Jul 24 - Number Six: Feetham Immediately Fails To Heed Speaker's Call To Reflect
Following Wednesday’s Parliamentary session, the Chief Minister says he is very pleased with the Speaker’s ruling that the Leader of the Opposition’s challenge to Mr Picardo was an abuse of parliamentary privilege.
The Government says that the ruling “further demonstrates that Mr Feetham does not understand the rules of Parliament, a damming indictment for a leader of the Opposition.”
The Chief Minister, as he said in Parliament, has noted the comments made by the Speaker and says he is reflecting on his remarks, “rather than rushing to make statements as Mr Feetham has done.”
A statement continued: “Indeed, judging from postings on the social media, it would appear that, rather than reflecting on his actions and statements that led to the Speaker's remarks, the Leader of the Opposition wishes to continue his futile and failed campaign on Twitter and Facebook.
“The fact is that Mr Feetham is characterised by the acrimonious nature of his political style but now pretends he is innocent of any acrimony. He demonstrated that when he discarded the olive branch offered to him by Mr Picardo in December. He is doing so again in entirely disregarding Mr Speaker's call for reflection.
“In fact, it is frankly laughable for Mr Feetham to pretend that he does not pursue a vindictive and personalised style of politics, to see him playing the victim and pretending that he is without any blame for the disarray in which his party finds itself. Indeed, the Government understands that there have been a number of high profile resignations from the Executive Committee of the GSD, some involving those who had recently been trumpeted as great additions to it.
“The general public can rest assured that in forthcoming sessions of Parliament, the Government will continue to provide further details in connection with the Opposition’s "conflations and distortion" of the Lloyd’s Register Report. The Chief Minister will demonstrate further to the Community the many serious issues raised by Spark’s participation in the preparation of that report. The Chief Minister will, nonetheless, of course do so mindful, as all Members of Parliament should be, of the substance of Mr Speaker's heartfelt comments yesterday, which evidence Hon Mr Canepa's deep wisdom and humility and which demonstrate how valuable his appointment as Speaker has been.
“It would seem that the Leader of the Opposition is clearly nervous of the developments in the Spark saga, which is entirely of his own making, and wishes to divert public attention away from them. He will find it very difficult to do so.”
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