Politicians, we are convinced, love a good scrap. They also cherish mounting soapboxes and mouthing off about their love for the people — the people being the poor, vulnerable and marginalised.

A case in point is the annual budget tabled by the party in Government, which never fails to provide the Opposition with fodder for this exercise in self-righteousness.

And throughout the budget debate, and beyond, the Opposition never misses an opportunity to tell the country how much better it would be at governance than its opponents.

Having sat on the Opposition benches in the Parliament between 1989 and September 2007, the Jamaica Labour Party, which now forms the Government, had more or less perfected the art of berating the policies of the People’s National Party Administration.

How often did we hear that the budget crafted by the PNP Government lacked vision and offered no real hope for an early return to sustainable growth?

One such occasion was in 1999 when the Government imposed a 31 per cent increase on the tax on fuel which the then finance minister, Dr Omar Davies, said would bring in more than $2.8 billion in revenue. The result was three days of islandwide protests and riots that left nine people dead, 14 members of the security forces shot and injured, and billions of dollars in property damage.

Eventually, the Government rolled back the gas tax by an average 45 per cent after a state-appointed committee led by the then Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica president, Mr Peter Moses, suggested alternatives to the tax.

At the time, members of the public accused the Government of being aloof. And the PNP Youth Organisation’s insistence that the tax should not be rolled back didn’t help win public sympathy for the Administration either.

In fact, the PNPYO chairman at the time, Mr Oral Rainford, was adamant that “the nation must be prepared to make sacrifices and take painful decisions if we are serious about economic growth and real social transformation which will benefit the masses, especially the young”.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot, and the PNPYO and its parent are saying the opposite in a shameless demonstration of political expedience at its best.

We acknowledge that the Government, by removing General Consumption Tax (GCT) exemption from many of the items listed last week, has demonstrated a callous disregard for the welfare of Jamaicans at the lower end of the economic ladder.

In fact, it’s worth repeating the point we made in this space yesterday that the very harsh measures announced by the Golding Administration sound like political suicide.

No one, though, can successfully challenge the fact that the economic conditions that now face us were not created by the present Government.

The major blow that the economy has taken had its genesis in events that were external to Jamaica — events that have brought some of the world’s richest nations to their knees.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that had the previous Government not mismanaged our economy to the point that when they were voted out of office we were swimming in $1 trillion worth of debt, we would have been in a better position to deal with the global economic crisis.

Given our knowledge of the behaviour of politicians, we’re not surprised by the hypocritical rantings of the Opposition now. We’re simply bemused that they even have the gall to speak.