The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. — Niccolò Machiavelli

An excerpt from Aesop’s fable

The Farmer and Stork: A farmer placed nets on his newly sown plowlands and caught a number of cranes which came to pick up his seed. With them, he trapped a stork that had fractured his leg in the net and was earnestly beseeching the farmer to spare his life. “Pray, save me, Master,” he said, “and let me go free this once. My broken limb should excite your pity. Besides, I am no crane, I am a stork, a bird of excellent character; and see how I love and slave for my father and mother. Look, too, at my feathers; they are not the least like those of a crane.” The farmer laughed aloud and said, “It may be all as you say, I only know this: I have taken you with these robbers, the cranes, and you must die in their company.”

Moral/Interpretation: Birds of a feather flock together.

The embers of Portia Simpson Miller’s presidency of the People’s National Party (PNP) are almost extinguished. In a few weeks, Dr Peter Phillips, who last February led a failed general election campaign, will be rewarded with the most coveted leadership prize in Norman Manley’s party. Phillips directed and captained a campaign that was driven by an antiquated mentality of political impunity. The PNP’s campaign was simultaneously fuelled by ‘bad mind’. Failure, it seems, is a premium at 89 Old Hope Road.

Simpson Miller is, I believe, our worst prime minister to date. She has to accept the blame for her own downfall. Simpson Miller, in the main, made two critical mistakes. She did not prepare herself adequately for statecraft, and she surrounded herself with low-voltage thinkers whose primary objective was personal and political self-aggrandisement. As a consequence she was relegated to little more than a political figurehead during her time in the highest elected position in our land.

The designation of the likes of Phillip Paulwell, Robert Pickersgill, A J Nicholson, Sandrea Falconer, Dr Fenton Ferguson, Noel Arscott, Richard Azan, Sharon Ffolkes-Abrahams and Anthony Hylton as ministers did not help Simpson Miller in any useful political manner. These appointments turned out to be political albatrosses. This was predictable.

Without legacy

Legacy-less [my coinage] is the apropos description of Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller’s time as prime minister of Jamaica. I say this on the basis that ex-Prime Minister Simpson Miller was not a positive political game-changer, nor did she do anything that was similarly game-changing during her 41 years in local party politics.

What or who is a game-changer. What constitutes game-changing?

The first known use of game-changer was in 1993, according to the Merriam Webster Dictionary. Some credible sports references maintain, however, that game-changer has been in use since the 1950s. Notwithstanding the doubts about the origin of the term, it is accepted that game-changer was made popular in the title of the book:

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. In simple terms, a game-changer is a person or thing that dramatically or foundationally shifts the course, strategy, character, etc, of something.

Events that alter the course of history and weave themselves into the fabric of our consciousness are game-changers. These often result in seismic shifts. For example: The Haitian Revolution was the first and only successful slave revolution. It was led by Toussaint Louverture. The American Marshall Plan enacted post-World War II saved Europe from financial ruin. The election of America’s first president of African descent is universally accepted as a watershed moment. The Berlin Conference of 1885 saw Africa divided up among European countries for the purpose of territorial and natural resource control. The World War II Pearl Harbour attack by Japan on US Naval Forces led to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the most costly war in recorded history. Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon… and I could go on and on.

Here are two examples of local political game-changing: Michael Manley and his social transformation policies in the 1970s. Edward Seaga and his construction of a reservoir of functional institutions over a 30-year period.

According to information posted on the

Jamaica Information Service (JIS) website: “Mrs Simpson Miller’s ascension to Jamaica’s highest political office came after having served for 17 years as a Cabinet minister with portfolio responsibility for labour, social security and sport; tourism, entertainment and sport; and local government, community development and sport. Mrs Simpson Miller also had portfolio responsibilities for women’s affairs.”

In which of these portfolios did Simpson Miller do anything game-changing?

The

JIS lists Simpson Miller’s major contributions as follows:

• Simpson Miller was the leading architect of Jamaica’s Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development.

• As minister of labour, welfare and sport, she presided over the significant expansion of Jamaica’s Overseas Work Programme.

• Under her watch the National Insurance Scheme was transformed into a major component of the Government’s social protection system.

• She was also instrumental in establishing a labour chair in The University of the West Indies, Department of Government.

• The Municipality of Portmore, in the parish of St Catherine, was established while she had ministerial oversight of the local government portfolio.

Those who exaggerate Simpson Miller’s record at best are involved in a brave attempt to, as we say in local parlance, make “what gawn bad ah morning come good ah evening”.

Simpson Miller has not done anything to date that has seismically shifted her constituency or our country forward. I am hopeful that she will do so in her last national budget presentation.

Sitting on the kerb

Simpson Miller has been thrown to the political kerb, contrary to what the PNP would want us to believe.

