Birdsong may not have as high a profile as Exodus, their neighbours in Tunapuna, but in the Birdsong panyard a dream came true for me two Saturdays ago when, somewhat belatedly, I arrived there in response to an invitation to visit the music school located there and I experienced the Birdsong model.

I had intended therefore to continue our journey through our rich artistic landscapes, which contain the seeds of our salvation, but the Cabinet games, alias reshuffle, reconfiguration or rebore of the misfiring elements of the UNC engine, got in the way.

What I witnessed at Birdsong was so pure and elevating that I will not describe it this week, because I do not wish the valuable work to be surrounded by the contaminant of partisan politics.

Those Cabinet games have been played without regard to the nation's well being. The reconfiguration is simply a carve up of the spoils of ministerial office dedicated entirely to appeasing narrow, competing political interests without a modicum of thought of what might be in the nation's interest. Unfortunately its potential for likely bad outcomes for the nation has already spawned an event which underlines how self-absorbed this Government is, no differently from its predecessor.

I refer to the appearance of the new Minister of National Security, Mr Jack Warner, simultaneously with the arrival of law enforcement personnel at the protest camp of the Highway Re-Route Movement in order to demolish it. It was an entirely inappropriate action for a minister of government.

The issue is not whether the protesters should have been moved. The Government is free to take that decision and to engage law enforcement to carry it out. However law enforcement personnel in the field or at an alleged crime scene must be directed by their superior officers, not by some minister who fancies himself as a sheriff or a general. We pass the stage of who don't like it, get to hell out of here.

My additional concern is that having been touted as an action man by his Prime Minister and having himself boasted that he would be the most successful Minister of National Security, the new Minister is playing to that gallery.

This is not a good sign for the future. No doubt, soon he will be playing to the hanging gallery, although we all know that it is not possible to carry out the death penalty as a result of the restraints placed on implementation by several decisions of Courts of competent jurisdiction.

I also fear that low-grade bad boy scalps will be taken with little deference to due process, in order to create a statistical base to support the boast of success. That bad precedent was set in the failed State of Emergency of 2011 and reference to a new Flying Squad is a clear indicator of the means by which an illusion of "success" may be maintained.

Meanwhile our Republic drips with the blood of 200 murders for the half year and record motor vehicle carnage. Many things I wrote about the Manning PNM on the subject of violent crime now apply to the current Government, some of whose more foolish members, just like many of their predecessors, try to tar protesters with political brushes. The point has been made that PNM had Dr Kublalsingh down as a UNC boy. Now UNC have him down as an obstructionist, which he of course wasn't when he was seen to be helping that party with the anti smelter vote.

Returning to the appeasement of the Cabinet games, one of the interests which benefited but was duped by the reshuffle was the COP. The Mayor Marlene problem was bought out. Lincoln Douglas and Jamal Mohammed were given the Ministries of Culture and Communication respectively. However less than one week later after receipt of these gifts, the COP was distancing itself from Mr Warner's caper, once more finding itself in the untenable position of being part of a Government with whose conduct of a high profile matter it disagreed.

COP's presence beside the UNC in the last election soothed the feelings of many who feared UNC in the raw. The UNC gifted the COP some safe seats in exchange for the use of its soothing front but once in Government the COP failed to be the anticipated check and balance and has squandered the only tradable goodwill which it may have had. In fact COP never understood how to bargain with the seats it had using the UNC's need for the members in those seats to support special majority legislation. It has been suckered at every turn and is now damaged political goods.

Can we progress on the basis of seductive games? Looking on at the current Cabinet and other manipulations, I doubt whether we can be honestly and effectively governed by being treated yet again as a bunch of dupes and dunces.