Crass is crass!

Everald Warmington, the former member of parliament for South West St Catherine, has a long history of hot-tempered outbursts and vulgar public comments, many of them broadsides against the media. A sample from published news reports is listed below.

• December 2007 - 'Cast them out'

A call by observer group Citizens Action For Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) for two junior government ministers to resign in the wake of recent comments on the political stage was immediately dismissed by one of those named.

Everald Warmington, state minister for water and housing, brushed aside CAFFE's concerns as he trivialised its call for his removal.

"They did not employ me, so they cannot dismiss me," Warmington scoffed.

The independent observer group had called for the resignations of Warmington and Robert Montague, state minister with responsibility for local government, who it accused of breaching the Corruption (Prevention) Act through statements made recently in the run-up to the local government elections.

Nancy Anderson, member of the board of directors of CAFFE, told The Gleaner that the organisation "unreservedly condemns the statements of both ministers".

In a release issued, the local election watchdog organisation said: "It is clear that the only decent thing for Messrs Warmington and Montague to do is to tender their resignations."

Warmington told residents of Old Harbour Bay in St Catherine that if they did not vote for the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), they would not receive hurricane-relief cheques. The minister went as far as to tell the supporters that he had spoken with Pearnel Charles, minister of labour and social security, and had told him that the cheques should not be sent out until after the elections.

Montague, a minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister, reportedly told supporters that only if they voted for the JLP councillor, would the roads in their community be repaired.

When contacted by The Gleaner, he said he was unwilling to comment until after he had met with Prime Minister Bruce Golding.

According to Anderson, who is also a human rights lawyer with the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights, CAFFE would not normally have intervened unless it thought the ministers' statements were a deliberate attempt to corrupt the voting process.

A press release was later published purportedly with Warmington apologising for his comments. The apology did not have his signature, however. His colleague, Robert Montague, who had earlier submitted an apology for statements he made at a political rally, placed his signature on his apology.

• January 2008 - Warmington to answer for abrasive behaviour towards media

Prime Minister Bruce Golding says he would be talking with Member of Parliament for South West St Catherine Everald Warmington about his behaviour towards the media.

Warmington, who is also the state minister for water and housing, has repeatedly insisted that he does not speak with the media.

The prime minister announced the meeting on Wednesday, one day before another abrasive display by Warmington.

"It's certainly not what we want," the prime minister told The Gleaner/Power 106 News after addressing the National Day of Prayer at the National Arena.

"Mr Warmington is going to need considerably more speaking to."

The prime minister said that as a state minister of Government, there were certain responsibilities that Warmington had to fulfil.

Late last year, the prime minister reprimanded Warmington for comments he made on a political campaign.

Warmington had suggested that the Government would withhold relief benefits from Hurricane Dean victims in Old Harbour Bay, St Catherine, if they voted against the Jamaica Labour Party. He reportedly later apologised for those comments.

The apology that was circulated to the media was not signed by Warmington, but the prime minister said he had received a signed apology.

Warmington was rude when reporters tried to question him about his utterances after a parliamentary sitting. Recently, he hung up the phone on a Nationwide News Network reporter who was seeking his reaction to a protest over bad roads in his constituency.

Warmington hung up the phone on a reporter from The Gleaner/Power 106 News Centre on two occasions when he tried to speak with him on the impending meeting with the prime minister.

• August 2010 - Warmington scoffs as OCG initiates investigation

Everald Warmington defiantly characterised Contractor General Greg Christie as an "overzealous idiot" after the politician was implicated in misconduct in the award of government contracts.

Warmington was responding to the announcement by Christie that his office had initiated an investigation into the dealings of a construction firm allegedly owned by the member of parliament for South West St Catherine.

"I have never been a shareholder. I was a director up until 2007 and I am no longer a director, and that still stands," Warmington declared.

"He (Christie) is always coming up with some nonsense," Warmington added. "I am not surprised at him. That is a characteristic of the person."

A senior public servant and the St Catherine Parish Council are also in the contractor general's sights.

They are implicated in damning allegations of questionable and criminal conduct in the dispensing of multimillion-dollar government contracts to the construction company, Strathairn Construction Company Limited.

• October 2010 - Warmington threatens media shutout from CDF sittings

In a threat against the media, chairman of the select committee examining expenditure relating to the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), Everald Warmington, told his colleagues that they could bring a resolution and again shut out the press from covering its sittings.

This comment came after the chairman launched a verbal attack on the local media which was covering, for the first time, the spending of more than $1 billion of taxpayers' money annually by members of parliament in the island's 60 constituencies.

Since June 2008, the committee had been meeting behind closed doors as it deliberated on $1.2 billion set aside for CDF projects.

Describing media reports about the CDF as "gutterism", Warmington went on the offensive, delivering an acerbic broadside against the press.

His comments were supported by Member of Parliament for Eastern St Andrew St Aubyn Bartlett.

Singling out The Gleaner for its reports on the CDF, the chairman accused the media entity of having an agenda.

Despite holding meetings behind closed doors since its establishment more than two years ago, Government MP Andrew Gallimore took the media to task for not reporting on the projects which benefited constituents.

In a quick response, president of the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ), Jenni Campbell, said: "I have noted Mr Warmington's comments regarding the media and especially a particular media entity. I have asked the Press Association of Jamaica's Advisory Council to urgently review this matter."

Campbell, The Gleaner's managing editor, added that "any attempt to prevent the press from carrying out its duties or to block transparency in conducting the business of the people of Jamaica should not be tolerated at any level."

The prime minister assured media practitioners that neither the Govern-ment nor the Jamaica Labour Party was in support of the MP's boorish behaviour or his threat to shut journalists out of the committee meetings.

• March 2011 - Female media practitioners call for Golding to take action against former MP

Scores of women attached to the local media have joined to demand that Prime Minister Bruce Golding take action against former parliamentarian Everald Warmington for his 'offensive' treatment of CVM news anchor Kerlyn Brown during a live television interview last Tuesday evening.

Warmington told Brown to "go to hell" when he was asked to respond to a question about his reasons for remaining a member of the House of Representatives since 2007, despite knowing his pledge of allegiance to a foreign country had made him an unfit candidate.

In a letter penned to Golding yesterday, more than 60 women working in a wide cross-section of Jamaican media organisations expressed their deep outrage over recent offensive statements by Warmington, which they found particularly demeaning and degrading of Jamaican women.

As a result, the group called on the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader not to permit Warmington to be nominated as candidate for the JLP in the by-election scheduled for April 4.

"This would be a signal that you represent a higher standard of political conduct, and that you support our view that the people of South West St Catherine deserve a member of parliament who shows a high level of respect to women, to all Jamaican citizens, and to our national institutions that so far, Mr Warmington has consistently failed to demonstrate," the group charged.

The women argued that Warmington has had a long history of offensive verbal assaults on the media, and, despite leaders of the party having to apologise for him from time to time, they could not recall any occasion when he has apologised for his own abusive behaviour.