Dawn Ritch, Columnist

The drift of public opinion these days is disturbing. Most commentaries and edi-torials seem to want the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader to sit down together in private meetings. They seem to want them to arrive at a consensus on the way forward.

This is ludicrous. These are not merely opposing political parties, but under any reasonable system of government, they represent separate and different views from which the public are asked to choose. That is the basis of democracy.

Anyone who wants to see a consensus on the way forward arising out of meetings between them ought to have their head examined. This is political correctness gone stark staring mad. Yet everyone it seems, is going that way. They are seemingly satisfied at having a dictatorship depending upon who the dictator is.

This column has never been in favour of the Vale Royal talks where two opposing views are supposed to come to a consensus on the things that really matter. Such talks are the ultimate three-card trick, giving legitimacy to a dictatorship.

Whenever the two major political parties arrive at a consensus on the way forward, there will be no need for a general election. Not one that matters anyway. The elections would continue to be the usual and rising expense of politicking to absolutely no avail. Then it can truly be said that our democracy is just an exercise in elections to determine who will be our next dictator.

Horse trading

If the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader have any ideas on how to get Jamaica out of this vale of tears, they should be telling them to us, and not to each other. The very notion that they should agree these things between themselves to the exclusion of the voters is both repulsive and invalid. Democracy ought to ensure that the decision is made by us and not by them.

Horse trading between political parties is therefore the ugliest politicking it is possible to imagine. That it should be institutionalised by the Vale Royal talks adds insult to injury. It is understandable, however, that it would suit a government without a sense of direction and desperately in need of one.

I, therefore, view the Vale Royal talks as a political exercise in the deepest cynicism. I can't abide the idea. As a theoretical concept, it represents the active disenfranchisement of the people of Jamaica.

It also smacks of intellectual masturbation.

The only insult left is that one day the talks become gridlocked and the publisher of this or that newspaper is asked to adjudicate the matter. This would turn the country into an open plutocracy, with no declared need for general elections.

Considering the vast expense of these elections, that might be no bad thing. But I don't care to be ruled by someone merely because that person is rich, or a mogul of the private sector. Their interests, not ours, are best served by plutocracies.

So, even though it's at ruinous expense, general elections have some virtue in presumably allowing merit and merit alone to rise to the top.

It's like warfare; a brilliant general doesn't just drop from the skies. Some knowledge of the trenches is a prerequisite. Adeptness is to be expected, rather than merely hoped for. But even that concept is being corrupted by enormous sums of money spent by the very same moguls to influence the outcome of elections, the results of which they can no longer live with, without the Vale Royal talks.

Adjudication, except legally, is a fig leaf that carries a multitude of sins. It comforts no one. Consensus is the greatest confidence trick ever perpetrated on the conscience of man to the detriment of the disenfranchised. This is what people do want when they are all spent and bankrupt. To see it elevated as a virtue is nauseating. The people who propose it as such are ruthless. They have an overt political agenda designed to subvert the will of the people.

Corruption cover-up

There is nothing collegiate about politics, and never will be. When that appears, worse, when it takes root, you can be sure that we're up the creek without a paddle. This is all a cover-up for the long, dark night of corruption.

Vale Royal talks were dutifully going on between then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and then Opposition Leader Edward Seaga, while the island sank into the abyss of neglect and corruption. These talks are the plutocratic equivalent of crash-programme work for politicians. Because tea and coffee are served, the media are per-suaded that the talks are legitimate, meaningful and worthwhile.

Yet, to the best of my re-collection, this is the record of so-called achievements of the Vale Royal talks from the past to the present. Seaga obtained an agreement with Patterson that in future, the Public Service Com-mission, the Judicial Service Commission and the Police Service Commission would be appointed on a strictly bipartisan basis, with both sides agreeing to the appointments. This was imple-mented in the case of the Police Service Commission and the Public Service Commission. Readers will note that the latter is the same commission that has been accused of misbehaviour by Prime Minister Golding.

I can also recall Opposition Leader Edward Seaga abandoning the talks, which were never resumed. Up to the time the general election was held in 2007, there were still no Vale Royal talks being held.

Bruce Golding is now Prime Minister, and seems to have a unilateral agreement with mass media that the Vale Royal talks are to be pursued and resumed. Portia Simpson Miller wonders aloud about the manner Golding might have in conducting such meetings with an Opposition he regards as having "termite-infested brains." As a consequence, she has said categorically that she will not be meeting with him, except, it seems, in Parliament, and in plain view of all.

Bruce Golding is on his own. That is the choice the people made when they voted him into office. Yet the media now want him to consult with the Opposition, the former ruling People's National Party, without consulting the people who elected him. Not a commentator calling for the resumption of the Vale Royal talks has noticed that Golding doesn't even uphold the consensus arrived at by his predecessors in these same talks. If ever proof were needed, this ought to be proof positive that these talks serve absolutely no purpose.

Not only is this a prime minister who will fire a constitutional body like the Public Service Commission, en bloc, but seems not to be bound by past agreements.

To Patterson, the law was not a shackle. To Golding neither is the Constitution. Why would anyone want to sit down with either?