The leader of the People's National Party (PNP), Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller, and the party's General Secretary, Mr. Donald Buchanan, have been warning the Government that the PNP may not go ahead with confidence-building talks which have become a feature of Government-Opposition relations in recent years.

These discussions, initiated by Mrs. Simpson Miller's predecessor and former Prime Minister, Mr. P.J. Patterson, have had some success in helping to lower political tension and building trust, thereby creating an environment for pursuing a truly national agenda. But the ultimate aim of these summits, of eliminating the deeply partisan and tribal nature of Jamaican politics, remains a work in progress. There is still a far way to go.

We believe that the vast majority would wish that the process goes all the way. The benefits are obvious.

In that regard, we and, we suspect, most Jamaicans, are disappointed with the tone of recent political discourse and the unfurling of the warning flags by the PNP and Mr. Buchanan.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding may have used indecorous language at Sunday's annual conference in characterising the PNP's criticism of the stewardship of his administration for the fewer than three months that it has been in office. The Opposition party, he said, was suffering an "intellectual depravity" and was behaving as though "termites have infected their brains". There were one or two Jamaican colloquialisms, for good measure.

Mr. Buchanan has demanded an apology and Mrs. Simpson Miller has questioned why the Government would want to meet with the Opposition "if you feel that way about us". The Opposition leader and former Prime Minister has apparently taken Mr. Golding's remarks as a personal slur and classist declaration.

We would have preferred if Mr. Golding had used other language, but no serious analysis of the statement can conclude other than a clever use of metaphor, simile and imagery, unkind though they may be, to score political points. There is no evidence from the words uttered, and taken in their fullest context, of any personal attack on individual leaders of the PNP rather than the presumed failings of the collective.

Indeed, Mrs. Simpson Miller is on far firmer ground in insisting that it was the responsibility of Mr. Golding's administration to find solutions for rocketing food prices, and in reminding him of the fact that globalisation was a phenomenon while she was in office. She is also correct that the Trafigura affair transcends the immediate issue of the funnelling of money to the PNP by the Dutch company to the broader issue of party financing.

The point is that democracy is often a messy business. The good thing, though, is that however clumsily or indecorous they be expressed, it is a system of government based on the contention of ideas, rather than power emanating from the barrel of a gun. The summits that are now at risk are part of the process to enhance the ideal of democracy.

There is another point with respect to the political discourse about which Mrs. Simpson Miller and the leaden-tongued but still noisy Mr. Buchanan have complained. If Mr. Buchanan had been properly reprimanded when he was busily deeming opponents as devils and more from the campaign platform, he, and Mrs. Simpson Miller, would now have the high moral platform from which to chastise Mr. Golding.