The question the minister must now ask himself is whether the abolition of corporal punishment in schools which he bravely and urgently lead was worth pissing off the unions, damaging his personal reputation and dissipating his government’s rapidly depleting store of good will. For what, a delay of six months?

Avert your gaze from the cursed pool of Narcissus glittering with the reflection of your own righteousness and superiority; it is transfixing but insubstantial.

The Opposition’s response to the crime situation has been the boilerplate, politics-as-usual approach to call for the resignation of the Minister of National Security as if someone from the government or opposition benches could do a better job.

The British have a moral obligation to offer reasonable compensation to the families who have been traumatized or had members killed by the grenade attacks; to do their best effort to find those grenades. It is a small price to pay for the death and terror that their negligence has unleashed in a city given over to criminality and chaos.

The two-day verbal flogging administered by Hyde, whose media organization enjoys a monthly payment of $3,000 from the minister’s personal funds for hosting his television show “Belizean Exposure”, bordered on cruel and inhuman punishment. It was a crucifixion of the pious Methodist minister.

Dean Barrow might have indeed tongue-flogged Said Musa to the tune of “Here we go ‘round the mulberry bush” last Friday. But in a game of musical chairs – which is what politics in Belize is – when the music stops, Said could very well end up in his seat.

To defeat Ashcroft, you have to take him out completely. Otherwise, he will just keep coming back. Anything else is just an expensive game of charades.

He acculturated quickly and with a mixture of talent and smarts bootstrapped himself into the dizzying stratosphere of the rap world and into the company of megastars like Jay Z, P Diddy and Jennifer Lopez.

The party leader is caught between the visceral, untamed ambition of his deputy and the resurrected ghost of the party leader past. But he should not be spooked.

Mr. Elrington’s remark that there is no money for judicial travel is hypocritical. Ministers as well as bureaucrats travel a great deal more than judges do. The travel expense of a single government department is greater than that of the judiciary as the third branch of the state.