E W Barker: The People's Minister
Author: Sim, Susan
ISBN: 9789814642699
RM109.90
Publisher,Straits Times Press
Publication Date,
Format, Paperback
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“Barker was not a natural politician – he lacked raw political ambition and the consuming passion of the ideologically driven. He was a natural leader – in sports, in school. He also had a first rate mind; he was a Queen’s Scholar. He was a renaissance gentleman and a human being comfortable in his own skin – no chip on the shoulder, nothing to prove and not one to seek out the political limelight.
As such, one tends to forget how much he was a crucial element in our birth as a sovereign nation – this reluctant politician was the legal mid-wife of Singapore’s Separation and birth as an independent nation; the man who as Speaker shaped the conventions and order of a new Parliament; the man who as Minister was behind some of our most important nation-ilding endeavor like public housing, reclamation etc.
As such, one tends to forget how much he was a crucial element in our birth as a sovereign nation – this reluctant politician was the legal mid-wife of Singapore’s Separation and birth as an independent nation; the man who as Speaker shaped the conventions and order of a new Parliament; the man who as Minister was behind some of our most important nation-ilding endeavor like public housing, reclamation etc.
