The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) continues to move further and further left of the political ideological centre with each passing day. Apart from "free education" and "free health care", they are calling upon us to "eat what we grow" and to plant rice. They have even gone so far as to threaten to commandeer under-utilised lands. They are not the only new converts, but we welcome them all to a more inclusive and progressive way of governance.

Although the JLP is more than a full 30 years behind time with some of these initiatives, and although the horse might have already bolted, I especially welcome the prime minister's signal that he is willing to take an incentive-based approach to tertiary education. However, a re-structuring of the Student's Loan Bureau does not go nearly far enough.

The Government must also target and inform national development through the provision of:

Scholarship opportunities in selected areas

Skewed funding for the relevant educational institutions

Entrepreneurial and employment opportunities in targeted businesses

Economic support, such as marketing and start-up concessions.

And might I add that socialism is not a campaign strategy; it is an ideology, or a set of beliefs. No good can result from socialism through mere lip service. Are you now a true socialist, Mr Prime Minister?

I am, etc.,

STANLEY REDWOOD

stanley_redwood@yahoo.com

Middle Quarters

St Elizabeth