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The Royal Gazette
Opinion (11 Dec. 2008)

During the post election 60 Minutes interview with Barack Obama’s top campaign advisors it was revealed that his campaign never once held a meeting to discuss race. Here in Bermuda the topic of Barack Obama and race in the Bermuda context is dominating the headlines.

The topic exploded with the Premier’s prejudicial assertion that white Bermudians wouldn’t have voted for Senator Obama.

The Premier’s claim of (white) Obama bandwagon jumpers who wouldn’t actually vote for him may just be the opening for a more introspective and insightful discussion on race and politics in Bermuda.

As a Bermudian who happens to be white, the Premier won’t find me on his bandwagon. I first linked to an Obama article on my blog in late 2004, and then began writing with increasing frequency and admiration about his appeal and lessons for Bermuda in October of 2005.

It’s clear that the Premier and others are attempting to get ahead of the conundrum of the PLP’s inability to attract white support amid anecdotal widespread white Bermudian support for Barack Obama.

The Premier’s argument is typically shallow and goes something like this: whites wouldn’t support Obama because 90% support the UBP. The inference being that white support for the UBP is indicative of racism as the PLP self-define as the black party.

But how a group votes tells you nothing about why a group votes as they do.

If it did, what would we make of overwhelming black American support for the Democratic Party? Would that also be racism at work as he suggests?

In fact, black Americans vote Democratic in the same proportions that white Bermudians vote UBP? This is even more surprising because the Republican Party was formed in opposition to the expansion of slavery, yet the modern version cannot attract minority support.

Of course there are some white Bermudians who will never vote for the PLP because they’re “the black party” just as there are some black Bermudians who will never vote for the UBP because they’re the supposedly white party.

With them out of the picture things are no longer so black and white, but still quite simple. Yet the obvious explanation is seldom discussed.

The reason white Bermudians vote overwhelmingly UBP and black Americans vote overwhelmingly Democratic are probably identical: both minority groups believe that one party is at best indifferent or at worst outwardly hostile to them as a demographic.

It’s entirely understandable that black Americans vote against the party that routinely uses them as cheap props during and betweens elections as a tactic to drum up class and race resentments about crime and welfare.

It’s equally as understandable that white Bermudians won’t lend their vote to a party whose election campaigns are non-stop appeals to black group identity coupled with crude and offensive portrayals of whites as inherently and pathologically racist and UBP blacks as sell-outs.

If we are to move past racial politics we must at least concede some basic truths, such as the fact that the PLP present themselves as the black party and come across as hostile to whites. This produces a not-entirely unintentional by-product of anemic non-black support.

The PLP’s professed disillusionment about its lack of white support is either disingenuous or incredibly tone deaf if you cut through the politics.

Identity politics are designed to drive voting into racial blocks and this helps the PLP as they’re appealing to the demographic majority.

The PLP’s rather odd invitation to white voters is that the only way they can prove their lack of racism is to vote for the party that continually calls them racists. It’s not just unlikely to work, it’s politically self-serving.

The reason Bermuda’s swing voters are black is because whites have nowhere to swing to.

In Bermuda race is often confused with politics. Politics is about getting votes. Moving past racism is about understanding. Until Obama’s campaign, those things have rarely been combined successfully, although the UBP cobbled together a fragile coalition for three decades.

The PLP shout ‘racist’ as frequently as Sarah Palin called Barack Obama a terrorist. In fact, the PLP make the charge directly while Ms. Palin engaged in guilt by association and hoped for plausible deniability (well, not really, but bless her for trying).

But let’s take this further.

The Premier’s speculation about white Bermudian voting in a US context has two fatal flaws.

Firstly, white Bermudians have been voting for black candidates for decades, just not those in the PLP.

Secondly, and more importantly, it presupposes that the PLP and Senator Obama presented a similar product to the electorate, unless Dr. Brown is saying that race is the sole criteria in how you vote.

The truth is that Dr. Brown and his party’s campaigning is the antithesis of Senator Obama and his.

Obama presents himself as a candidate who happens to be multi-racial, Dr. Brown and the PLP present themselves as “the black party”.

