The Vale Royal legacy THE VALE Royal consensus is nearly three weeks old yet already events, criminal and political, seem to threaten it. The escalating murder rate was the subject of a JLP release earlier this week calling on the Government to tell the nation what measures are to be put in place to tackle the upsurge. PNP spokesperson, Senator Maxine Henry Wilson, found this "curious", pointing to Vale Royal. It was agreed there, she said, that a national committee should be established to develop consensus on ways to fight crime. The Senator may not have reckoned with the impact of the murder surge when 10 persons were killed in a 48-hour span in the very week after the Vale Royal meeting. That meeting of the top political leadership may have been preoccupied with the West Kingston violence; thus routine crime elsewhere may have escaped their immediate concern, or indeed control. Agreement had also been reached at Vale Royal to re-visit and update a political Code of Conduct; but on the heels of the meeting both Prime Minister and Minister of National Security hit the campaign trail with concentrated attacks on the Opposition Leader. The substance of Mr. Seaga's and/or his companies' indebtedness is, as we have said, a legitimate matter for debate. But the tenor of the criticism borders on the atrocious. We concede, of course, that civility on the hustings is hardly the style of Jamaican politicking. But political leaders should be aware of the volatile state of the public mood. How else can one explain the fatal fire-bombing of two infants after a fuss over a cigarette or the extreme reaction to an industrial accident at Tank-Weld. We need some reassurance that the timetable of further talks after Vale Royal is still on track. The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
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