Vernon Daley

There is one place where the Opposition Leader is ahead of the Prime Minister and that's inside Parliament. Bruce Golding has simply outclassed Portia Simpson Miller in the way he has marshalled his troops in the House of Representatives.

It comes down to this: Mr. Golding relishes the cut and thrust of parliamentary debates and discussions while the Prime Minister doesn't. She is at home on the political platform but looks to suffer some discomfort on the parliamentary stage.

This seems to have affected the confidence and morale of government members in the House. They don't have a leader who leads from the front and this leaves them without a central rallying point. The government side is going to need more than the incessant prattle of Donald Buchanan to galvanise it.

Mr. Golding, on the other hand, has used his formidable knowledge of parliamentary practices and procedures and his masterful debating skills to pull his team along with him and win parliamentary battles with the government.

Members tripping

Who can forget how he single-handedly derailed the censure motion against Karl Samuda and left government members tripping over each other? And, that was not the first time he would have used his knowledge of the rules of parliament to get his way.

In fact, Mr. Golding's manoeuvres had a way of leading him into frequent conflicts with A.J. Nicholson when he was appointed to the Senate after the 2002 general election. The Attorney General was often not willing to allow him to get his way and that usually led to fiery verbal matches.

Senate President Syringa Marshall-Burnett must have pushed out a deep sigh of relief when she learnt Mr. Golding was leaving the Senate and she would no longer have to referee those clashes between the two men.

Still, that kind of counterbalance is important in our parliamentary tradition and it's unfortunate we are not seeing it under the Prime Minister in the House.

Even though her predecessor, P.J. Patterson, was not a confrontational parliamentarian who responded to every little issue, it was clear that he loved the parliamentary exchange.

When he rose you saw that he welcomed the challenge of matching wit and intellect with his opponents across the aisle. It made for good entertainment.

But, even before assuming the mantle of Prime Minister, Mrs. Simpson Miller was neverdeeply involved in the debates in the House. Sadly, she was hardly missed when she wasn't there.

I've heard it argued that it's unfair to judge the Prime Minister in the same way as her male counterparts in the House because women tend not to be as aggressive and confrontational as men in those debates.

But, my own experience is that women can be just as fond of the parliamentary culture as men and I've even seen them beat men at the game.

I've had the opportunity of covering the Barbados parliament and observing the former Deputy Prime Minister Dame Billie Miller in action. She is as fierce as one can find and has been known to send men cowering in fear when she rises on a point of order.

The current Deputy Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, also enjoys the parliamentary exchange and that, no doubt, explains why she is so good at it.

Mrs. Simpson Miller makes her second Budget Debate presentation as Prime Minister this week. She needs to impress and show that she can rally the troops in the House because shoulders have been drooping.