Whereas Dr. Brown runs campaigns about “slaying the vile vicious racist dragon”, “obliterating” his opponents complete with clenched fist salutes, Senator Obama studiously avoided race as a direct issue and campaigned on bringing conservatives and liberals together to end a generation of trench warfare.

When Dr. Brown was whipping his rallies into anti-UBP frenzies Senator Obama was shutting down booing of John McCain at his.

Where Dr. Brown talked the day after the election of making whites ‘uncomfortable’ Senator Obama said in his acceptance speech “…to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.”

Just on Tuesday President-Elect Obama talked about leading with humility as 46% percent of the population voted for John McCain.

Night and day.

What was so disheartening about Dr. Brown’s claim about white voting was that he evidently won’t admit, or was trying to paper over, what Senator Obama’s campaign represented.

The Obama campaign represented a generational changing of the guard as much as a racial victory; a move away from the 1960s battles that have dominated the US and Bermuda’s scene.

The reason so many Americans, and yes, white Bermudians, responded to Senator Obama’s message was that he expressed a desire to forge a broad new coalition.

In his book “The Audacity of Hope”, Senator Obama described US politics as a psychodrama “rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago”; he spoke of those who had been “fighting some of the same fights since the ‘60s”; he expressed bewilderment at constantly “re-litigating the civil rights era”.

Sound familiar?

This is the epitome of Dr. Brown’s persona and the foundation of PLP politics. PLP Chairman David Burt conceded as much in a recent opinion piece calling for the PLP to modernise.

The UBP too are not immune, but they stand to gain nothing from identity politics and racial gridlock. The UBP seem trapped as unwitting enablers – PLP foils – rather than enthusiastic practitioners. It is becoming increasingly evident that their existence is perpetuating the tired old politics that the PLP have mastered but is holding Bermuda back.

The rapid aggressive responses from the PLP to the unavoidably unfavourable comparisons with Barack Obama suggests that they are aware of the threat that his cross generational, cross racial, cross party appeal poses to the political model they are so heavily invested in.

Senator Obama might not have just de-fanged old school racial politics in the US. He might be facilitating it here in Bermuda. It’s about time.

If Dr. Brown and his PLP colleagues are truly interested in testing his hypothesis about white Bermudian voting habits, he should change his tone. Spend a few years talking about positive change, building partnerships and moving past decade old fights. Emulate Obama’s message and example of inclusion and collaboration, his temperament. Disavow divisive racial rhetoric that leads to stereotypes about how Bermudian whites would vote.

Try it. They might get my vote.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (15 Oct. 2008)

Cognitive Dissonance: the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.

It’s been four years now since Barack Obama was catapulted onto the national and global stage with his remarkable speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Setting aside Bermuda’s interest in the US campaign, and even the political differences of the candidates themselves, the campaign has been fascinating. Even more interesting are the many parallels between recent US campaigns and our own.

The PLP’s Julian Hall recently described the US campaign as “the most negative, heavily-coded, but thinly-veiled, campaign of raw and naked racism in the history of modern democracy.” (“It’s the economy, stupid. And race.” The Mid Ocean News, Friday 10 October, 2008)

I would agree. Mostly. It is not unprecedented in modern democracy.

Mr. Hall is undoubtedly not alone in this sentiment in Bermuda; supporting Mr. Obama and decrying the McCain campaign’s use of raw identity politics and culture wars as a campaign strategy.

The condemnation of these tactics by a Dr. Brown/PLP insider is curious. Either Mr. Hall has a serious case of cognitive dissonance or he and others are suffering from a huge blind spot.

What exactly was the PLP’s election campaign against the UBP in 2007 if it was not a “negative, heavily-coded, but thinly-veiled, campaign of raw and naked racism”?

Let’s backtrack a little. Neither campaign should be a surprise. Mr. Obama himself predicted these attacks in a speech on July 30, 2008 in Springfield, MO:

“What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. He doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills. He’s risky….The argument is “I know you don’t really like what we’re doing but he’s risky."

This prediction was absolutely correct; to the word in some cases.

The PLP campaign was a mirror image. It told black Bermudians to fear the UBP in response to Dr. Brown’s own unpopularity. He admitted as much when he said that the party should deal with leadership challenges after the election but band together to “slay the vile dragon”.

