The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

A METRONOME is a mechanical device that marks time by swinging back and forth.

Oddly, that definition would appear to make Edison Key a political metronome.

The old timers playing dominoes at Chester’s Bar in Acklins will tell you that Key changes his party affiliation more times than a new mother changes diapers or more colourfully, “more times than the parson change he frock”.

And so there was no great surprise when Key showed up at the PLP mini-convention in January and nary a man batted an eye when Key swooned with Perry Christie at a campaign stop the other day.

The adjective that best describes the 78-year-old Mr Key is “irrelevant”. Nobody cares what he stands for because we know he will fall for anything.

He fell out of favour with Sir Lynden Pindling. He bolted for the door when Hubert Ingraham stopped listening to him. He found Perry Christie 1.0 too difficult to swallow. Then he didn’t like the prescription Hubert Minnis gave him for bellyaching all the time. Now he is back in love with Perry Christie 2.0.

I have no doubt that in his mind, every vacillation was a principled move. It just seems that his political principles and convictions shift as often as his politics. Now, as he ends his political career we can soundly state that we know who he stood with over the years but we honestly don’t know what Edison Key stood for over the years.

Looking back over his career, there are countless instances where his actions were all to the good and glory of himself. This farmer and former Minister of Agriculture bows out of the political arena but like sand fly he just won’t leave us alone.

The historians will scratch their heads when they try to write about the contributions that this man has made to our national life. Trouble is, you just can’t pin him down on anything.

He loves being a member of political parties - no special one in particular. But his politics has always only been about him. Ask the FNM caucus who stormed out of Parliament when the then leader of the opposition Hubert Minnis refused to withdraw statements he made on the floor of the House. Key put glue on his seat because he didn’t move a muscle.

He further frustrated the caucus on other occasions and only when it was convenient to him that he piled on for what he and others thought would have been the political castration of Minnis. They all learned however that a Bain Town bull is hard to geld.

My late grandmother had a phrase she used to warn about people who would never mean you any good. “He ain’t no true-true member,” she would warn. Who knew she was talking about Edison Key all those years ago.

THE GRADUATE

Nassau

April 5, 2017