A rumour began flying months ago that outgoing Member of Parliament (MP) for St Ann South Eastern, Lisa Hanna, would likely join the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and re-enter elective politics in time for a general election due this year.

It is no secret that the energy between the People’s National Party (PNP) and her has waned since she lost to Mark Golding in the internal party election to decide the presidency of the opposition in November 2020. 

She stuck around though, sparing the party a by-election had she decided to leave the scene earlier, and that move benefitted the PNP, for had she stepped almost five years ago, the JLP would certainly have won that by-election considering the momentum that it had after the September 3, 2020 poll, and Hanna winning by a mere 31 votes.

So, when information was making the rounds that she would jump ship, and would be given a relatively safe seat…even St Andrew North Central was mentioned, I became quite sceptical.

I later heard from irrefutable sources that she was harbouring no such contemplation. 

Hanna is no fool. She knows that it would make no sense stepping across the political border and end up in green land, even though the JLP was not foreign to her.

Among the drawbacks in her relationship with the JLP, was what she endured in that situation with the mentally challenged Everald Warmington, who called her a ‘Jezebel’ in Parliament. That would have been too much. Sadly, in that situation, not one member of the JLP, from the prime minister down, condemned Warmington’s vulgarity or suggested that he ought to see a psychiatrist or psychologist to have his unstable head rectified.

So, how would Hanna fare in such a situation, had she decided to join the JLP camp?

Would she allow Warmington to walk up to her and say ‘Darling, a so it go yaa, them things dey happen ina politics. We haffi mouth one another’?

The disrespect shown by not only Warmington, but others on the Government bench to people generally, is frightening, and then they are encouraged to run again in general elections. They are right there … Warmington, George Wright, Robert Morgan, Juliet Cuthbert, Homer Davis … and others.

Do they realise that it is the people of this country who allow them to speak freely in George William Gordon’s House along Duke Street in the island’s capital? Maybe not. 

Lisa Hanna is still a young woman who can make it back on the political centrestage if she so desires. 

I am aware that outside of St Ann, she has been offered seats by the PNP, which may be considered easy to win, but she declined.

Should she decide to step back onto the political scene later, a little tweaking of her attitude here and there could make that move a howling success. There are times in life that we have to step off the platform, take a break to reflect, look ahead, and, as they say, wheel and come again.

Why appeal SOE court ruling?

There are some people who will never learn. Why would the Government appeal the decision by the Constitutional Court, which ruled that states of emergency (SOEs) imposed across Jamaica between 2018 and 2023 were unconstitutional and void?

The Government depended too much on the measure as a crime-fighting tool, and violated the rights of too many citizens, many of whom were kept in lockups for over a year in some cases, without charge.

In instances, it appeared that the police were even handpicking people, not based on any sound evidence, and just locking them away, without any consideration for their welfare and that of their dependents.

Losing cases seems to be the norm for the Government, which must be examining the role of Attorney General Derrick McKoy, the most silent AG in Jamaica’s history, as its chief legal advisor.

Crucially, the court’s decision could unlock the floodgates for aggrieved people to file lawsuits.

That being a strong possibility, it must be a significant cause for concern for any party that forms the Government in the coming months, having to potentially compensate so many in the years to come. 

Police should have arrested child killer

It is no secret that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has decided to take out gunmen when they get the chance to, rather than arresting them and putting them before the courts.

At the rate at which killings have been going, some of the jobs of judges may well be on the line, as the police seem to be ensuring that those members of the judiciary have less work to do in presiding over cases like murder.

Up to last weekend, the number of people killed by the police since the start of 2025 had risen to 131, which I am prepared to bet is the most by the police force in the first four and a half months of any year.

The problem with the killing of so many is that mistakes can be made and will be made. But instead of fleshing out accusations in court, the police seem intent on preventing such before they get that far.

Take the case of the fellow who allegedly raped and killed nine-year-old Kelsey Ferrigon in St Catherine less than two weeks ago. The police said last Monday that they had shot and killed Giovanni Ellis, the suspect, after he reportedly pointed a gun at them in Clarendon.

My understanding from someone close to the operation is that no such thing happened, and that Ellis was shot dead as soon as police personnel got a chance to pull their triggers.

It would have been a much better thing for that man to be arrested and placed before the court, for so much more could have been unearthed by the police from him about other things that he might have become involved in, had he been in a position to talk.

A man like that, too, had he been found guilty, would have faced hell at any of the correctional facilities to which he would have been placed. He, probably, would have suffered so much that he would have wished that he had never been born.

While murders and some other serious crimes have dipped in Jamaica over the last year, it is not a good thing that police killings have risen dramatically.

Chase not a bad choice

He has not played a cricket match for the West Indies in Tests in two years, yet Cricket West Indies has shown up the folly of its ways by not only recalling Roston Chase for the three-match series against Australia starting next month, but has named him captain.

Folly because Chase should never have been left out of the Test squad, even as his batting average is 26 from 49 matches between 2013 and 2023, considering the stock that was available over the last two years.

His ascension to the chair of captaincy is good enough, all things considered, if you look at what he is capable of doing. He would be a pretty safe bet batting at number six, and his offspinners would come in handy. 

Now that the captaincy has been decided, it is left to be seen how the Test squad will be chosen, and how many of the more talented players will get out of T20 mode and join up with Chase for the huge assignment.

India aside, Australia are perhaps most dominant in all three international formats of cricket. They will be howling favourites to overcome South Africa in the World Test Championship final at Lord’s just before they tour the Caribbean, and arriving on a high, they will be in combat mode to keep the hosts down.

I hope that Chase will be given the best human resource tools available, so that he can lead his troops against the top-notch side with confidence. He must insist that his predecessor, Kraigg Brathwaite, is not included in the squad, for at the start of an innings, you need positive play, not someone occupying the crease and behaving like he is age 94 and cannot get the ball away.

Chase also must reason with some of his friends who play the shorter versions and ask them to make themselves available for Test selection.

If that is not achieved, he will become another statistic and Australia will once again take the Sir Frank Worrell Trophy, which they have had for 30 years since 1995, to place on a crowded, dusty shelf Down Under.