Michael Dunkley and his colleagues were portrayed as outsiders – pseudo-foreigners – un-Bermudian.

Both the McCain and PLP campaigns were based on raw identity politics; overt appeals to solidarity among a demographic majority.

In a recent Bermuda Sun column PLP Chairman David Burt offered Mr. Obama political advice to get aggressively negative and advocated precisely this tactic by declaring that “in politics, you're either defining your opponent or you're being defined by your opponent.”

What Mr. Burt forgets is that unlike the PLP, Mr. Obama is in the minority and must create broad based coalitions which eschew politics of division. Negativity won’t work for him. Ditto for the UBP.

Crass identity politics free of issues and policy debates are effective: the PLP defined the UBP precisely as the Republicans are attempting to define Mr. Obama. Successfully so.

Like the PLP, Mr. McCain’s campaign is trying to turn the election into a referendum on their opponents. This has been achieved through a series of extremely ugly ads and rallies implying that Mr. Obama is un-American – an Islamic terrorist even – due to his membership on a Chicago education board with a Vietnam era domestic terrorist.

Perhaps not surprisingly then the McCain rallies have degenerated into hate-filled events – much like the PLP’s “Big Events”.

Racial epithets, declaring that Mr. Obama is not American, “an Arab”, a terrorist and a traitor are common, with someone even calling out “Kill Him!” Mr. McCain has attempted – to an extent – to tamp down the tone and vitriolic outbursts, unlike Dr. Brown who led the charge.

You may also recall the extremely ugly ads which the PLP campaign ran.

These suggested that the UBP, Michael Dunkley in particular, was “out to get you”. They ran print ads declaring that Mr. Dunkley supported lynching and flogging. PLP events were filled with racial epithets, including the predictable slurring of UBP candidates as Uncle Toms, “confused Negroes”, neo-fascists and literally wanting to re-enslave black Bermudians.

Mr. Obama is being defined by his opponent as a terror sleeper cell while the UBP was defined by the PLP as a KKK branch.

Murderers, to be blunt.

These tactics are beyond the pale and unacceptable, against anyone, Mr. Obama and the UBP included.

There’s “defining your opponent”, as PLP Chairman Mr. Burt advocates, and then there’s dishonest raw naked racism and character assassination. It’s one thing to say that your opponent is wrong; it’s another entirely to portray them as killers.

And let’s not ignore the media bias strategy.

Mr. McCain, a former darling of the national media is now in an open war with reporters he formerly called “his base”. Of course in Bermuda the only non-biased media is apparently the PLP-owned and run variety (Hott 107.5, Bermuda Network News, CITV and the proposed new daily paper).

Media bias is a key tactical weapon in both the Republican and PLP campaign toolboxes.

None of this is new of course. Republican politics has been expertly exploiting identity politics and culture wars with great success for the past decade, while Democrats have dithered.

The PLP’s politics have increasingly taken the same approach, turning politics into a spectator sport built around a core strategy of identity politics and culture (race) wars.

Their insistence on recasting everything through a racial lens was best illustrated by their “Puppet Show” ad which portrayed black UBP candidate Wayne Scott as a puppet of a white master during a press conference where he got stuck for a word and received a cue.

The absurdity, insincerity and double standard of this racist attack were exposed by a rebuttal video showing PLP candidate Wayne Caines receiving the same assistance from one of his colleagues.

It is easier to stoke fear than hope; pushing the racial and cultural buttons of a demographic majority to vote for someone who looks like you.

According to the polls, Mr. Obama could be on the verge of breaking through this divisive politics. The UBP on the other hand appear frozen, at a loss to combat this and refocus both themselves and the electorate.

As the US economy has worsened considerably during this campaign, Mr. Obama has pulled ahead in the polls and the McCain strategy appears to be failing as real issues take precedence.

I suspect that the PLP’s gimmicky, unserious race based campaign would have been far harder to pull off in today’s economic environment than 10 months ago.

The Royal Gazette
8 October 2008

The upside of this past weekend's weather is that I can't be accused of raining on the Music Festival parade.

Measured by performances, the event was a predictable success. However, when the Premier took to the stage to give the obligatory thanks, he conspicuously forgot the most important group: taxpayers.

