Published:Friday | May 25, 2018 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
Dr Peter Phillips is a rare gem in Jamaican society. His academic career has taken him to the very top where some still quote his earlier studies in various social fixes for our troubled paradise called Jamaica. He has a PhD, which means that...
Published:Friday | May 11, 2018 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
The brand names Sunny, Vibes, Pacific and Denin may not be known to non-smokers, but, like Craven A and Matterhorn, they are cigarettes of the illegal type which, under the law, ought not to be available in Jamaica.I hold no brief for smokers or...
Published:Wednesday | March 15, 2017 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
Age has its virtues, but also its many setbacks, not the least of which is cynicism. Cracking the over-60 age barrier would mean that one has seen much, and much of that would have been the same, year after year.At about this time each year, the...
Published:Wednesday | January 25, 2017 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
When Finance Minister Audley Shaw told attendees at a May-berry Investment Forum held last week that US President Donald Trump and his government could be good for Jamaica it sounded like a wish wrapped in a hope and sent out on the fluttering...
Published:Wednesday | December 28, 2016 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
It may have been unexpected to many, but when it came the nation quietly embraced the JLP’s narrow victory in February and its cleanup act later in the Local Government elections. Not so welcome in the global community was the surprising...
Published:Friday | March 4, 2016 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
There is a certain sameness about the swearing in of a new prime minister and his speech inspiring hope and promising transparency and a new engagement with our people. Were we all societal neophytes, we would be more moved by the emotion invoked...
Published:Tuesday | March 1, 2016 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
In a simple comparison with the total votes cast in the 2011 election, the JLP scored 31,000 more votes in last Thursday’s election, but still was only able to beat the PNP at the tape by one seat. No one has asked the question yet, and...
Published:Friday | February 19, 2016 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
According to the theoretical norms, our political leaders are, in fact, our servants. Sounds a bit like religion to me, where one earthly divinity can occupy two roles all at once. No wonder it is so bastardised. The PNP signed on in December 2011...
Published:Sunday | January 31, 2016 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
Politics is the art of the possible, not just in creating policy and passing laws to benefit the greatest number of a country’s people but in traversing the route to attaining the power needed to do those things. For the Opposition JLP to...
Published:Tuesday | November 17, 2015 | 12:00 AMMark Wignall
A few days ago, a JLP MP and a PNP propagandist were both feeding me the same line: The JLP had a poll showing that party ahead by three percentage points, while the PNP's conducted during the same period, last weekend, showed the PNP ahead by the...
As the dead babies scandal goes beyond individual pain and national tragedy and seeps into every crack of the People's National Party's political campaign, and amid the prime minister's stripping of the health portfolio from Fenton Ferguson, a quiet...
It is more likelihood than possibility that after the next election, the people of this country will still get to call Portia our prime minister.Much about the lady is wrapped up in a bundle of perception and clichÈ. That she has not made herself...
