Mottley: No time to engage in tit-for-tat

THOSE DELIVERIES are best left outside the off stump, was Mia Mottley's response yesterday to remarks made on Tuesday by former Barbados Labour Party (BLP) leader and former Prime Minister Owen Arthur, about her leadership.

"I have a job to do in relation to leading the BLP and in terms of protecting the people of this country against what is a very difficult economic time as well as a Government that is void of any vision and has been incompetent thus far.

"I am going to stay focused on that job. That is what I have come to public life to do and therefore as I said to you, those deliveries are best left outside the off stump," she said to the Press at the Opposition's office.

Arthur said Mottley faced a problem of being accepted by the society at large and being accepted by a cross-section of the BLP.

However, Mottley said it was a given that any person in public life had to adjust to how they were perceived, but she questioned if the same would be said or rumoured about her if she were a man.

She noted that there would be things she would do differently going forward but "I have done things differently already."

"But I am not in going to respond to a discussion that has been precipitated by something that I said I am not responding to; and I am not going to. I will not get involved in a public spat. I will not be dragged in on any response whatsoever that involves any kind of public spat or any kind of tit-for-tat. I am focused.

"My back is broad and I can deal with it. I know where the BLP must go.

" The parliamentary party is behind me, the National Council last night (Thursday) passed a resolution fully in support of myself and I will stay focused," she stressed.

She said the BLP would press forward unified and present itself in a way that would "inspire" Barbadians.

"Part of what I have done is to be able to start that process. And I am confident that when the election is called, that we will present to the Barbadian public a set of programmes, a vision, and a team capable of inspiring that confidence.

"I am deeply conscious that we are approaching the mid-term and that the public needs to understand this party is a party that will go forward and defend their interest. That process is not a process that happens overnight; but by the same token I will do all in my power to make sure that you will have a united BLP, that you will have a party that is capable of alternative vision and alternative programmes and an alternative team such that Barbadians will feel that it will not be their lot to choose between bad and bad," Mottley said.

*tracymoore@nationnews.com