Gail Alexan­der

In­com­ing PP Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor James Lam­bert is ready to work with Labour Min­is­ter Er­rol McLeod. The two had crossed ver­bal swords on labour is­sues in late April, when McLeod was re­port­ed as call­ing Lam­bert a "com­plete fool." Lam­bert gave the as­sur­ance of his in­ten­tion yes­ter­day. A UNC mem­ber, Lam­bert was cho­sen by the PP Gov­ern­ment to re­place Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah, who re­signed as a sen­a­tor last week­end af­ter the par­ty's de­ci­sion to leave the coali­tion PP.

Lam­bert will be sworn in as a Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor at to­day's Sen­ate sit­ting, which starts at 1.30 pm. McLeod says he wants to be the first to con­grat­u­late Lam­bert when he is sworn in. He was speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing and was asked about his re­cent crit­i­cisms of Lam­bert. "I think I re­mem­ber what you're talk­ing about," he said. "I want to be the the first to con­grat­u­late Mr Lam­bert af­ter he takes his oath of of­fice as a sen­a­tor, and I will de­pend on his many years and ex­pe­ri­ence in the vine­yard, as we will both work to­wards re­liev­ing the plight of the work­ing peo­ple of T&T."