Bill Clarke on "Impact"

Bill Clarke and Cliff Hughes had an interesting discussion tonight. Too bad Mr. Clarke skipped around the issue everyone wanted to hear him address, namely the response of the PM to Mr. Clarke's "failed state" comment. Cliff tried his best, but was unable to get Mr. Clarke to adequately defend his comment in the wake of PJ's observation that one the largest commercial banking conglomerates in the hemisphere mainitains Jamaica as a profit center (referring to the Bank of Nova Scotia, of which Mr. Clarke is the president and CEO), and, as such, how could Jamaica be a failed state? I was hoping that Mr. Clarke would have called the PM out on this, but I can understand his reluctance. Don't want to mess up the relationship between the PM and BNS, do we? Not when BNS has made in excess of JMD$1 billion profit for the first quarter of 2005. One must tread carefully. Maybe next time he'll be braver.

He did make some good points though. He raised the question of exactly who the PSOJ was demonstrating against, since the government and opposition announced their support for the initiative. Perhaps it was the criminals Mr. Clarke. They would certainly be moved to change their ways by an ineffectual demonstration, even though our politicians have not been so inclined thus far.