take his party into a new wholesome paradigm.

Mr Holness speaks of his mandate as if it were a toy to be enjoyed in whatever whimsical manner he chooses. We wonder whether the JLP delegates who voted for Mr Holness would have given him this now questionable mandate had they the benefit of Mr Arthur Williams’ disclosure of these clandestine letters before November 10.

If the Jamaican Senate is to mean anything useful and noble, its members cannot be so constrained by any party that they cannot even pretend to be reasoned, dispassionate and able to act to the greatest good of the nation in fashioning something as far-reaching as legislation.

Mr Williams tells us that the letters were initially called for to keep senators in check, lest they were wont to support the ruling party in legislating the Caribbean Court of Justice as Jamaica’s final appellate court. The biggest mystery is why any adult with any brains would allow themselves to be brought so low. It is easier to understand Mr Holness’s motive in demanding such letters if he felt insecure about his leadership, as now seems to be the case.

Naturally, we have no tears for Mr Williams who authored the letters and kept them a secret, until they came back to bite him in the seat of his pants.

The Jamaican people must now wonder where next the JLP leader will take us down this dark and slippery path. One thing seems certain, he has handed the PNP another five-year term on a platter.