Michael Manley would have been proud.

As I now come to terms with the fact that it is probably going to take generations before Jamaica gets decent political leadership, I realise how stupid it was of me to have been so easily fooled a second time. After all we are supposed to learn from experience aren't we?

I recall back in the late 60's when I lived in Canada and all we were hearing about was of the moral and financial decay taking place in Jamaica. In fact, the hit tune "Everything crash" seemed to seemed to sum it all up most appropriately. Then came the knight in shining armour, Michael Manley who rehashed all the moral problems the country was having and promised to fix them all. What made him so convincing was that he seemed to have his ears to the ground and was hearing the real beefs that people were having especially the fact that the outcome of moral slippery slope that the country was on, seemed certain to dwarf every other challenge we as a new nation had.

Within weeks of Michael coming to Canada and addressing us, we decided to return home to try and help to build the country under his leadership.

Experience soon taught us however that Manley never meant one word of what he uttered in his campaign speeches and had only articulated those popular views to fool the electorate. In fact, so discredited did Manley become that within years his popular name was "Manlie".

One would have thought that having had that rude awakening after the Manley experience, I would never again fall for the line. But I did in 2007. For once again the country was on aa rapid moral slide downwards as every form of corruption, illegality and brutality had become the norm in the society.

Bruce Golding would have been quite young when Manley's strategy worked in the 70's and although he was from the opposing party, he obviously recognised its worth and adopted it in the 2000's ..... listening to the cry of the people for moral renewal in the country then articulating the solutions very convincingly.

Who could have expected that the same person who had appeared so remorseful about having had links with the underworld, making both Seaga and PJ Patterson look like unrepentant goons during a widely watched telivision debate, could have turned out to be such an immoral leader?

His thrust to use the power of the state to prevent a major crime figure , Christopher Dudus Coke from being extradited to the USA, under the guise that he was protecting the rights of a Jamaican citizen, finds uncomfortable comparison with the use of fraternal relations with Fidel Castro by Michael Manley to hide George Flash and Tony Brown, two notorious PNP gunmen, in Cuba when the police started to search for them for the murder of Ted Ogilvie.

And if we had thought that the PNP was prepared to lessen its links with vicious gunmen after the death of Manley, we got a rude awakening when the same party under the leadership of P.J. Patterson chose the mass murderer Bulbie over their own member of parliament Heather Robinson in 1995. Oh how well those succeding Manley (in both parties) have learnt!

These two parities that alternate in government are nothing but criminal organisations posing as political parties. Manley would have been proud of his legacy.