Pollster Peter Wickham is not losing any sleep over accusations levelled against him by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur.
Asked today to comment specifically on a charge by the former Barbados Labour Party (BLP) leader that the party had lost the last election because of the “tale of two polls”, Wickham simply sidestepped the allegation.
He also refused to respond to stinging charges made by Arthur that the BLP leader Mia Mottley had recently told her National Council that the party was “a tarnished brand and that the people of Barbados, based upon a Wickham poll, don’t want the party to be in Government but that they want her to be Prime Minister of Barbados.
“That is the most dangerous doctrine and people in the Barbados Labour Party should not just . . . fall in line just in case, but they should be strong enough to speak out against what I call that despotism,” said Arthur, who has also labelled as “madness” Sunday’s decision of the BLP National Council to expel Christ Church West MP Dr Maria Agard.
Peter Wickham
However, in response, Wickham said: “I am not commenting on Owen Arthur or anything that Owen Arthur had to say.
“Owen Arthur has been Prime Minister of Barbados for [14] years and I think the people of Barbados have come to a clear understanding of the type of person that he is. If not before, they have come to that now, and I think that the best thing for us to do is to move on and discuss other issues.”
As for Dr Agard and her expulsion, Wickham said: “I think that Dr Maria Agard has basically done this to herself [and] quite frankly I think her political future is pretty bleak right now . . . I think she has made a grave error.”
When contacted today, Mottley said she would not be commenting at this time. BLP MPs Dale Marshall, Ronald Toppin and Kerrie Symmonds also refused comment.