After all the failed policies and programmes of every political administration to tame the crime monster, and after all the bloodshed and pain suffered by Jamaicans, we could not foresee any leader setting conditions for consensus on fighting crime.

And the last person we would expect to do so is Opposition Leader Mr Mark Golding, who has now betrayed what was suspected all along — that he takes orders from Mr Peter Bunting, his spokesman on national security.

In the throes of mourning the slaughter of a Clarendon mother and her four children Mr Golding offered the prime minister his full support to make things better for the Jamaican people. He didn’t set a condition for that promise.

But, just as the country was warming to the idea, he seems to have turned tail in the wake of a declaration by Mr Bunting that the Government would have to make an apology before any consensus could be reached on crime and violence.

Apparently worried that there would be a falling out with Mr Bunting, the Opposition leader has now set out his own condition for consensus. He says the Government needs to use existing mechanisms to pursue that consensus, specifically the Vale Royal deliberations.

Addressing his People’s National Party (PNP) Manchester North Western constituency conference last Saturday, Mr Golding said: “I hear the prime minister the other day talking about the need for consensus on crime. It is easy to say things like that, enuh, but you have to be prepared to walk the walk. I have been calling for the Vale Royal Talks to be a mechanism by which we can discuss issues of importance to the country.

“Yuh know seh is one time I meet with [Prime Minister] Andrew Holness since I became leader of the Opposition in November 2020… one meeting, for the Vale Royal Talks, in February of this year. Since then we have heard nothing about it.”

He also charged that the crime management and oversight committee “…which is the mechanism for consensus around national security”, had also been given scant attention by the Government.

If this is true, then it means that neither of our political parties can lead us out of the crime quagmire we are in. And, in other words, ‘dog nyam wi supper’ as a country.

But Mr Golding knew this before he made his bold offer to the prime minister at the funeral of the Clarendon five.

So what made him pull back so abruptly? Mr Bunting’s declaration, of course.

Recall that Mr Bunting was well on his way to become leader of the PNP, succeeding Dr Peter Phillips, when everything came crashing down when he lost his Manchester Central seat to the little-known Ms Rhoda Crawford in the September 2020 General Election.

It was widely believed that as Mr Bunting could not become Opposition leader — who must, by constitutional provision, sit in the House of Representatives — a strategic political arrangement was made for Mr Golding to hold the position.

His latest kowtowing to Mr Bunting seems to have played into that suspicion. But Mr Golding is wrong about relying on existing mechanisms, none of which have achieved the hoped-for objectives.

We suggest one untried mechanism — a behind-closed-doors summit of the political parties to hammer out an agreement to make crime a non-partisan issue and to unite the country in the fight against crime.