I suspect that the People’s Action Party ministers aren’t too happy about what happened in Parliament this morning. I suspect they thought Ms Sylvia Lim would roll over and apologise, just like her fellow Workers’ Party MP Leon Perera did in January.
In fact, I suspect that they thought that merely repeating themselves loudly over the issue of the timing of a GST hike would be enough to extract a retraction and an apology from Ms Lim.
Note, please, that these are merely suspicions on my part.
What are they based on? On the apoplectic look on Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat’s face as he got up to help Leader of the House Grace Fu in her admonition of Ms Lim’s “deplorable’’ conduct. (I couldn’t see the rest of the frontbenchers because I was assigned a seat in the public gallery that faced the backbenchers.)
I base it on Ms Fu’s inability to counter Ms Lim’s response nor even to comprehend it. She asked whether Ms Lim was withdrawing her statement which the G had been mighty unhappy with, when she had clearly said no. She asked for the “basis’’ of Ms Lim’s suspicion, when the MP’s whole speech was a chronology of events that led her to her “suspicion’’.
I also base it on how the PAP usually sticks to the moral high ground with plenty of sound and fury, brooking no opposition to what it would consider an upright stance. But in this case, the ground was cut from under its feet. They couldn’t break down Ms Lim’s defence.
Maybe my suspicions are baseless and they are quite happy with how it all turned out, but that would be too unbelieveable.
More at https://tinyurI.com/y7athf72
In fact, I suspect that they thought that merely repeating themselves loudly over the issue of the timing of a GST hike would be enough to extract a retraction and an apology from Ms Lim.
Note, please, that these are merely suspicions on my part.
What are they based on? On the apoplectic look on Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat’s face as he got up to help Leader of the House Grace Fu in her admonition of Ms Lim’s “deplorable’’ conduct. (I couldn’t see the rest of the frontbenchers because I was assigned a seat in the public gallery that faced the backbenchers.)
I base it on Ms Fu’s inability to counter Ms Lim’s response nor even to comprehend it. She asked whether Ms Lim was withdrawing her statement which the G had been mighty unhappy with, when she had clearly said no. She asked for the “basis’’ of Ms Lim’s suspicion, when the MP’s whole speech was a chronology of events that led her to her “suspicion’’.
I also base it on how the PAP usually sticks to the moral high ground with plenty of sound and fury, brooking no opposition to what it would consider an upright stance. But in this case, the ground was cut from under its feet. They couldn’t break down Ms Lim’s defence.
Maybe my suspicions are baseless and they are quite happy with how it all turned out, but that would be too unbelieveable.
More at https://tinyurI.com/y7athf72