Now that 2008 Festival is in the history books, it's time for a substantive discussion of what it is intended to achieve, whether that's being met and what changes could be made.

Because let's be brutally honest; the few tourists at the National Stadium were almost entirely on stage. If heads in beds is no longer the objective of the Music Festival, the Department of Tourism should make it official and hand this event over to the Department of Community Affairs and put it on the local calendar.

Precise tourist numbers will undoubtedly be a state secret, but hotel occupancies were reportedly at 50 percent. And Beyonce's entourage alone probably accounted for a couple of percentage points of that.

If you believe the Department of Tourism's mandate is to provide socialised entertainment, then you're probably satisfied and should stop reading now. If, on the other hand, you think the idea is to attract tourists and generate broader economic benefits Island-wide, then however enjoyable, the Music Festival is failing.

The original intent over a decade ago justified a short term loss: extending the tourism season into October. That worthwhile goal however surely should be coupled with an effort to build this into a self-sustaining fixture, reducing the burden to the taxpayer?

Instead Government is going in the opposite direction: content to throw an increasingly expensive annual party and hopefully not lose too much money. At best cover costs.

The predictable rebuttal will be that we benefit from overseas media coverage.

But this is an increasingly weak argument, not to mention unquantifiable. Scant international coverage was picked up by the ubiquitous Google News service.

The economic goal for tourism appears to have been superseded by a political one: local politicking through glitzy distractions and photo ops of our Government MPs with the beautiful people.

While Dr. Brown is often described as a master of promotion, the rub is that he's mostly promoting and entertaining himself. His declaration in July that "it's already known around the world that Bermuda's festival is sold out" confirms that political public relations were paramount.

That wasn't just an outright lie invoked to temporarily fend off valid criticism, it was colossally counter-productive.

As overseas ticket sales lagged, we saw not one, but two announcements that "Bermuda releases additional tickets" (read: unsold tickets). Eventually an unspecified amount of these "additional" tickets were sent back for sale and handed out as freebies.

This outcome was probably inevitable based on the marketing of this event, and increasingly the marketing of Bermuda in general.

Now I know that this next statement is incredibly politically incorrect, but it might not be the best strategy — economically that is — to market Bermuda's tourism product so heavily to black East Coast Americans via urban black media and black celebrities.

These were the few outlets that seemed to promote and cover the event and the celebrities who were paid to walk the pink carpet.

It's a risky marketing strategy for sure, but an attractive political one as the Music Festival was geared to cater to Bermudians first and tourists second.

Based on population size alone, a highly targeted demographic promotion is going to produce lower numbers of overall visitors.

This strategy will have to be executed to perfection or it will never result in enough tourists. The US Northeast is by definition a much larger potential pool of visitors than Northeast black Americans. It's simple math. By all means market to black Americans, but let's get the balance right.

If Beyonce and Alicia Keys can't attract a meaningful number of tourists, something is seriously wrong. It's definitely not the calibre of artist. The logical place to look is the promotion.

Results suggest that the marketing strategy is too narrow. The dilemma the Minister has put himself in is that by producing events for locals under the banner of tourism and de facto marketing to them as well, he's created a perennial tourism disappointment.

Dr. Brown has tilted our marketing too heavily to one group, rather than the bigger pool of Americans. This is confirmed by the selection of Global Hue for the Department's marketing and Dr. Brown's declaration that "money is now brown".

Based on recent numbers from the Department of Statistics, tourism spending is approaching 30 year lows, the worst years in recent history.

The kind of money that helps Bermuda is green it would seem. The formula for local politics doesn't necessarily make for sensible tourism economics.

This racial shift in our tourism marketing is the same dynamic on display when the Premier goes on his trips to DC. He seems overly-focused on the Congressional Black Caucus; far less interested in the bigger pool of legislators (a curious half-hour chat about little of substance with a lame duck President Bush notwithstanding).

Dr. Brown's personal agenda and Bermuda's aren't necessarily aligned. Too often Bermuda appears to play second fiddle and be a springboard for his personal interests.

Throwing out first pitches and staying at seven diamond hotels doesn't make for a successful marketing strategy or tourism product.

