The tone adopt­ed by a prime min­is­ter mat­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a coun­try where po­lit­i­cal ex­changes can quick­ly be­come con­tentious. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has nev­er been re­luc­tant to speak plain­ly, but some of her re­cent rhetoric rais­es ques­tions about whether that forth­right style is be­com­ing un­nec­es­sar­i­ly con­fronta­tion­al.

Dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign, she ad­vo­cat­ed that the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices “emp­ty the mat­ic on them.” Since as­sum­ing of­fice, the Prime Min­is­ter has con­tin­ued with tough rhetoric, in­clud­ing “bad­john” talk and point­ed warn­ings di­rect­ed even at mem­bers of her own par­ty and Gov­ern­ment.

She has al­so strong­ly sup­port­ed Unit­ed States ac­tion against al­leged drug traf­fick­ers in the Caribbean Sea and made se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions link­ing mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and pri­vate cit­i­zens to the il­le­gal drugs and arms trade, with­out pub­licly pre­sent­ing ev­i­dence to sub­stan­ti­ate those claims.

There has al­so been con­tro­ver­sy over state­ments made un­der par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege. The Prime Min­is­ter has been sharply crit­i­cal of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors and al­leged that uniden­ti­fied mem­bers of the in­de­pen­dent bench sought a bribe from the Gov­ern­ment in ex­change for sup­port­ing leg­is­la­tion.

That is a par­tic­u­lar­ly se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tion and one that in­evitably in­vites calls for ev­i­dence and fur­ther scruti­ny.

More re­cent­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter turned her at­ten­tion to what she de­scribed as “lazy pub­lic ser­vants,” warn­ing that those who fail to be­come pro­duc­tive could be fired.

None of this is to sug­gest that a prime min­is­ter should avoid strong lan­guage or re­treat from po­lit­i­cal con­fronta­tion. Gov­ern­ments are en­ti­tled to de­fend their poli­cies vig­or­ous­ly, chal­lenge their op­po­nents and re­spond to crit­i­cism.

More­over, pol­i­tics is not a gen­teel ex­er­cise and Trinidad and To­ba­go has a long tra­di­tion of colour­ful, com­bat­ive po­lit­i­cal dis­course.

But there is a dis­tinc­tion be­tween ro­bust po­lit­i­cal de­bate and rhetoric that risks over­whelm­ing the sub­stan­tive is­sue be­ing de­bat­ed.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is an ex­pe­ri­enced politi­cian and lawyer who has spent decades in pub­lic life. She al­so leads a par­ty whose founder, Bas­deo Pan­day, un­der­stood the val­ue of po­lit­i­cal op­po­si­tion, fa­mous­ly mak­ing clear that it was not the op­po­si­tion’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make the gov­ern­ment look good.

That prin­ci­ple re­mains rel­e­vant to­day.

Op­po­si­tion par­ties, in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, civ­il so­ci­ety, the me­dia and or­di­nary cit­i­zens will ques­tion the Gov­ern­ment, some­times ag­gres­sive­ly. The Gov­ern­ment, in turn, has every right to chal­lenge its crit­ics.

The con­cern is not crit­i­cism it­self, but the qual­i­ty of the ex­change.

At a time when Trinidad and To­ba­go faces dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic, so­cial and se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges, pub­lic de­bate ben­e­fits when ar­gu­ments are cen­tred on poli­cies, ev­i­dence and com­pet­ing ideas rather than per­son­al­i­ties and in­flam­ma­to­ry ex­changes.

As Prime Min­is­ter, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s words nat­u­ral­ly at­tract greater at­ten­tion and car­ry greater con­se­quence than those of most par­tic­i­pants in po­lit­i­cal de­bate.

She does not need to blunt her po­lit­i­cal edge or avoid con­fronta­tion. But there are oc­ca­sions when a more mea­sured choice of words could strength­en rather than weak­en the point she is seek­ing to make.

The chal­lenge is not for the Prime Min­is­ter to say less. It is to hit the right tone.