I found this headline and related details quite laughable: ‘No, no, no, nothing like that,’ says Portia of being ‘pushed out’ of the PNP.’ (

Loop Jamaica, February 11, 2017)

The same story said among other things: “Despite having reportedly advised members of the People’s National Party’s National Executive Council last weekend not to call her to help win another election, outgoing Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller says she was not pushed from the party.

“Speaking outside Parliament, Simpson Miller brushed aside reports that she was bitter about being supposedly rushed out of the leadership of the party after two consecutive national electoral defeats.

“Simpson Miller is to resign as Opposition leader and PNP president on April 2.”

Talk her mind

Those with eyes and ears to the political ground and reliable sources like the John Chewits, Banana Quits and Black-Bellied Plovers know that the PNP’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Hatfield, Manchester, on Sunday, February 5, 2017, witnessed a bitter and toxic explosion from Simpson Miller. In her rage she went off script and emptied her political soul.

She did tell the meeting, “Like how you glad fi si mi out, don’t be glad to call mi when you need mi to win election.”

She did tell the NEC that she was pushed and nobody has to tell her to leave. Simpson Miller at the Hatfield ‘hanging’ meeting did castigate Comrades, saying, “I worked like a donkey for this movement.”

At the Hatfield political OK Corral, Simpson Miller fumed that some in the PNP were party to leaks of internal PNP information. The ex-prime minister fired salvos at men who, she said, “don’t like female leadership”.

Simpson Miller unsuccessfully challenged P J Patterson for leadership of the PNP in 1992. She evidently did not learn about political nuances even after her first inauguration on March 30, 2006.

But where did we see the narcissistic, harridan-like outburst of Simpson Miller in recent times? These excerpts are instructive:

“I represent one of the strongest constituencies in Jamaica; don’t play with me, I don’t play games. I work hard for this movement from 1974 ’til now; nuh boy, nuh gyal can’t talk to me… I will come back here for another meeting, and I know who I will bring…I’m not afraid of anyone.” These are the direct words of Simpson Miller. She was chiding dissenting Comrades at the meeting, which was held on Wednesday, November 16, 2016, in Claremont, St Ann. At that meeting, she also warned Comrades, “This is one woman who never run from a fight with anyone yet.” (

Jamaica Observer, November 19, 2016)

In charge?

While Simpson Miller and a moribund PNP continue to say the ex-prime minister was not “pushed”, the public I am sure remembers Simpson Miller’s famous interview with Emily Shields, host of RJR’s

Hotline in April of last year. Simpson Miller was asked why she had avoided a one-on-one interview with local journalists for nearly four years.

These excerpts of a story that was broadcast on

NationWide News Network are mind-opening: “Mrs Simpson Miller shocked sections of the media fraternity last week when she told Emily Shields that she did not grant a one-and-one interview during her four years as prime minister because she was not asked.

“Several media houses have reported that formal requests to interview Mrs Simpson Miller were sent to the Office of the Prime Minister.

“The Press Association of Jamaica also expressed concern regarding Mrs Simpson Miller’s statement.

“The former prime minister dismissed the suggestion when questioned whether she conducted checks to ascertain whether her staff received interview requests but did not pass them on to her.”

Said she: “ ‘I never asked, I never asked the people at the office, but I know if requests had come in, it would have been brought to my attention.’

“Mrs Simpson Miller says she has never refused an interview request when journalists approached her at Parliament.” (

NationWide News Network, April 5, 2016)

Indispensable

Simpson Miller unwisely believed that she was indispensable.

The former prime minister’s comments in

The Gleaner of January 31, 2016 said as much: “ ‘For all the critics who say I am weak, put me in an open-top bus where I drive on the road. And those who are criticising, put them beside me and see who the people shout for,’ added Simpson Miller, as she dismissed claims that the infighting in some constituencies to represent the party in the next general election reflected that she was not in control.

“The PNP president, who is expected to today officially launch her quest for another term as prime minister, is adamant that she remains in charge of the party and has no plans to leave until she is satisfied it will be in good hands. ‘No, I don’t know. I can’t tell you that,’ said Simpson Miller in response to a question about when she will walk away from the political arena.

“ ‘I am carrying out my responsibilities, and it is one day at a time. If you can show me someone in the PNP right now who will be able to pull the people when they go out there on a campaign trail, then I could say yes…But if you can’t show me that person, then I can’t tell you goodbye,’ she stated with the political steel of a lion leading the pride.” (

Sunday Gleaner, January 31, 2016)

She might not have adopted this attitude if she had read the writings of French statesman Charles De Gaulle, who famously said: “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

I heard the ex-prime minister on

Television Jamaica’s Prime Time News recently telling a journalist that she has been getting calls from people across the world who want Portia [she consistently speaks about herself in the third person] to come work with them. I wish her luck.

The truth may be denied, but it will never be defeated. — Will Spencer

Garfield Higgins is an educator; journalist; and advisor to the minister of education, youth and information. Send comments to the Observer orhiggins160@yahoo.com.