By SIMON

IN A recent interview with Sir Keir Starmer, The Economist concluded that the British Prime Minister understood “the moment” facing his country.

The UK is confronted by myriad economic, political, security, and other structural challenges. The magazine concluded, however, “Britain’s prime minister understands the size of the moment. He just does not know how to meet it.”

Here at home, Bahamians have a twofold question for the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, and their respective parties:

First, do the leaders grasp the magnitude of the moment?

And, second, do they have the capacity to meet the moment, including the quality of potential cabinet ministers, colleagues, and advisors who might assist them?

Most Bahamians do not believe that any prime minister since Hubert Ingraham came close to having an in-depth understanding of the challenges facing our archipelago, and the capacity to address them competently.

A real crisis

The Nassau Guardian reported this week on an address by Prime Minister Philip Davis to a lodge in Grand Bahama.

“There is a crisis among males in this country,” he implored. “I feel it in my spirit long before I read it in any report. I see it in the funerals I attend, where the casket is small, and the tears are loud, and a mother keeps saying, ‘He was just starting to change, prime minister. He was just starting to turn his life around.’

“I see it when I visit the prison, and a young man, barely in his 20s, says to me, ‘Mr. Davis, I never thought my life would come to this.’

“And when I look at him, I do not see a stranger. I see a boy who was once in a school uniform, who once had a laugh, who once had dreams.”

The prime minister’s remark are clearly heartfelt. He was on the mark when stating that government alone cannot address the symptoms and pathology of this “crisis” that is many decades old and not confined to The Bahamas.

His government has offered some small-bore responses. Yet, tragically, like many of his predecessors, he does not adequately grasp the deeper sociological realities.

After four years in office, he has failed to articulate a vision and a longer-term strategy that comes close to meeting the magnitude of the moment.

For nearly 19 years, alongside others, this columnist has offered specific programmatic responses to help young men lacking structure, opportunity, and lifelines.

The words of the prime minister and others are necessary. Yet the words are deeply insufficient. Mr. Davis and his party must do considerably more to meet the moment of the challenges of youth unemployment and dysfunction.

Do the Leader of the Opposition, Michael Pintard, and the FNM have a vision and strategy to address the needs of at-risk young men and male offenders? We will see if the party articulates more of a vision in his party’s election manifesto.

The failure to more comprehensively confront the challenges facing young men is a glaring example of a pattern of national failure.

Deep economic challenges

Another example: we do not solely have a cost-of-living crisis. We have deeper economic challenges, including the lack of an aspirational agenda for opportunity and growth that includes stronger growth tied to revitalising stopover visitors in tourism and other potential drivers of economic development.

The fast-growing cruise arrivals now represent 80% of arrivals, but only nine percent of visitor expenditure. Stopover visitors, a fast-declining share of our arrivals, represent 20% of visitor arrivals but account for 91% of visitor expenditure.

It’s clear that growing our stopover business means significantly more to our economy than growing cruise visitors. This singular recognition should be a major focus of our tourism strategy. Instead, we keep hearing giddy talk about the number of cruise passengers.

Neither major party has suggested a stopover growth strategy. Next time one hears someone insist on data-driven decision making while sidelining the data on stopover visitors, it’s best to ignore the data spinner.

The squalid nature of New Providence is more than a singular crisis. It’s symptomatic of poor values and a culture comfortable with decay and filth.

Still, with more basic concern and oversight by politicians and public officers we can relatively easily improve the cleanliness of the island.

Remember how long it took to fix the main dump on New Providence and then how quickly it was fixed when the political leadership got serious?

Politicians ask why Bahamians are so frustrated with and cynical about government. Maybe driving along pothole-filled roads on the way to a government office that fails to answer its telephones is a small clue about just the tip of our frustrations.

We often use “crisis” to refer to great national challenges. This is similar to saying that an individual who has Type-2 diabetes has a crisis. It remains a crisis if unaddressed through lifestyle changes and medication. But if treated through exercise, diet, stress reduction, and other therapies, it becomes more manageable.

For decades, we have poorly and inconsistently treated a host of problems with crisis-like interventions, rather than broader and consistent intervention and therapy.

In a recent editorial on immigration, The Guardian referenced the delayed reforms, underinvestment, and structural weaknesses facing the country. Such failure has left us adrift in a perpetual state of multiple crises.

Some talk of a national plan as a response to our national deficits. Planning is essential. But any national plan that is ridiculously long and lacking in clear priorities and focus is a waste of time.

If a prime minister is presented with a 400-page national plan he should send his team back to the proverbial drawing board.

The same politicos who talk excitedly about national plans often cannot execute plans already on their desks and stacked up in filing cabinets. Too often national planning exercises are meant to tick off a certain box.

Moreover, having a so-called plan on paper without the leadership, personnel, oversight, and other implementation mechanisms is like having a construction blueprint without a competent contractor, engineer, electrician, plumber, mason, workers, material, and funding.

Many are exasperated with the high-blown rhetoric and flowery speeches of our leaders, whose endless flow of words often partially diagnose challenges, but fail to offer more concrete strategies and programmatic responses.

“Vision without the capacity to execute is hallucination,” a friend advised a former loquacious prime minister.

Correspondingly, leaders should stop trying to sound sophisticated and talk to the common man and woman in plain language.

A lesson from Asia

The Father of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew, insisted that central to his success in transforming a small, insular city-state dangling from the tip of the Malay Peninsula, into a modern metropolis and gleaming nation, was his access to smart people.

Meeting big moments requires exceptional teams. Hubert Ingraham tried to get the best people possible in cabinet and other positions. Placing an obviously incompetent individual in a vital role was anathema to him.

Subsequent prime ministers have often appointed glaringly incapable people to key positions, rewarding them for loyalty, even as they proved disastrous in office. This lowering of standards is now rife and worsening the work of government.

Countries and governments cannot meet big or even medium-sized moments while beset by small-minded people woefully out of their depth, who excel at profiling while failing miserably in their work.

Creative and intelligent practitioners are key for good policy creation, alongside structures for policy planning, implementation, and oversight.

But first, we need leaders who understand the big moment and who are prepared to make history.