The numbers speak for themselves. It's time for a review of the Music Festival. We should start rebuilding this from the ground up by cutting costs, marketing it more broadly and pushing out smaller acts Island-wide to create a true festival environment.

The success of internationally acclaimed festivals (music and film) is the result of long-term cultivation of a memorable experience un-compromised by political marketing strategies.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (19 Dec. 2007)

Election 2007 is now in the history books and most of us will be at least pleased that this campaign is behind us and that we can look towards the holidays.

1998 was for all intents and purposes a two-term victory for the PLP.

Yesterday was the first real measure of political sensibilities in the new Bermuda.

While 2003 was close, something would have had to have gone terribly wrong for the electorate to vote out the PLP then.

For most observers then, and I include many in the PLP in this, this election result is a bit of a surprise.

With all of the talk in the press — both attributed and un-attributed — to the style and substance of Dr. Brown's leadership, continuing un-resolved scandals and his closed style of governance, it is surprising that there was no erosion of support for the PLP in this election.

It is apparent that there was nothing that the UBP as a party could have done, said or promised in this campaign which would have created a national move toward them.

They ran a good clean campaign focused on the issues. But this election had nothing to do with policy, nothing to do with debate.

It has sent a clear message that party affiliation reigns supreme and that Government reform, openness and accountability is not an issue for a portion of the electorate.

What it came down to in the end was what separates the two parties in Bermuda, and that's not policy. On policy there are differences, but this was about something else.

The UBP is a political party. That might seem like a dumb statement because the PLP is a political party as well.

Right? Technically yes. But ultimately the PLP sees itself and presents itself as a movement; mobilising that movement at election time is something they are very effective at.

The ability to tug on the heartstrings of that movement at election time is incredibly powerful.

Dr. Brown's campaign was effective at convincing his party's core support to come home and vote party despite the rancour of the past few years.

This strategy was not a secret; Dr. Brown said as much at his party's final rally when he urged the party faithful to "forget how you feel about personalities" and vote PLP at yesterday's General Election.

Dr. Brown's campaign was actually quite simple, driven by a few core messages of a vast white and media conspiracy designed to take him in particular down, and by extension all black Bermudians, while touting his party's accomplishments and attempting to portray the alternative as a return to slavery, as one of his candidates put it.

Boiled down, the strategy was to hide Dr. Brown and his inner-circle, destroy Michael Dunkley, hype minor achievements and race, race, race. The PLP stayed religiously on message.

This political campaign presented two distinctly different choices, as evidenced by the way they conducted their campaigns.

The UBP ran a conventional issue oriented campaign which stuck doggedly to their governing philosophy and platform proposals, the PLP on the other hand adopted an intensive North American negative campaign.

As ugly as negative campaigning is, it can be very effective and undoubtedly contributed heavily to the atmosphere on the island during the past seven weeks.

The tone was incredibly shrill and the willingness to dissemble and distort was remarkable as well as engage in some extremely distasteful racial baiting and stereotyping.

There was no way that the UBP could have conducted a similar campaign.

What was created was a climate which was very hostile to open political discussion but drove people back to their relevant party allegiances.

Race continues to dominate our political scene, and party loyalty trumps performance.

Bermuda remains polarised and there is a segment of the community which wants only one thing from their vote.

Dr. Brown's strategy was to amplify that polarisation, and he succeeded.

Combine that with boundaries which are unfavourable to the UBP, as evidenced by a second election with significant disparities between seat allocation and popular vote distribution and you have a formula which will be very difficult to overcome in the near-term.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (6 Dec. 2007)

Two weeks to go in the election campaign and for the first time I’m close to speechless. That’s not because a lot hasn’t been going on – it has – but so much of it has been so hysterically shrill and mean-spirited.

Five weeks into the seven week campaign and only one party has been consistently speaking to the issues. You may agree or disagree with some of the UBP’s proposals, but you can’t accuse them of not focusing on the issues.

On the other side it’s, well, it’s just full on attack the UBP mode. That’s the totality of the PLP’s campaign.

They’re operating in a parallel universe, as if we’re watching a production where the audience is expected to suspend their disbelief, cast aside everything they’ve come to learn over the PLP’s decade in office and vote them back in because the UBP are “out to get you”.

