In fighting form
by GERCINE CARTER
FORMER PRIME MINISTER OWEN ARTHUR is back in the political fray to ensure the Barbados Labour Party recaptures power.
Arthur declared his return to mobilise and energise the Barbados Labour Party, telling constituents of St George North and South constituencies last night: “I am here this evening because I am fully committed to doing all I can do to ensure the return of the Barbados Labour Party to power.
“It is my only mission and nothing will distract me.”
To rousing applause from a packed St George Secondary School hall, Arthur stated: “I have come this evening with a simple message that there is no position in this society that is too small for me, for me to serve this great party”.
And he sent a strong message to his fellow colleagues in the Opposition BLP on how the party must operate.
“The Opposition must be that entity that keeps Government on its toes. The Opposition must be the institution in the country that is always focussing the concerns of the people, in such a way that those concerns must be heard and those concerns must be acted upon . . . for the betterment of the people that we purport to serve.
“The Opposition Barbados Labour Party once I am part of it, must be the voice of the people,” Arthur stated.
And he said his was not a “lust for office” but an effort “to save Barbados”, claiming that Barbadians were “worried because there is a dangerous slide in their circumstances”.
“Nowhere is that slide more dangerous and the diminution of the Barbadian circumstances worse than in relation to the state of the Barbados economy,” Arthur told the cheering St George constituents.
Arthur was harshly critical of the economic policies of Prime Minister David Thompson.
Quoting declining tourism figures for the period between July and September, the former Prime Minister, Arthur described it as “a catastrophe” which he blamed on a Government “determined to reverse everything his Government had done”.
Arthur charged that the Thompson administration was “seeking to reverse important policies that worked”.
He was also critical of Government’s management of the Social Partnership, and its housing policies.