But let’s face it: he is not cutting it as party leader. Everyone is saying it behind his back; friends and foe alike. Every PUP polled by Flashpoint believes that rather than strengthening, the party is weakening. They don’t think he is growing into the role as leader, or that he can.

Minister Heredia delivered the treacherous blow. What was unexpected was that the PM would stand by and watch them go down, leaving them to exclaim as they fell: “Et tu, Barrow? Then fall Santiago and Stanley.”

Three years after the general election of February 2008, this is how the political balance sheet looks: the PUP resembles the UDP of old in Opposition – broke and fragmented; the UDP now resembles the PUP of old – confident, bold and well-financed. This picture is unlikely to change significantly over the next twelve months, in which case, the temptation to go for a fresh mandate might not be only irresistible, it might be good political judgment.

Mr. Obama’s White House had been roundly criticized for an attempt to exclude Fox News from particular media events, dismissing the station as a mouthpiece of the Republican Party. Obama’s point man, David Axelrod, had stated on ABC’s This Week that Fox was not a “real news agency” and that real news agencies “ought not to treat them that way.” The attempted lock-out collapsed after the other networks refused to participate if Fox was shut out.

Caught in a kind of looping Poe-ian horror, the electorate barely escapes plummeting into the pit of PUP corruption only to find itself prostrate to the descending, lacerating scythe of UDP incompetence. Each party subjectively sees its choice of torture as manifestly more acceptable than the other.

Like the nationalization of Telemedia, the PM may have a “bold, defining plan” for the Belize Judiciary. If so he should come out and say what it is. In the meantime, he should stop his messy, ad hoc tinkering with the rule of law lest it becomes a habit-forming addiction.

What if they discovered that their government is actually dependent on Taiwan to balance its budget; on Cuba for doctors and nurses to provide health care in remote areas; on the US for donations of boats to patrol its own territorial waters; on annual free scholarships from Cuba, Taiwan, Mexico to train professionals; on Venezuela to house the poor; on donations of musical instruments from roving ambassadors to provide music in schools; on Mexico to build its theatre for the performing arts.

The suffocating ignorance is partially attributable – in the phraseology of Jules Vasquez – to an “absence of gatekeepers”. There are no threshold standards to qualify people to hold high public office or to access media instruments that influence public opinion, resulting in the ignorati unbound.

With all that has befallen him at the hands of the PUP, his dignity and pride so mangled and mortified, he could not hope to inspire the ready confidence that he could be Chief Justice for all the people, even if he would be.

The Bar should concern itself less with any perceived intrusion into Conteh’s tenure and more with how quickly this government could lay waste judicial independence, in the name of righteous action.