That’s it. There’s been nothing else. I suppose there can’t be; the election was called as an act of individual political self-defense; four and a half years later Bermuda is being asked to do the deception dance all over again, and we know how well that works out.

I know, I know; the “Solid as a Rock” theme song and slogan has been repeated ad nauseum – the message of which is “ignore your gut, stay loyal”. If things were “solid” we wouldn’t have to be reminded so often would we? Alex Scott didn’t have to point it out, but it certainly brought things into focus.

We can thank the former Premier for acknowledging that so many people are turned off by his party’s dominant leader; but the appeal for Bermudians to vote PLP and trigger another post-election leadership battle is a stunningly familiar admission to say the least.

Someone needs to remind Dr. Brown and his colleagues that elections are about the people, not the politicians. Bermuda doesn’t vote every five years to serve the political elite’s interest, but to select who can serve ours. They’ve got it backwards.

Dr. Brown’s substance-less campaign confirms he’s only interested in holding on to power now.

But why should the people of Bermuda endorse the leadership of a party that many of its own senior MPs and members don’t – whether they’ll publicly admit it or not? Why should the electorate endorse the leadership of a party which, for example, ignored vocal protest at Southlands only to have a death bed conversion on the eve of an election (and probably a post-election about face)?

The closer December 18th comes, the louder the noise becomes – as the volume on the Solid as the Rock amplifier is cranked to the max – the more obvious it becomes that the intent is to drown out the constant hum of internal and external dissent.

Don’t believe what Alex Scott, Renee Webb and other unnamed MPs and voters are saying; it’s all good, we’re Solid as a Rock. That’s why Dr. Brown has all but disappeared since his 60 minute rant against the world to launch this election campaign.

Has he ever been this low-profile? Ever?

Are we really supposed to be misled into believing that the man who has dominated every aspect of Bermuda politics for a year but has gone into hiding during the campaign won’t re-emerge emboldened if his party were to sneak out an election win? Are we going to be misled into thinking that it’s really about team, not a cult of personality?

The PLP’s campaign is clearly built on two themes: stay loyal, and “Us versus Them” (cue foreboding music).

Every statement, every ad, every ridiculously hyperbolic statement on their website is written with a sneering “they’re out to get you” tone. They’ve even resorted to running shameful radio ads that say exactly that. Are they really that devoid of content and afraid to stand on their record?
Do reasonable people really think that the UBP are out to get them? Are Albertha Waite, Charlie Swan, Donte Hunt, Darius Tucker, Don Hassell, Austin Warner, Gina Spence-Farmer, Wayne Scott, Mark Pettingill, Doug DeCouto etc. out to get anyone? Really? It’s sad that in this day and age a party has to resort to these backwards looking tactics.

The hyperbole has reached such a crescendo that the news is almost unreadable and definitely unwatchable. The misinformation has become so thick, the smearing and sneering so constant, that they’re now resorting to actually attacking the UBP for things the PLP are engaging in: smearing and deception.

The attempt to transfer their liabilities over to the UBP, and turn Michael Dunkley into some dangerously dominant strongman figure, when this is precisely the PLP’s plight, is impressive in its boldness.

Election 2007 has become a bizarre parallel universe. You don’t have to be a psychologist to diagnose the outright schizophrenia of the PLP’s campaign.

Dr. Brown’s PLP have said that they're for the people but against tax relief.

They were against a referendum on independence, before being in favour of one, but are back against it (but don’t ask the Press Secretary, what does he know?).

The Police Station which they’ve steadfastly refused to re-open in St. George's for years? Well, now they're all over it. They can’t move fast enough.

The UBP promised to build 500 homes. Well, 3 days later the PLP promised 550.

The PLP attacked the UBP for being right wing and wanting to cut 'essential Government services'. The next day they said that the UBP wanted to create a welfare state.

Someone pass the meds.

All of this confirms that they really don’t have any issues to run on, other than attacking and vilifying good, decent, hard-wording, community-oriented Bermudians who see the UBP as a vehicle to bring Bermudians together.

The PLP’s closing strategy of transferring their leader’s liabilities onto the UBP, and running on that divisive phrase of “Us versus Them” is desperate.

