Premier lifts Compass ad ban
David Legge in his Jaguar with security detail (Photo from Facebook)
(CNS): The premier will be issuing a joint statement with the editor of The Cayman Compass Friday confirming that the government advertising boycott with the daily paper will be lifted. In a short statement to the Legislative Assembly as it adjourned Thursday evening, Premier Alden McLaughlin said that as a result of discussions with the governor, the attorney general and the paper’s owner, David Legge, a decision had been made to end the spending ban.
He said that the editor would be disassociating himself from the statements implying all Caymanians were corrupt and reaffirming that both he and his wife consider Cayman to be safe and secure. Meanwhile, government will be making a public commitment to freedom of speech.
McLaughlin said that the resolution passed in Finance Committee regarding the boycott was purely advisory, and as a result the attorney general advised government that no formal action needed to be taken to lift the ban from Saturday.
The boycott came in the wake of an editorial in the paper, published in June, in which the premier said the editorial board of the paper had accused everyone in Cayman of corruption. McLaughlin criticized and derided the editor and called for an apology in a statement to the LA.
Shortly after, Finance Committee passed a resolution to stop expenditure of public cash with Pinnacle Media, the company owned by Legge and his wife, reportedly the sole owners of the paper. Legge and his wife then fled the country after calling on the governor and the police commissioner for protection, as they said their lives were in danger. They returned a short time later, however, and for a few weeks were seen in company of security guards.
The premier had also been emphatic in the wake of Legge’s flight and his rounds of the international media that until he apologized there would be no lifting of the ban. CIG is estimated to spend around $1 million a year with the daily paper. But at the time of the ban McLaughlin said he had talked with the Cayman Reporter, which was at the time publishing weekly to see if they could accommodate the government’s advertising needs. Deon Ebanks, the owner of the Reporter, confirmed that he would expand operations and increase the frequency of the publication.
Category: Politics
So does this about face by Alden mean that Compass will be very favourable to the PPM for the election campaigning season? Watch this space…
Just Sayin’, you hit the nail on the head!!
Govt should have never put this ban in place in the first place. It is an economic bitc# slaps in the face for freedom of speach and makes us look like a North Korean wannabe banana republic. If govt feels it has been libeled there are remedies under the law to seek redress. Economic blackmail, media manipulation, and sensorship should never be an option for a true democracy.
FYI the government wasn’t the ones who were criticized it was every person pass and present that legge accused of being corrupt…..so freedom of press yes when your being responsible and accurate
but not when you take the current situation at the time with fifa and a local man here involvement then as the main news source on island paint the entire history of our people as being the same that’s wrong…..
It is so strange to know that the governor got involved in this matter but she will not get rid of Baines who is causing more problems than Leggie could ever think about
Baines should hold the officers with responsibility for the station when container was ‘broken into’ then the can get rid of him.
I don’t want to see the CoP leave without getting rid of the cops who are part of the problem!!!!
To any reasoned mind, the photo above says it all.
The problem Mr Premier is damage is already done. Taking it back now after he advertised it on media sources in the US. What do you think they will say he took it back because his business would have been damaged. Besides that the paper continues to attack everything. There has never been anything so obvious us an expat paper.
If what I saw printed on the pages of the Cayman Compass today; which seemingly has the blessings of our Hon. Premier, can be said to be a “public apology”!….God help us when a real public apology is issued by Legge.
I am still waiting on my personal APOLOGY David Legge!!!!
Move along please. it’s over people.
Legge printed an opinion, the LA took offence, and punished him, then Legge said “Yeah sorry about that.”
Now let’s get back to a happy life in a really great place….and remember how lucky we all are.
You clearly wish to stand at the next election George. Comments like this just show you to be carrying on the policies and idiocy of current and previous governments. Pride in false achievement generally comes just before the fall.
You hit the nail on the head Just Watchin.
The footnote on the Compass article says: “For legal reasons, we are not accepting comments on this article.”
JTB, you are spot on my friend. Sound like you know him too.
The laxative that caused this movement wasn’t the injection of common sense from HE and the DG; it was the legal advice from Bulgin or whoever he finally listened to.
