It is not the first time that Kenny Anthony and Stephenson King have been involved in a controversy centered on rent money. In 1997 shortly after the Labour Party took office the new prime minister Kenny Anthony publicly announced that at least three ministers of government, one of them Stephenson King, was several years behind with rent payments owed the government.

A fortnight or so ago a woman from one of our TV stations accosted Stephenson King as he was exiting the parliament building. If the prime minister imagined the reporter wished to question him on his new St Lucia Development Bank bill, he soon learned the discomfiting truth.

If over-sensitive supporters of the incumbent United Workers Party imagined they were rid of troublesome Rufus Bousquet they now have good cause to think again: this week the former foreign minister largely responsible for the nation’s current halÈ-kasÈ relationship with Taiwan complained that there was something smelly about his dismissal several months ago by a terminally ill Sir John Compton. By Bousquet’s own account, almost everything about that episode demands clarification, at the very least.

Obviously the new $3.25 increase in the price of petrol will have a rippling effect on other basic commodities and utilities. Therefore, no surprise that yesterday the government assigned its most powerful guns—Minister for Economic Planning Ausbert d’Auvergne, Commerce Minister Guy Mayers, Public Utilities Minister Guy Joseph and permanent secretary in the ministry of trade, Titus Preville to allay public fears that the worse was yet to come.

In truth there really was never a case to answer. But then politicians have never been famous for basing their actions on anything that made sense to the ordinary mind. Take the matter of James Hepple’s three-year appointment as tourism consultant. First it was his salary that threatened to kick up a storm in the opposition party’s teacup.

While politicians crowed mindlessly during the Christmas season about their arcane accomplishments during the year, stark reality was striking at the homes of four St Lucian families—all resident in the north of the island where allegedly the Richard Frederick formula had put a stop to violent crime.