The meanness, the nastiness, the obsession to portray anyone who isn’t part of the PLP elite as ‘vile’, ‘vicious’ and a ‘force of darkness’, as the Premier described them in his opening speech, is absolutely not what Bermuda needs. Affirming it on December 18th will do just that.
The climate of distrust, fear and division that the PLP is trying to cultivate during this campaign needs to be firmly rejected at the polls.

Election Day may be a day of political survival for some, but it’s really an opportunity for the voters to decide on who can serve Bermuda in a positive way. Don’t be misled.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (21 Nov. 2007)

On Saturday November 17th, The Royal Gazette published a Letter to the Editor from Dr. Eva Hodgson which took issue with a recent column of mine calling for an end to divisive, dishonest, racially polarizing politics.

Dr. Hodgson began by saying that “perspective is everything” and compared her experiences as a black woman with mine as “a white male who has probably never faced any form of discrimination, certainly not racism…”

Since I started this column, some have attempted to rewrite my life so that they can discredit me based on their prejudiced assumptions of me and my motivations. They reframe my views as racially driven, when in fact race is almost entirely unrelated to most of the issues of which I write.

Although I very rarely write about myself or my life – preferring issues, principles and values – and this column is not a forum for personal arguments, it’s time to explain why I’m so personally angry and outspoken about the scandalous events at the Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC) and the deteriorating public education system in particular.

Contrary to Dr. Hodgson’s ill-informed and stereotyped portrayal of me in her letter, my grievances have nothing to do with race but a great deal to do with my connection with the victims of the BHC travesty. You see, I grew up in BHC housing.

As a child, my family struggled to afford housing in Bermuda, but we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to rent a home from the BHC. It was largely because of the support of the BHC that my parents could provide for their family; because of this subsidized rent, my parents were able to use their remaining income to send their children to the schools of their choice.

Yes, Dr. Hodgson, this “privileged” white boy grew up in Prospect in Government housing because, unlike the stereotype of the endlessly privileged white that you’ve painted me with, my family couldn’t afford to buy a home and struggled like so many others just to rent.

My present day situation is possible because of opportunities afforded to me by the BHC. It is inexcusable to me that anyone – worst of all government officials – could plunder the BHC for personal gain. I know firsthand how it feels to need the support of an agency like the BHC, and how well-managed government services can have a real and lasting improvement in people’s lives.

The reality is that the race of those implicated in the scandal is of no interest to me. What I do care about – what outrages me and so many others – is that senior members of the present Government apparently abused an agency founded to provide a hand-up. I’m outraged because, instead of using the BHC to help Bermudians, some in this Government helped themselves to the BHC.

It is perplexing then, to say the least, that I am consistently accused of racism, simply because I want public officials to be held accountable for exploiting an agency that primarily benefits struggling black families.

Has Bermuda’s racial climate become so distorted that it’s racist to criticize a handful of unethical politicians who happen to be black for the sake of thousands of black Bermudians in need?

Yet Dr. Hodgson and most likeminded critics of mine, implies that my outrage at this present government is built on a desire to return to all-white rule. That assertion has nothing to do with my views and everything to do with their stereotyped views of me. It is an insulting and offensive accusation.

But just what would I be returning to? I was born post-segregation into a working class family with a father who was as comfortable at Warwick Workman’s Club as at the Old Colony Club. I spent most of my childhood at a garage on Ord Road owned by my sister’s working-class black Godfather. You wouldn’t find us at Coral Beach, the Yacht Club or the Mid Ocean Club where I, like many Bermudians black and white, feel hopelessly out of place to this day.

I was never taught to view black and white Bermudians as separate or unequal. In my experience, we’re all just Bermudians. Why then would I want to go back to a time when things were otherwise; when racism was socially acceptable?

It seems that some do want a return to those days … they just want the racist shoe to be on the other foot awhile. These are the people who invoked white privilege when I asked for a comprehensive and independent review of our public school system – fully two years before the PLP Government finally decided it was due.

They saw the issue only in terms of race. They saw a white man criticizing black officials. They refused to see it for what it was: a Bermudian citizen criticizing Bermudian officials for neglecting the well-being of Bermudian students.

