“In the jungle the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight”

The famous song is about a sleeping king called Shaka Zulu who heroically resisted the armies of European colonizers and will one day awaken from his sleep and return to lead his oppressed people to freedom.

However, the sleeping lion I am referring to is more than a single sleeping lion but actually three.

The first lion comes from Henry I – known as the lion of England – who had a lion on his standard on taking power in 1100. The second one comes from his wife, Adeliza, whose father also had a lion on his shield. To commemorate his marriage he added a second lion to his standard. In 1154, two lions became three when Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine, who also had a lion on her family crest.

These lions have become known as the “Lions of England” and are worn on the English Football Association (FA) shirts as their logo. This logo has been used since the FA was formed in 1863.f

Lions like to sleep and after a full meal – often sleep for 24 hours. But lions never sleep outside their pack and they sleep to gather their strength. However, a lion is never really fully asleep.

With this piece of knowledge now available to the Cayman Islands premier, Hon. McKeeva Bush, I can only ask why he is intent on waking up the three sleeping lions?

He has repeatedly insulted Her Majesty’s representative, H.E. Governor, Duncan Taylor; he has berated and belittled other government representatives from the Auditor General down to “faceless” “pen pushing servants in the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office. All these people are here to destroy us and the Premier almost portrays himself as some form of St. George who is going to slay an evil dragon – the lions of England.

Having been forced to agree to the UK’s Framework for Fiscal Responsibility (FFR) and signing the document in November 2011 it committed the Cayman Islands Government to operate within parameters, rules and systems regarding public finances. The Premier agreed to draw statuary authorities back into the debt ratios ruling government borrowing. This ensured the entire public sector spending is now tightly controlled within a rigid framework. Authorities and government companies, like the port, the airport, Cayman Airways, Water Authority Cayman or the Turtle Farm, cannot borrow outside of the Public Management and Finance Law limits and will need to gain UK approval for any projects they engage in.

Good governance and if one was wise you would view this as very necessary considering the extravagant borrowing by past Cayman Island governments, and I don’t just mean the United Democratic Party controlled one.

Mr. Bush doesn’t see it this way and views it as unnecessary and a hindrance to his autocratic sense of “open” government and “I am the man in charge”. He was the one elected by the Cayman Island people and not the United Kingdom and those lions can go back to sleep! How dare they put controls on HIS government. Remember, when Mr. Bush mentions the government it is NOT the government of the people but it is ‘MY’ government.

The UK has said they expect the bill AS SIGNED to come to the Legislative Assembly in November. Bush wants to make changes and has publicly said he will make changes.

He can make as many changes as he likes and I am sure he will.

However, when that happens he will find out just how loud lions, when awakened, can roar.

And angry ones are a force to reckon with as history has proved.

In Cayman, the tiny Cayman Islands, the lion sleeps no more.