{"id":8758,"date":"2015-04-03T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T16:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=8758"},"modified":"2015-04-03T12:09:08","modified_gmt":"2015-04-03T16:09:08","slug":"citizens-have-risen-above-politicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=8758","title":{"rendered":"Citizens have risen above politicians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><I>Express Editorial<br \/>\nApril 03, 2015 &#8211; <A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadexpress.com\/commentaries\/Citizens-have-risen-above-politicians-298542621.html\">trinidadexpress.com<\/A><\/I><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=8724\"><img src='http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blogimg\/toppin270315.jpg' width='243' height='203' border='0' class='alignleft' alt='Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Vernella Alleyne-Toppin' \/><\/a>For reasons best known to itself, the ruling People\u2019s Partnership has continued to defend its disgraced MP Vernella Alleyne-Toppin. <\/p>\n<p>Not only have Government spokespersons tried to spin Ms Alleyne-Toppin\u2019s crassness into a social concern message about rape, but UNC hacks on social media continue her denigrating diatribe against Opposition Leader Keith Rowley. But what could the UNC-led coalition hope to achieve by this? The widespread public condemnation has clearly harmed the Partnership\u2019s image, including its trump card, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who will no doubt suffer a drop in approval ratings by her refusal to remove the Tobago East MP from her entirely inappropriate post in the Ministry of the Peolpe and Social Development.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThere are four possible explanations for the UNC\u2019s obduracy on this issue: (1) the party has opinion polls showing that media editors and commentators have got it wrong and there is silent public approval of Alleyne-Toppin\u2019s rape statement; (2) having committed to a campaign strategy based on demonising Dr Rowley, the UNC cannot now change course without losses more significant than diminishing public approval; (3) the party\u2019s strategists have been so blinded by group-think (wherein everybody has the same opinion and are impervious to dissenting views) that they genuinely believe the rape allegations are winning support for the UNC; (4) the UNC has already decided that the party will lose the election and demonising Dr Rowley is intended only to shore up their core support so they will retain their traditional seats.<br \/>\n<I><B><A HREF=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadexpress.com\/commentaries\/Citizens-have-risen-above-politicians-298542621.html\">Full Article : trinidadexpress.com<\/A><\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Express Editorial April 03, 2015 &#8211; trinidadexpress.com For reasons best known to itself, the ruling People\u2019s Partnership has continued to defend its disgraced MP Vernella Alleyne-Toppin. Not only have Government spokespersons tried to spin Ms Alleyne-Toppin\u2019s crassness into a social concern message about rape, but UNC hacks on social media continue her denigrating diatribe against &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=8758\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Citizens have risen above politicians<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[310,1,178,566,217,396,30,25,55,142],"tags":[610,144,60,1015,49,756],"class_list":["post-8758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-general-tt","category-general-tt","category-media","category-opposition-party","category-parliament","category-peoples-partnership","category-pnm","category-sex-crimes","category-tobago","category-unc","tag-express","tag-kamla-persad-bissessar","tag-keith-rowley","tag-politics","tag-tt-govt","tag-vernella-alleyne-toppin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8759,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8758\/revisions\/8759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}