Under the totally bogus guise of “freedom of speech” Mr.Legge attempted to denigrate the whole of the Cayman Islands and the whole of its people. What followed was pure pantomime, with Mr.Legge in a starring role prancing around the place and basking in the limelight. His former colleagues in the U.S. must have been wondering what kind of a breakdown he had suffered to be behaving in such a bizarre way – I know I was. I do hope Mr.Legge can now come to his senses and move on and adopt a measured approach to publishing and life in general here in Cayman. Selling that convertible would be a good start as all that sun cannot have been helping things, surely. (Oh, and for sanity’s sake, dump the American English, which is a most peculiar practice for reasons too patently obvious to state!)
The uncorrupted amongst us took no offence.
Thank you, Just Sayin’ for succinctly posting what I have felt all along.
For what it’s worth, Legge’s theatrics occurred just before the publicizing of a slew of cases of major corruption in Cayman.
You are very presumptuous. I am uncorrupted and took great offence.
I am not sure that David is needed to denigrate the Cayman Islands, I think we are doing a good enough job ourselves looking around.
On any given day there are a lot more “North Americans” around here than Brits. Sorry we irk you. Life is hard.
Looked up arrgogace in the dictionary and there they both were, staring back at me. Legge and McLaughlin, arrogance personified.
“arrgogace”? lol
legge was/is right…..
we’re in control…..hahahaha
It’d be interesting to see the Legge’s lawyers’ letters to Alden, and the legal advice that Alden received.
I suspect he was told very clearly that this would only ever end one way
There were no letter from Legge’s lawyer, Alden realised that the direction he took was very childish.
Legge said nothing more than what every Caymanian preach on a daily basis…”my Island is corrupt”! ….”Cayman is full of corruption”!
Caymanians just cant handle the truth especially if it is coming from an outsider, it is the arrogance nature they possess, narrow minded and conceited.
Dear friend. You are free to leave Cayman anytime you see fit. We bid you farewell!
Good comeback, if you are content with how things are going. Asinine, xenophobic knee-jerk response if not.
3:23pm
Well said…. They ALL want the truth but not one of them know how to digest it!
3:23 pm, 23/10: yes, that sad chant has become a painful national gasp with the upward trajectory of crime and corruption in direct proportion to the dramatic rise in inward immigration.
Anyone with a convertible I can rent next weekend? I want to be Legge and his security guard for halloween.
No need to call the Premiere weak, if you noticed he acted on the advise of the Attorney General. So maybe there could have been some legal issues.
So its not a matter of weak. And by the way no need to carry such situation over the next umpteen years. The Premiere has a country to run!!!
Wouldn’t the Attorney General, the Jamaican, Bulgin advised them in first decision?
So who gave in, the AG or the Premier?
Now their legal advisor has come up with different advice?
Aren’t we entitled to an objective legal advisor to our government every 4 years?
Agree PPM and UDP lack the guts, spine etc but in reference to listening to what their Jamaican advisors say
maybe the Premier had legal advice BEFORE he acted ie from the AG. Which is probably why he suddenly realised he was badly advised all along!
Don’t think there was any advice beforehand, was a spur of the moment motion voted on in the LA with no forethought whatsoever.
Hmmm sure, doesn’t matter how it is spun, the Jamaican legal advisor, the Attorney General now, who doesn’t have term limits like the former English AGs is still technically responsible for providing advice to PPM then UDP and now UDP again, compare that also with the reports from the Auditor General Office and we have too many of the same people still in charge making some seriously crappy decisions
Nope. The premier has people to represent. The Cayman Islands are not a country.
I assume you refer to him as “Premiere” as it’s his first time?.
Alden in one word “WEAK”
What a useless leader but then again leadership has never been one of strong points….
More proof Alden is missing a ¨pair¨.
This entire episode has been nothing but a RED HERRING. You believe all the drugs stolen recently from lock up was done by a foreigner???
What am I supposed to do with all these “Legge was right” bumper stickers I had printed up?
Bury them in the sand, right next to your head, if you think he wasn’t right.
Friend, are they soft, are they absorbent, capable of being made into a roll?
Keep them, you will need them again for sure.
Hang on to them, some new sh!t will be along very shortly
A free press is one of the bastions of democracy. And since the premiers frankly stupid reaction, with various scandals, corruption has been proven to be rife in Cayman. Alden should aplogise to Legge. You might not have liked what you read, but the truth always hurts.
Wow, people love to turn a blind eye to the webs, the bush, the airport….you all think it’s ok unless someone sees it, in which case they deserve punishment…cayman kind!!!
