Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

Vive le roi

Us being a monarchy and Mr Manning, the king, explains our situation completely. It doesn't matter whether the plains upon and forests within which the peasants live flood in the wet season and burn in the dry; once they pay their tax -- an X marked in the right box every five years -- they are as dispensable as the cannon-fodder dispatched to the front lines to purchase, with their piled cadavers, sufficient cover for the Big Push.

Neo-monarchy explains all the failures of Trinidad & Tobago a real republic would not tolerate but which we accept as conditions. We can even live with (or die by, according to postal address) our one-a-day murder rate without worry, since all who do not swear loyalty to the king cannot expect his protection; if you don't vote PNM, you can't expect a police service. (For an explanation of the king's failure to protect the PNM's own voters, see "cannon-fodder" supra.) Get a PNM party card and the kingdom is open to you. Prove yourself a hard worker for the ordained cause and, next morning, in your mail, you will find two invitations, one to the next black tie opening featuring the Divine Echoes (established since 2007 by Royal Patent) and another to bid for the contract to supply meals to the Chinese workers dredging Charlotteville Bay, damming the Caroni River or paving the Queen's Park Savannah (according to the whim of Duke Calder Hart).

--B.C. Pires is a badjohn Bagehot in today's Express.