The conventional wisdom is that senators are a breed apart, men and women who are not mere rubber stamps for their counterparts in the Lower House, but called to be the better angels of the symbolically named Upper House.

In other words, it is not asking too much that senators display a keen sense of decorum, a willingness to take the high road even in the face of extreme provocation and become what brash Members of Parliament (MPs) cannot, especially when under the party whip.

These days the Jamaican Senate is a pale shadow of the national ideal. The petulance among people who can only be called adults because of their age is a shameful blot on our nation, and there is no one among the 21 whose hand, or better yet mouth, is clean. Civility, where it should reside most, is dead.

We thought it couldn’t get worse until we saw a press statement last Thursday from the Government (Jamaica Labour Party [JLP]) Senate Caucus lambasting the newspapers for merely wanting to see an end to the unbecoming conduct of the senators who are walking out of the chamber every time one of their members on the other side is speaking.

Mrs Kamina Johnson Smith, the Leader of Government Business in the Senate and her JLP colleagues believe that the appropriate way to show their abhorrence of Opposition Senator Lambert Brown is to walk out whenever he is on the floor. That is, take up their marbles and dollies and leave.

Now, to keep it real, Senator Brown can be rather abrasive in his speeches — the Government caucus uses much more strident terms such as “disrespectful, discourteous, and unparliamentary conduct” – so we are not letting him off the hook.

Yet we fail to understand why a walk-out strategy by a majority party is the best way to deal with the behaviour of a minority member. If Mr Brown breaches Senate rules, shouldn’t there be provisions under which he can be disciplined?

Moreover, we don’t see Government members being as offended by their colleague MP Everald Warmington who has a rather loose mouth, which at times can be as bad or worse than Senator Brown’s.

But, instead of introspection about the wisdom, or lack thereof, in respect of their own childish response to Mr Brown, the JLP senators opt to beat up on the messenger, who is simply saying, ‘If there is any sense left, end this embarrassment of our nation.’

“We regret that both newspapers have not only ignored the generally abhorrent conduct of Senator Brown in the Senate, which has been the source of much discourse and debate during his tenure,” says the press statement.

“… This is in protest to his consistent displays of disrespectful, discourteous, and unparliamentary conduct.”

The Government senators’ behaviour is the essence of puerility and demonstrates a lack of courage in facing up to Senator Brown, who must feel encouraged with the new power handed to him to shoo them out of the Senate chamber at will.

It is a cop out of the worst order and a shirking of their duties to the nation. We hope that Mrs Johnson Smith will not employ this strategy in her capacity as foreign minister when she is displeased with a delegate at an international forum.

We by no means take any comfort in the JLP’s assurance that “this action does not disrupt the business of the Senate”.