EASY GUYS, EASY! It got heated at times in Starcom Network's studios during yesterday's Down To Brass Tacks.

FORMER OPPOSITION LEADER CLYDE MASCOLL's elevation to the position of Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance came under fire yesterday.

Speaking during Starcom Network's call-in programme Down To Brass Tacks, political scientist Dr George Belle said it was unprecedented for a political leader to leave his party and go over to another party. "That says something about the person," he noted.

Belle added: "A leader is an anchor. You do not leave the party. Can you imagine Miss Miller [Dame Billie] leaving the Barbados Labour Party? Even when Dr Richie Haynes and Errol Barrow left [the DLP and BLP respectively], they formed their own parties. You do not go over to the other side and then become a minister too."

Belle suggested Mascoll should have sat on the backbench for a little longer, but added he really felt the St Michael North West MP should have remained an Independent.

Belle expressed surprise that Opposition Leader David Thompson did not deal with Mascoll's departure in his media response yesterday to Prime Minister Owen Arthur's Cabinet reshuffle.

Belle said Mascoll had left the DLP, carrying with him to the BLP all of the former's stratagems for the next general election; the state of the DLP organisation; the character of its finances; and its general strengths and weaknesses.

Belle added that coming after allegations by Thompson that the DLP had been compromised, he found it strange Thompson had carefully avoided the subject.

"I think he is seeking to make his party comfortable . . . that they have received a serious blow and that at the same time they should still maintain their focus on the path forward. Because the party has to be suspicious that an election could come anytime between now and two years from now," he said. (WG)