Lessons From The Titanic

Not exactly Leonardo DiCaprio's "I'm the king of the world" shout

At a People’s Action Party (PAP) lunch-time rally at the promenade area beside UOB Plaza yesterday, you have heard how prime minister Lee Hsien Loong tackles wrong-doing and corruption in high places in Singapore:

"That's why we have the CPIB reporting to me as PM, and if I don't give approval to the CPIB to investigate somebody, the CPIB can go to the president and ask the president for approval. The president says yes, and the CPIB can proceed, against the PM."

The argument would have been more convincing if the president were not related to him by family ties.

No wonder Workers’ Party (WP) chair Sylvia Lim said Goh Chok Tong’s statement that the PAP is its own check was a “more seductive lie”. She was referring to Goh’s remarks that the opposition’s call for checks and balances on the PAP was “a seductive lie”. Goh, while rejecting the call for more eyes on the government from the opposition, had boasted, “We are our own checks.”

The captain of the ill-fated Titanic, Captain Edward John Smith, had failed to take proper heed of ice warnings which was transmitted to him. As the most senior of the White Star Line's captains, he thought he knew it all. We now know one of the reasons for the collision was the direct result of steaming into a dangerous area at too high a speed. We also know the Titanic only had enough lifeboats to carry about half of those on board. There were also stark differences in the survival rates of the different classes: although only 3 percent of first-class women were lost, 54 percent of those in third class died. That's what can happen with growth at all costs, overcrowding and ignoring the Gini coefficient.

The British inquiry findings warned that "what was a mistake in the case of the Titanic would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future". Sylvia Lim's own take is that the ruling party might not be what it was in the past and there is no assurance on the quality of future PAP leaders (or past and present pms).