PM Persad-Bissessar's disappearing act

If I am following correctly, the recently elected prime minister can’t come to work because the official premises designated for her use are too mouldy, too flooded and too crowded with bottles of alcohol. So the PM is working from home.

This should be an uncontroversial matter. Indeed, “the PM is working from home” is not a statement that should require any particular qualification or explanation in an age when essentially an entire suite of office equipment – from phone to laptop to scanner and even a flashlight – fits neatly inside a few square inches of glass and plastic that most of us walk around with all day.

If the PM chooses to work from home, from her car, or from the San Fernando waterfront, it should matter not a jot. Certainly, there’s no reason to turn the unfortunate Barry Padarath into the Minister for Disparaging Whitehall merely to justify the decision.

As the PM demonstrated emphatically in her first post-cabinet briefing when she reeled off a list of first-week-in-government initiatives, it’s the work that matters, not the venue for the work. It is possible to decline the use of official premises and carry on with one’s duties to the state without fanfare.

In 2018, then president Paula-Mae Weekes quietly let it be known she preferred not to live in President’s House (though it was where she worked and received visitors) and Padarath didn’t need to stand behind a trolley full of vodka bottles for her to do so.

PM Persad-Bissessar is entirely correct to question the kerfuffle over her week one working arrangements, but she should largely be questioning herself.

While Donald Trump celebrated his (second) first 100 days as US President with a rally and much self-congratulation, TT’s PM (by her own description, a Trump admirer) celebrated her landslide election victory by spending about 100 hours inside her house.

It was her abrupt disappearance from public view that raised eyebrows and questions. Assailing the reputation of Whitehall simply explained the PM’s absence from a place, it didn’t explain her absence from seemingly all places.

This is not Kamla’s first rodeo. She’s well aware of the world leaders’ playbook for avoiding things they’d rather not do or places they’d rather not be. The solution is always to look busy doing something else.

Former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was notorious for skipping the weekly British parliamentary ritual of Prime Minister’s Questions. He could easily have claimed the working environment was unsafe or unsuitable, because it’s a matter of public record that the UK Houses of Parliament are in parlous condition.

They’re riddled with asbestos, constantly catching fire (45 recorded small fire outbreaks between 2014 and 2024, per a recent report) and urgently need comprehensive renovation.

A 2023 parliamentary committee was told the state was spending £1.45 million a week (about TT$13 million) on “reactive and proactive maintenance” simply to keep the buildings more or less habitable in lieu of significant structural repair.

But Sunak chose not to blame the abject offices of state for his absences, relying instead on keeping his weekly calendar overflowing with important meetings that sadly prevented him from attending PMQs.

By the time his political adversaries caught up with the fact that he’d missed nearly 20 per cent of PMQs, Sunak’s schedule had become an unimpeachable fortress against regular parliamentary scrutiny.

In July 2023, confronted with the fact he had missed a greater percentage of PMQs than any UK PM in history, and that he was set to miss several more, Sunak replied: "Your view is that I should not be attending the NHS celebration, or the King's coronation celebration in Scotland, or indeed the NATO summit?”

No complaints about the brokedown Palace of Westminster, nor the notorious overconsumption of alcohol (Sunak is strictly teetotal) on the premises. Just a visibly busy schedule of PM-worthy events.

History will likely forget that for about five days in May 2025, TT's PM dropped out of sight. As soon as she started listing her government’s activities at her administration’s first post-cabinet briefing, the balloon of anxiety over her health and work ethic was popped.

It is to be hoped that a lesson has been learned – there is no magic number of buildings in Port of Spain that Padarath can tag for demolition that will adequately explain a vanishing PM.

In this age of 24/7 news and the internet’s nonstop clamour for content, a nation’s political leader must be seen and heard.