December 11, 2002

Dear Sir,

About a month ago, I wrote you a letter that, in essence, defended Mr. Jamahl Simmons for speaking bluntly about some rather unattractive PLP Government traits.

Since then, Stuart Hayward has taken him to task in a column published last week in the Bermuda Sun, calling him the UBP's poster-boy political hack. Mr Hayward went further, saying: "To provide an historical context, it wasn't uncommon during slavery times for a black man newly elevated to a position of power - as overseer, for example - to use the whip more often and more viciously than anyone could imagine possible."

This is the same Stuart Hayward who, most of the time, calls down to us from a very lofty pulpit indeed, tut-tut-tutting at the first hint of an uncharitable word from others, and behaving as if.well, a polite way of putting it would be that he behaves as if he were a paragon of civility.

To find him down here among us, banging his size 11 boots into the nearest UBP crotch, is a revelation - truly one of those Kodak moments someone was talking about the other day. Give that man a glass of champagne! He has earned it.

BLUTO

St. George's