PRIME MINISTER: How about
a club
for ex-PMs?

LAST WEEK Owen Arthur had a Press conference which led to me musing a bit on being Prime Minister. I have always been fascinated by people who want to become the big Pappy, El Heffe, Father of the Nation, and in my years pun this li'l rock I watched people become maximum leaders, Gorrilliphants and then back to ordinary, and a question that has never been answered is why any right-minded person would want that job.

True, for a while you like the Pope - infallible. The job got with it nice perks, except in places like Pakistan, Afganistan and Zimbabwe, butlers, cooks and policemen as security or if you don't like the house do like my boy Manning and get one costing over $250 million.

You sit in de back of a big Benz or Audi A8, flashing lights, sirens, refrigerater and drinks inside and police outriders to get you everywhere in a hurry. You're invited everywhere, fly first class or on private jet, diplomatic passports, and at the end a big fat pension. Men leaders will have ladies flocking round like bees to honey and female leaders will see men congregate like government workers on a debushing site; David Ellis does want to interview you; people invite you to speak at functions; good food and wine does flow!

You determine important things, make policies that impact on people and one day if you lucky and they like what you did, a statue is erected in your honour! But is when you no longer in the job that the truth does really come home. In Amurca, once a president, even a poor rackey one like Bush, always a president, with speaking tours, writing books and opening your own library or centre like Jimmy Carter in Atlanta.

'Bout here you does go from being mighty one day to being ordinary Joe the next. Shouldn't there be an ex-Prime Ministers Club where, in the aftermath of rejection, you can go and hide from the people who once adored you but now refer to you as a brass bowl?

Would this club meet frequently and provide benefits? One minute you in the limelight and the next you in the twilight? No more Benz, no Audi A8, out of the big house, no more invites to speak, nobody want to be supporting a loser.

What is a normal day like? Mek your own bed, breakfast, pick up the NATION that get pelt over the gate like the neighbour's? No more calls from the titans of industry and commerce? What do you do all day? Call and annoy Dennis Johnson on Brass Tacks? Lunch at Champers, a sea bath, a nap? Are the ladies still after you like honey bees or dem move onto another hive? I hear you does get a chair at UWI, that is all Hilary can do? A chair?

At Kensington Oval, are you still in a corporate box or boxed in with the masses in Greenidge and Haynes? Do you wait in doctors' offices till you get bad feels before they see you? When ex-PMs meet, do they talk of the glory days and plan a comeback?

One day a CBC cameraman recording every word you utter, next he don't even want a shot of you in the audience! Most jobs the sweets does come later, company car, corporate card, expense account, first class travel, maybe corporate jet or pond fly, expanded health benefits, gratuities, pension, shares, consultancies and a chair at the directors' table.

But for ex-PMs the reverse is true. The sweets come early and the bitter at the end and all you can hear is people referring to you as a part of a woman's anatomy!

Me, I will remain a vendor and if you cuss me I will rinse you out in return. I don't have to face no electorate.

I Market Vendor gone fuh now, you have a blessed and a wonderful day, yuh hear!