Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

The upshot of Afro-Saxon culture among us is that we were to come to a real independence but only a nominal freedom, one without the benefit of any political class or even responsible elite.... Even the people who compete for control of government see only the need for election outfits without ever considering the maintenance of a political class as an indispensable requirement for anything save gangster operations. The perpetuation over the centuries of government without politics has been the necessary result, with its necessary extension in government as plunder and corruption as pandemic....

In every domain without exception, be it national security and the police, the school system, the university, sport, media, church, the public service or the unions, the chilling conclusion is that nowhere in sight is there anything resembling responsible elites or an officer corps capable of conceptualising the issue and of mapping strategic interventions or of identifying practical priority options.

— Lloyd Best, in his column in today's Express, examining the causes of the "complete impoverishment of public life" in the Caribbean today.

A topical illustration of this in T&T: the difficulty of finding a decent, independent nominee, acceptable to both major political parties, for the office of president, which Arthur Robinson must soon vacate.