I’m not Caymanian but I feel embarrassed for you
Alden is spineless. A sorry excuse for a leader. Caymanians deserve better. How does a person walk into your house, sh*t in the middle of your living room floor, your kitchen table and your pillow and two days later you are smiling at him and inviting him back into your house? Not the first time he has defiled your house and it won’t be the last.
Say what we want about Keke but Keke ain´t neva scared.
7;35
Legge is the Editor of the Cayman Compass, he is a journalist, nothing more nothing less, it is his job to print statements that will open the eyes of the readers of his paper.
Many with intellect and broad minds saw nothing wrong with this, of his revelations, of Cayman being a corrupted place. The corruptions happening here are happening here and not Cuba or any other countries.
He is not a hypocrite and narrow minded like most of us, he faced the bullet, something most of us would shit our pants before uttering a word on our national issues.
You seem to have made your mind up (along with Mr.Legge) : Cayman is a totally corrupt place.
Anything else to add?
What I think about this can be summed up in three words, “not good enough” what I wanted to see was three other words “I am sorry.”
David twisted and danced and whined through the expansive article, yet for all the hurt and drama he caused, he still did not say he was sorry
7;33
Are you implying the truth hurt? i don’t blame Legge, you all need to wake up and stop playing the little fishing village syndrome.
7.33 wake up and smell the coffee! Cayman is horribly corrupt. Alden should apologize to Legge. Why do Caymanians insist on seeing cayman through rose tinted glasses when everyone else sees exactly what is going on. You boys better wake up soon, just because you don’t want anyone to see it, or are too afraid to say anything yourselves, or are part of that corruption it does not mean that no one else can see it.
So Alden proves he is a good Caymanian Christian and knows how to forgive. not sure about those commenting below, seems they have not learned to turn the other cheek, take that and their support of the gambling expremier and they are once again supporting Leggs original comments.
Twisted 6.48, very twisted
Some us know things that you refuse to accept.
I think that the Hon. Premier had any choice in the lifting of this ban, he is simply the messenger with the message from the Governor and the Hon. Attorney General. It is therefore not fair to put this responsibility(some might call it blame) squarely on the shoulders of our Premier. A war should not be constantly fought…peace should be sought at all times…yes reputational damage was or may have been caused which also left some of us feeling hurt and insulted by the remarks made, and action taken by the Editor of that Newspaper(CC) …but the truth always prevail…we are a strong nation…and yes unforgiving at times….but what’s the point of being this way forever? Who wins? We all going to die anyway… so please let’s give peace a chance. And for the record…I am no big supporter of either side. But one that wishes to be fair objective and well balanced.
Taking the middle ground is all well and good, but what you do in this case is condone the premiers stupidity. Calling the treasonous name meant he got stung, and let’s face it, with good reason. Cayman is corrupt and Alden is doing little to help stop that. He started a awar he could never win. That is the true stupidity here.
DART money talking again?
What concerns me is what direction the Cayman Reporter will take now. Will they still attempt to go daily? Will they still receive a chunk of Government budget on advertising? They took the time and expense to expand staff including putting in charge Tammi Sulliman and I am sure she did not come cheap. I was hoping the Premier would have had the backbone to stick up to his word. I guess we saw the fighting side of him but now we witness the coward side of him.
Now I feel like Alden is the one who owes us the caymanian people an apology for giving us false hope, that we had a leader who had our back……and to think that I of all people called and thanked him for taking that stance. …
I remember these words
“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”
You almost had us convinced
AL-den not for his people; he for him! All day, every day. Once you understand that you will make sense out of non-sense.
They probably cemented this deal at da Lodge. Oh come on, you know it’s true.
David should also go back to the U.S. Media and let ’em know his “new outlook” on the Cayman people…and say how very wrong he was and that he was being a baby. ?Waaahhh? ?
“All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgerize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.”
-William Bernbach
Time to start lifting us up, Legge. Forgiveness starts with showing the people you care as much about the Cayman Islands as you do our government monies. You could at least try and fake it too.
The bible does teach forgiveness.
PPM MLA’s a bunch of cowards. Faking principle and integrity in the name of political rhetoric and grand standing for popularity. Legge was right about them and corruption is at the core every government decision day to day. They are showing us who they really are so believe them.
