As we celebrate independence this weekend, we should remember that our democracy is entirely the creation of the PNM, which was able to sell the idea to the national community. At least, that’s the Prime Minister’s version of history, as laid out at a PNM meeting last Monday in Diamond Vale.

That’s not the official description of the meeting, which, tiresomely, purported to be at the ’College of Wendy Fitzwilliam Boulevard,’ which is in turn a branch of the University of Woodford Square. The meeting, one of a series of such collegiate meetings around the country, was said to be part of the PNM’s campaign of ’political education.’ But as Mr Manning’s reworking of history showed, this isn’t an objective, non-partisan education, but more like an indoctrination.

The Prime Minister was of course the star of the show, and was heralded as such. The other speakers interrupted themselves regularly to sing his praises. His arrival was greeted with tassa drumming and one of his theme tunes, the snigger-inducing disco classic ’It’s A Love Thing.’

The theme of political education is clearly intended to position Mr Manning as the heir to Dr Eric Williams, the original head of the university of Woodford Square, who also featured in a video presentation screened earlier in the meeting. The latter is heard delivering his watchwords for the nation, discipline, production and tolerance; Mr Manning follows, offering his rather less lofty suggestion that one ought to give a fair day’s work in return for a fair day’s pay. And he’s also featured against a background of fireworks, like Gandalf doing tricks to impress the hobbits.

But Mr Manning doesn’t need this technological wizardry or fawning adulation. He has his own bag of tricks. He’s been in the business for 38 years, as he reminded his hearers, and one result is that he is an excellent public speaker. He’s good in Parliament, but he’s at his best on a platform. On Monday night he was authoritative and fluent, speaking without notes, but never losing his place as he worked through the ’pillars’ of Vision 2020. From time to time he would break off to give his audience a dimpled grin, or ask, ’Do you understand?

I’m not sure...If you understand, say yeah, yeah!’ Otherwise, Mr Manning was impassioned and serious and seemed sincere.

He wasn’t really sincere, though. In previous meetings he had discussed local government reform. Now his focus was on the Government’s working paper on constitutional reform. But this paper was laid in Parliament in January, and although Mr Manning said there would be 51 public consultations on it, so far there haven’t been any, which suggests a certain lack of urgency.

Then too the Prime Minister claimed that one of the aims of this new constitution was that everybody must be accountable. But what he revealed of it won’t have that effect at all.

The PNM, he told the crowd, plans to beef up the present system of parliamentary committees which oversee the work of government ministries and state agencies. The present three committees were set up in 1998, but, said Mr Manning, the PNM opposed them, because they couldn’t work under the current system. The idea came from Westminster, where there are 646 parliamentarians, and the government has over 300 backbenchers. These MPs were given a say in parliamentary affairs, according to Mr Manning’s idiosyncratic and revealing account, not in order to make state agencies more accountable, but because they kept ’getting into trouble’ and staging revolts.

In this country, however, there are only four government backbenchers; the rest are all members of Cabinet. ’It’s Caesar unto Caesar,’ Mr Manning said in shocked tones. ’You have to separate the executive from the legislature.’

The PNM is strengthening these parliamentary watchdogs, said the Prime Minister, with dazzling sleight of hand, by making sure that there are more backbench MPs available. So the committees will function better and we’ll have more democracy.

Why will there be more backbench MPs? Not because the number of MPs is being increased again (although the Senate will be made bigger). There will be more backbenchers because the new executive President will only be allowed to appoint four members of each House as ministers.

So you will now have enough backbenchers, said Mr Manning to set up a proper system of parliamentary oversight. This was, he concluded with satisfaction, a ’by far more superior new system.’

He didn’t dwell on the rest of this equation: that of the entire Cabinet, only the President and four ministers will be elected. The other 20 will be chosen by the new-style President.

How accountable are these ministers likely to be? Most of them won’t even be career politicians, who are at least accustomed to facing the electorate. How willing will they be to answer a summons or reply to questions from a committee made up of nonentities from their own back bench and the Opposition? And how will it strengthen the country’s PNM-given democracy to have it run by a Cabinet chosen by one man?