The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

IT is often easy to take a position of always criticising the party in power, whatever the colour of their shirts.

After all, they are the ones in charge, and when we find fault in things, well, we look to the top.

Whisper it softly, but it has been a good start to the year for the administration of Prime Minister Philip Davis. So far.

At the end of last year, less than two weeks ago, you could not say things had the same optimistic hue.

Let us start with crime. The end of the year saw a total of 119 murders recorded throughout 2024. So far, this year has not seen a murder recorded officially.

There has been some talk on social media about a couple of incidents but contrast with this time last year when January had started with such a spate of bloodshed that it prompted Mr Davis to come up with the ludicrous suggestion that we just pretend that the murders are not happening – on the front pages of newspapers at least.

The change has come about at the same time as there has been a change at the top in the police. Out has gone Clayton Fernander, in has come Shanta Knowles.

Now I am not naïve enough or foolish enough to suggest that this is the Knowles effect in action – the new commissioner has barely had time to get her feet under her desk let alone have an impact on the streets. But it is a welcome relief from the violence that we have been seeing.

If it continues this way, then we will be able to start giving credit to the police force and its new leader – and we pray it will.

There is another area we can give credit to Commissioner Knowles already. As the new year ended, then Commissioner Fernander noted that a file had been passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions with regard to the voice notes probe.

In swift course, there have since been charges – for former CID chief Michael Johnson, for lawyer Bjorn Ferguson and for a police sergeant, Deangelo Rolle.

That might have been that, but Commissioner Knowles was quick to come out and say that more investigation was taking place. This seems like a marked difference in the communication from her predecessor, who perpetually seemed to be telling people to stand by.

I’ll take it as a good sign for how the new commissioner might continue to give people a clearer picture of the state of investigations – it certainly is to be encouraged.

As for the prime minister himself, he took the spotlight with a national address to announce a cut in VAT from 10 percent to five percent on all food from food stores.

I’ll get to the meat of that in a moment, but the announcement itself was a sign of the stage managing we should come to expect as the countdown to an election continues.

A national address should be good enough by itself. It should command the attention of the nation – but the presentation of this one struggled to command the attention of the cameraman.

The speech was held surrounded by all manner of other people, as if this was an open mic night at a bar.

The camera kept cutting away to look at the other people sitting around – as if they had anything to do with the importance of the announcement. It kept distracting. Who were these people? There’s a beauty queen among the crowd, why is she there for an economic policy announcement? Why does the camera linger on someone in front of the PM, making him background footage? Why does it seem like we have wandered into Central Perk on the set of Friends? And that applause at the end, was that real or were they playing canned applause? Were these people paid to be there? And if so, by who? The public purse?

The strange thing is, none of that was needed. Here was, as far as the general public is concerned, good news that benefits them in the pocket right away.

There are questions about it, of course. Despite the PM’s assurances that this will not affect the country’s fiscal policy, it will without doubt reduce revenue from that area.

The PM has presumably made the calculation that economically we can afford that revenue hit. Or perhaps he has made the calculation that politically he cannot afford for us not to take it.

People have been feeling the pinch. I don’t need to tell you that. You might well have been doing so too. Inflation has been hard. Living costs are a blow. Try renting somewhere in an affordable range and it is a struggle.

So the five percent drop in the VAT rate at the stores – halving the previous amount – will benefit people.

That’s five percent off your food bill at stores. Not the whole bill, just food.

Previously, the FNM has called for VAT to be taken off all breadbasket items completely. Now the PLP has opted for this path to reduce costs for people.

The rest of the speech was less impactful. Those housing problems mentioned? The PM talked about encouraging private companies to build houses and some non-specific promises of government action.

But it was a positive speech for Mr Davis. The presentation criticisms? Nitpicking by me of course, without material impact, but it would be useful for the PM’s marketeers to perhaps not hide the star act as the countdown continues.

All in all, as I write this 12 days into the new year, it has been a positive start. The only major negative has been the flak the government received over the implementation – or lack thereof – of Freedom of Information. The Attorney General weighed in with a non-specific plan and supposedly we will see things happen this year. Forgive my skepticism on that one. Unless. Unless.

Perhaps Mr Davis’ move to cut VAT is about something more. Perhaps this is the first shot in something bigger. Such as an election campaign.

There have been some noises that there may be an early call for a vote. It feels like this VAT announcement is too early to be part of that, but it might be on the way.

For that, we shall have to wait and see.