So, the Caymanian owner of the Reporter agreed to expand the operation to increase the publication of the paper to accommodate government needs/ requirements, and now what? Yet still again another decision, with the Caymanian left behind…so sad..
Well duh! We don’t help each other, we fight down one-another all day. This is how we have arrived to the slogan of “CaymanKind”. Our ancestors were not like that. We are a disgrace to all their hard-work.
They were supposed to go daily 2 months ago. Can’t advertise in a paper that’s not a paper.
Election season done start!
You remember the saying, “politics makes strange bedfellows”? Never a truer word.
I accept that the government’s ban on the Compass may not have been the best advised action, but after that poor excuse for a publisher smeared us in his high school grade international media interviews, I don’t know how the Premier can stomach this apology. I hope that the Premier at least required Leggee to retract some of the lies he told to the international media.
Er, What Apology? I don’t see one? Or maybe that was tendered in da Lodge behind closed doors!
To err is human, to forgive divine. But laud it hard!
Does this mean that Ozzie will be selling the Compost at his gas station again?
TREASONOUS DECISION BY ALDEN AND HIS PPM PUPPETS!
Wow yet again we have witnessed the inconsistent behavior of this person we call the leader aka “premier” disappointed is where I will start….
it seams like we are still stuck in the time when defending your people is viewed as an uprising/stepping out of line, by the so-called master of the plantation…and if we think that the damage that has already been inflicted upon the reputation and character of the people of the Cayman island’s wasn’t bad enough just wait and see what will happen now that we have proven that our leader is pure mouth and no action….
Thanks Alden for proven that we still have the mentality of slaves……
When will the governor stand up for Caymanians? She is extremely quiet. Strange how everything that’s put in place, is negative towards us.
I know why everything is negative and so do you.
Well said 8:40pm. The ashes of colonialism….
If you can’t get out of your paranoid slave plantation mentality it is your problem and no one else. You elected the people who are running this place into the ground
This does not have my support.!!!!
Nobody cares!!!!
Now that has been announced, I am expecting a crisis meeting in both the FCO in London and an emergency resolution sitting by the United Nations in New York.
Talk about , Weak as Dis Water. !!! Don’t let me laugh, me lips are chapped.
It couldnt last. CIG normally spends $10g a month with Compass
$10g a month? For what?
but isnt that illegal to spend all that amount of money with just the compass especially now that there is another daily newspaper.
Not even that Alden could stick with what a weak leader!!
This is what the old timers call ‘eating your own vomit’. There was nothing to negotiate with these people about, after all the government had all the cards and all the chips and lost the hand, incredible! But what the heck, nothing surprises me here anymore.
“There are none so deaf as those that will not hear. None so blind as those that will not see”
Listen mate, are you for the people or against us?
The ban should never have been imposed by this Mickey Mouse apology for a parliament.
You do Mickey Mouse a disservice by using his name as an adjective to describe that bunch of dimwits.
Disappointing mr. Premier considering the amount of reputational damages these two people have caused this country. Ironically the issue surrounding correspondence banking relationship has now become a big problem for the local money service businesses. Minimally they should apologize to the people of the Cayman Islands and to the news paper in the USA where they alleged we are all corrupted.
And reimbursement for the security detailed by the rcips
And you seriously think the damage was done by the editorial, rather than the Premiers public statement in reaction to it, or the repeated examples of corruption in place. Legge may be a hysterical prima donna, but what do you think has more traction with international opinion? His editorial in a small circulation newspaper, or the government trying to crush commentary? His comments, or Webbs arrest? His newsprint, or Candover Watsons XXXXXXX? Or the the coverage of the former premiers gambling habits, now taken back on to the front pages by his suing the government? Stop shooting the piano player, and have a hard look at what happens here.
Wow! What another waste of time and money that was. Stupid is as stupid does. Please govt. stop wasting my very, very limited dollars on your petty bs. I do not have the ability to gouge my customers because of some minor slight. Nor can I recoup my lost income due to your assine actions. And btw when are we going to see the 2% fees rolled back? Never I guess.
Maybe, jussssst maybe, this has something to do with a certain media outlet (can’t say who) being the only one in favour of a certain massively expensive and destructive project (can’t say which) that the Govt is peddling……..
The things that makes you go hmmmm…….
Alden: “We sure showed them!”
Dave: “We sure showed them!”
Alden: “Best friends again?”
Dave: “Best friends FOREVER!!”
Love it! LOL