THE EDITOR, Sir:

I am either too numb to laugh or cry as I read the various editorials and columnists vigorously demanding, or gently suggesting, that the prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, should say something of substance to the Jamaican public at this time. Why should she?

For much of her political life, and especially in the lead-up to the last general election, Mrs Simpson Miller has not made herself available in any meaningful way to be questioned by the wider media to determine what thoughts are percolating in her head. The media failed to call her out on this.

She has done well politically, without media interviews and statements of substance. Why should she change her winning formula now?

Then again, maybe it would not have been particularly useful to grant too many media interviews. For the media do not often acquit themselves well when required to do so, resorting instead to fawning bromides. I can recall one 'interview' with Comrade Lambert Brown, as a talk-show host (tee-hee), in which they played 'bat up and ketch', and one with Cliff Hughes, in which he famously tried to ascertain whether she was wearing a wig!

The more things change ...

There is nothing in Mrs Simpson Miller's long involvement in representational politics that suggests she has anything of substance to say that is not scripted by someone else. So please spare us the faux consternation about the silence as the country drifts. At the next election, everything will fall into place and it will be business as usual.

As an aside, I see where columnist Ian Boyne has suggested that Opposition Leader Andrew Holness should embrace any message of austerity that the now government may have to dish out. While I concede that Holness spoke about "bitter medicine" before the last election, I suggest he adopt Michael Manley's perspective in the early days of the Seaga regime of the 1980s. Many people at the time were demanding more cooperation from the Manley Opposition. Manley's response was curt and to the point: "You have been elected to govern and you had better govern!"

Holness, having been soundly rejected at the polls, should know when to shut his mouth and not let himself be led off the cliff again by people with the voice of Jacob and the hands of Esau.

JOHN READER

Kingston