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For the past week, we've been reporting on the Shyne Barrow vs the Speaker saga, the most recent development being that Barrow wrote a letter asking the Speaker for a reset.
We're still not sure if the Speaker has accepted it as an apology, but two PUP parliamentarians have said that to them, it seems Barrow saw the error of his ways.
But today we asked the former Speaker of the House, Laura Tucker Longsworth, her thoughts on the matter. She explained that sitting in the chair isn't an easy task, but that there should definitely be more decorum and fewer petty arguments in the House.
Laura Tucker Longsworth, Former Speaker of the House
"I can only speak from my experience of sitting in the chair and I'm telling you, that's a very difficult position because you make some rulings that nobody likes, it doesn't matter what side of the House you're speaking to, they don't like it and it's a very hard thing for people to apologize but if we are requested to apologize, we've got to do it. When I was sitting there, there was one person who was out of the House and we had to make sure, the prime minister of the day made sure that he got back into the house through certain kinds of discussions and so on. I can only hope that will do that and I think that the community has to understand that there are rules in the House and if the committees see that there is a problem, they need to address, so it's a whole system just like you have it in a school and so you have a group of people making these decision. I don't have an opinion but what I do know is we need to do much more and I know that the Speaker of the House is moving towards that, for instance having a code of ethics for our parliamentarians and so on and I think we need to move forward with those kinds of changes in the House where the community now is calling for decorum and it's important because if we are in so much trouble in our social environment and our people tend to be fighting all the time, we don't want it in the National Assembly, we want the example in there and so I'm all for changes and rapid changes and I think that those changes begin with the political parties taking a stand and saying this is what we're moving ahead with and I hope they all support the developing and launching of the code of ethics for the House."
