Last week one of our Cabinet Ministers was asked by his Chief Officer (the most senior Civil Servant in the Ministry) to provide evidence to support an expense-claim before submitting it for reimbursement. The Minister - an arrogant bully at any time - went bananas at the affront to his dignity and cursed out the unfortunate CO in front of the whole staff. "How dare you!! I am a born Caymanian and you are just a piece of ****ing driftwood! Get the **** out of my office! Go on - **** off!"
Never mind the cussing, it is the "driftwood" usage - and our Premier's support for the outburst - that will probably cost his Party the next election. That the Chief Officer was a highly respected woman (foreign-born, but with bloodline-Caymanian children by her bloodline-Caymanian ex-husband) illustrates the desperately poor quality of our political leadership these days.
Ever since I began my blog (website) in 2011 I have bewailed the prevalence of social tensions between Cayman's expats and many of the "bloodline" Caymanians. But the tensions are normally kept in a cupboard, except during election campaigns. This latest incident warrants a dispassionate analysis of its likely effect on our Islands' expat communities. I'm posting this brief summary now just to give a heads-up to readers of this Cayman forum. Anybody thinking of coming here to live needs to know how things stand politically.
