GILLIAN LUCKY

The phrase "the proof is in the pud­ding" is ac­tu­al­ly an abridged form of the ac­tu­al proverb which states "the proof of the pud­ding is in the eat­ing."Ac­cord­ing to the Mc Graw-Hill Dic­tio­nary of Amer­i­can Id­ioms and Phrasal Verbs, the state­ment means "you can­not be sure that you have suc­ceed­ed un­til you have ex­am­ined the re­sult of your ef­forts."

And while the ref­er­ence to "pud­ding" may be suit­able for the Yule­tide sea­son, its ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty to this ar­ti­cle is the ef­fect of the re­cent changes in the Sen­ate, name­ly the re­moval of po­lit­i­cal vet­er­ans Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son and Fitzger­ald Hinds and the ap­point­ments of new­com­ers Di­anne Baldeo-Chadeesingh, Avinash Singh and the new Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness in the Sen­ate, for­mer mem­ber in the Low­er House Camille Robin­son-Reg­is.

The move has gen­er­at­ed pub­lic com­ment, not so much about the two fresh faces that will have to prove them­selves as good par­lia­men­tary ma­te­r­i­al, but with re­spect to the ter­mi­na­tion of the ser­vice of Beck­les-Robin­son.When asked to ex­plain his de­ci­sion to re­move Beck­les-Robin­son, Dr Row­ley stat­ed that "the Par­lia­ment is not the end of any­thing" and that the for­mer sen­a­tor re­mains a high-rank­ing mem­ber of the PNM in her po­si­tion as head of the Women's League.

But while be­ing a se­nior mem­ber of the par­ty is im­por­tant, it must be ad­mit­ted that her re­moval as a sen­a­tor does re­duce her na­tion­al pro­file and makes it more dif­fi­cult for her to suc­ceed in the quest, if that is her am­bi­tion, to be­come po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers