Speaker offers unusual warning to governor

| 31/10/2018 | 137 Comments
Cayman News Service

Governor Martyn Roper and his wife, Elizabeth, are greeted outside the Legislative Assembly by (L-R) Deputy Governor Franz Manderson, Premier Alden McLaughlin and House Speaker McKeeva Bush

(CNS): In his address in the Legislative Assembly welcoming the new governor to the Cayman Islands, House Speaker McKeeva Bush urged him to stay out of legislative business. Using what he said was a regional turn of phrase, he warned Martyn Roper that “cockroach has no business in a rooster fight”.

As he opened the formal swearing-in ceremony, Bush, who is the Father of the House as the longest serving MLA, admitted that in his new role as speaker he struggles to keep quiet after being at the heart of the political fray for so long, but nevertheless indicated his ongoing suspicion of those sent here by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

How the governor felt finding himself likened to a cockroach within hours of arriving in Cayman for the first time is not clear, but as a career diplomat it is likely that he took it as Bush said it was meant, as a humourous warning about his efforts to maintain the independence of the Legislative Assembly.

Bush told the governor that democracy was “alive and well” in Cayman. But because he is speaker, “I am told not to talk,” he said, confessing that he did not find that easy after more than 36 years of talking, but that sometimes he did appreciate the rest.

The speaker also praised the current Government of National Unity in which he now serves, alongside his political nemesis, Premier Alden McLaughlin. He said that its members are hard working, like everyone in Legislative, before he issued his words of advice to the governor about not getting involved in internal political disagreements.

“I will ask you, though, pay very little attention to that. Sometimes, as one of our sayings in the region is, cockroach has no business in rooster fight. Don’t take that as an insult but how it is meant. You will do best to listen,” Bush said, before adding that he was looking forward to a cordial relationship with Roper and welcoming him to the Cayman Islands.

See Bush’s welcome to governor below on CIGTV:

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Category: Politics

Comments (137)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Mac is a disgrace.

  2. Anonymous says:

    Mac tell um how hard you studied and worked to get that degree, dem people na know a ting! You are an inspiration to the young Caymanians who don’t want to work to achieve anything SMH should be ashamed of you damn self!

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  3. Anonymous says:

    Holy f##k! People voted for that? They deserve it. Glad I can’t vote.

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  4. Anonymous says:

    Q. If McKeeva Bush is not a real scholastic, medical, or honorary doctorate recipient, how is the ongoing unchecked use of that honorific, which he has gladly countersigned, not construed as impersonation and a crime of disrepute worthy of disqualification from politics and public service?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Because it’s Mac and people are too afraid to stand up to him.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Rather than explain the strange circumstances of the return of this mysteriously begotten degree, the school-leaver had this response to Wendy Ledger last July:

        From McKeeva Bush:

        [9:25 AM, 7/5/2018] Wendy: Tell auntie and the other sobs that my lawyer will read what they say. I won’t !
        I will decide how to handle you and them under the standing orders.

        But for now….
        ➖➖➖➖➖➖
        Some people always throw stones in your path. It depends on what you make with them; a Wall or a Bridge? – Remember you are the architect of your life.

        Take that!!!
        [9:25 AM, 7/5/2018] Wendy: So you know !!!
        Here’s what one wise person wrote to me about you and cns kind of racism bigotry

        The legacy of colonialism which is the mother of racism will continue to manifest itself in all walks of our daily lives! Until the philosophy that holds one race superior than the other is finally discredited and abandoned,and the color of a man skin is no more significant than the color of his eyes,we will continue to see these acts of prejudice perpetrated against us! I know you see and experience it in your daily political interactions at the highest level!
        No matter how they dress it up they will never acknowlege us as being equal to them! But is not what they teach us but what we know! Mac as the bible quotes! Prove all things,and hold fast to that which is good!

        I have learned to laugh at you and that “pop eyed soldier crab”who you say own cns.

        Even more from McKeeva Bush:

        Your criticism of me only shows how really wutless and poor you and your slander sheet is!!!
        While you criticize me about a doctorate I’ve been honored with only just shows just how poor and lowdown in journalism(simply just can’t call it that though) you and the “ pop eyed soldier crab”is!!!
        Ha ha ha????????????????!!!!

        By the way you ought to know since you and “your make believe writers” are so interested,there are several other well known and decent Caymanians who havd been so honored.

        CNS: This was in response to an Ask Auntie column, Is McKeeva Bush a ‘doctor’?

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