(iWItness News) – Deputy Prime Minister and National Security Minister St. Clair Leacock has flipped a well‑known metaphor first popularised by Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves, saying the new government is easing the “hook in the gill” even as it confronts gun violence and a strained public purse.
Responding in Parliament to a question from opposition senator Carlos James, the deputy PM acknowledged the resonance of the phrase and recast it in the context of the country’s current economic and security challenges.
“I think this nation is very familiar with the statement when one was speaking aloud to themselves, that we have placed a hook in the gill of the government that was going to come into operation,” Leacock told Parliament.
“A literal interpretation of that statement suggests that you wanted to capture and/or kill the fish. When we speak about hook in the gills here, we speak about fish in [St] Vincent and the Grenadines,” he said.
Leacock then used the image to frame his core argument: that the new government is trying to address crime and violence in a country that had been living “way beyond its means”, forced to borrow or cut back, and therefore cannot behave as if resources are unlimited.
