(Don’t get your knickers in a twist!)

Jamaica’s Political Ombudsman Donna Parchment Brown has worked herself into a tizzy.

She is very upset that Leader of the Opposition Mark Golding called the Minister of Transport Robert Montague, “a likkle bwoy” and the “Minister of Scandal” while out on the political hustings.

Boo-hoo!

She has fired off a letter reprimanding Golding, stamping her feet and demanding a grovelling schoolboy apology be made to Bobby Montague.

Mark Golding would be barmy if he bends the knee to this.

It was innocuous and part of political banter, more so Jamaican political cut and thrust. Bobby Montague is a political warrior and a good one at that. For many years he has worn a sturdy breastplate and the arrows have not penetrated it.

I doubt he would be upset or taken umbridge and would have seen it as part of the political discourse that he is all too familiar with.

Bobby has thrown a few stones in the past himself and they have hit the target. He is compelling on the hustings and very humorous; a gifted politician.

Watching him in Parliament a few weeks announce that the AAJ board would be disbanded should be part of his greatest hits reel and a lesson for younger parliamentarians. He was in a corner and was being pinned by both Julian Robinson and Mikael Phillips, but he graciously conceded when he had to and articulately made his position clear despite the onslaught.

Many of the ‘new-generation’ members of parliament (MPs) would have buckled. Bobby remained on his feet and did not hit the deck.

At the JLP conference last month he took a jab at Golding saying he hopes he remains as Leader of the PNP so that Andrew Holness could dish out another beating. He was funny too.

This may well have led to Mark Golding getting back at him – it’s part of the game and always has been. Parchment Brown should know that.

We now live in this woke/politically correct world where the inconspicuous and talentless want an excuse to “cancel” people for what they deem sanctionable. It’s crazy and has to stop. It is a form of the Spanish Inquisition in the 21st century.

Jamaican political jousting is fun and can be hilarious. Long may it continue. Yes, there shouldn’t be outright disrespect, coarseness, incivility, profanity, defilement. We all like a little seasoning with our chicken, it’s not the same with just salt.

Parchment Brown took furiously to her keyboard writing: “It is my finding that you have breached the Code (of Conduct) by the use of the words “likkle bwoy” and “Minister of Scandal”. I, therefore, recommend that you 1: Make an unambiguous full-throated apology on a public platform for using the words “likkle bwoy” and “Minister of Scandal”; make amends by a donation not exceeding $20,000 to a basic school in Mr Montague’s constituency in his name. I ask that these actions be taken by the 20th of December 2021 and evidence provided to me to close the matter.”

Really?

Seriously?

What a stern headmistress you are Miss Parchment Brown. I’ll take my trousers down right away-NOT!

Her reasoning for this letter is, “These words have been complained of when used in many other settings in Jamaica as gratuitously demeaning, sometimes leading to extreme responses.”

Is that the best you have?

History is replete with put-downs and barbed quips and no one had to abjectly apologise for them.

Here are just a few zingers:

1. Former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Dennis Healy on debating Geoffrey Howe (I remember this one as a “likkle bwoy”)
“Like being savaged by a dead sheep.”

2. Dennis Healy on John Prescott
“He has the face of a man who clubs seals”

3. Healy in a newspaper interview in 1997
“Being Chancellor is not a woman’s job. There’s a difference. between the sexes and people who don’t know that don’t know what people are like with their clothes off.”

4. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
”If you want something said, ask a man, if you want something done, ask a woman.”

5. Donald Trump responding to Hillary Trump during the Presidential debate when she says, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the laws of the country.”
Trump: “…Because you’d be in jail”.

6. “The honourable Member is living proof that a pig’s bladder on a stick can be elected to Parliament”.
Britain’s Labour Member of Parliament Tony Banks on Tory Member of Parliament Terry Dicks

7. Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating
“He’s like a shiver waiting on a spine”.

8. Nigel Farage on European Council President Herman Van Rompuy
“I don’t want to be rude but really you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade clerk”.

9. Jonathan Aitken on Margaret Thatcher
“She probably thinks ‘Sinai’ is the plural of ‘sinus’”.

10. Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George
“The right honourable and learned gentleman has twice crossed the floor of this House each time leaving behind a trail of slime”.

11. U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings
“I’ll take a drug test if you take an IQ test.”

12. President Lyndon B. Johnson on President Gerald Ford
“Gerry Ford is so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.”

And of course, the perennial classic…

13. Winston Churchill to Lady Astor, the first female Member of Parliament in Britain
“My dear you are ugly but tomorrow I shall be sober, and you will still be ugly”.