Host of Honestly Speaking and social commentator Pastor Claude O. Skelton-Cline has reiterated that the Virgin Islands (VI) needs some like the Right Hon Dame Janice M. Pereira, DBE, to lead. Photo: JCPC

Pastor Claude O. Skelton-Cline during the December 9, 2025, airing of Honestly Speaking. Photo: Facebook

The former Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) was appointed as a member of His Majesty King Charles III’s Privy Council in August 2024. 

According to Skelton-Cline, he made this comment years ago and during his show on ZBVI 780 AM on Tuesday, December 9, 2025, said, “We need someone like the former Chief Justice Dame Janice Pereira…I believe that we need someone like her or her to give leadership to this country.”

The VI, he said, someone like Dame Pereira is needed because of the current relationship the VI has with the United Kingdom.

“We need someone with the presence [and] the prowess to represent this country.”

VI needs someone with that kind of gravitas

Skelton-Cline added that he recognises that current leadership will take offence to his statement, but he said he is telling them what this country needs. 

He said what amazes him is what elected officials do when they are given suggestions. 

“You you should be the one who is able to say Skelton-Cline we don’t currently have her as that, but what we can do is encircle ourselves with persons descriptive, character, virtues, capacity, ability of which you speak, whom we will lean on, listen to, learn from, and then inform our decisions, our policies and a path forward.”

Playing on the topic of Tuesday’s show, ‘What to do about yesterday’, Skelton-Cline asked, “What are you going to do about yesterday? Ya’ll don’t listen to anybody.”

He added that while he is an ally of all thirteen elected members of the House of Assembly, he stands firm in his belief that the VI needs “someone with that kind of gravitas” to lead.