Perhaps most ridiculously, people routinely ask why I didn’t speak out when the UBP was in power. The reason for that is simple. When the UBP was in power, I was a kid. I was fresh out of university when the PLP took the reins with so much goodwill. I am part of the ever-growing generation of young Bermudians that have spent their adult lives under a PLP Government.

For me and others of my era, the PLP are the status quo. They don’t represent change, they represent the establishment. While my generation is grateful for the civil rights battles the party fought in the past, we are far more concerned about what the PLP is doing – and not doing - for Bermuda today, as the government in power. They haven’t embraced modern progressive politics but are locked in an antiquated battle against a white foe that has largely died off. I don’t have a dog in that fight.

The racialism and combativeness of the ‘60s is not useful in addressing today’s problems. Those critics with their old-fashioned and hardened views want to drag the rest of us back into their world by misrepresenting our words, our beliefs, our interactions and our experiences. They insult the values that I was raised with, and my family who are not all white.

We don’t all carry around the baggage of the 1960s. Not all of us categorize and stereotype people by race. Some of us, as Dr. Martin Luther King proposed, judge people on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin.

So yes, Dr. Hodgson, I guess I have been privileged, but not for the stereotyped reasons you say. I was privileged enough that when my family needed the help of the BHC, it wasn’t being looted and undermined by unethical politicians.

I was privileged enough that the BHC gave my family the ability to send me to the school of their choice. That’s why I passionately criticize the present government for the events at the BHC and falling education standards. Affordable housing and an excellent education are privileges that I want every Bermudian to enjoy.

As you said, Dr. Hodgson, “perspective is everything.” Your polarizing, stereotyping-based perspective is, with each successive generation of Bermudians, thankfully becoming a thing of the past.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (15 Nov. 2007)

“Primum non nocere” is a saying that Dr. Brown might be familiar with. It’s a Latin phrase meaning “First, do no harm” and is a principle taught early to medical students to consider the possible damage that intervention may create.

With Tuesday’s disturbing revelations published in The Royal Gazette regarding the state of our only Hospital, it is not an understatement to say that the Premier, Health Minister, the rest of Cabinet and an unaccountable inner circle are literally playing politics with people’s lives. A helpful reminder: “First, do no harm.”

Dr. Brown’s invocation of God as his defender at the PLP Banquet notwithstanding; it’s clear that this Government has completely lost sight of what it was elected to do. They exist to serve the public interest, not the reverse.

That is the inescapable conclusion that reasonable people will reach when presented with the private notes of Health Minister Michael Scott which reveal that a damning report from Johns Hopkins on the Hospital “must be managed, it must be written so that it suits the Government and does not become a document that embarrasses GOB [Government of Bermuda]” because “the reports out of KEMH would be devastating.”

Here we go again, with another report going unreported pending a rewrite, while yet another is prepared by Kurron Shares of America, a member of the armada of foreign consultants that seem to be running Bermuda on very lucrative contracts with little accountability or oversight to the public who fund them.

Report shopping is rampant by this Government, whether it’s problems at the hospital or the latest study on young black males; Cabinet will commission an endless number of reports until they find one that tells them what they want to tell us.

To make matters worse, Government won’t even Buy Bermuda; the island has become a playground for highly paid foreign consultants whose loyalty is solely to the politician who cuts their cheques. Independent views ‘must be managed’ and are hastily locked away.

Perhaps this would be tolerable if Government’s performance wasn’t so abysmal and we weren’t constantly subjected to brazen untruths; statements which transcend political spin and classify solely as unabashed propaganda and the denial of reality. Managing public perception now trumps honesty. This Government has crossed the Rubicon when it comes to spin versus deception.

The political propaganda which is being peddled daily in respect of every aspect of Bermuda political life is mind-boggling; whether it’s inflated public school graduation rates, business travelers misrepresented as tourists or the affiliations of whistleblowers and the sources of leaked files. It’s not just unfavourable reports that are rewritten, but facts too.

Rather than communicate honestly and forthrightly with the public, Government has assembled a massive public relations apparatus designed mostly to prevent genuine communication. It’s a sad condemnation when, in the case of the suppressed Johns Hopkins report, saving face is more important than saving lives.

These incidents aren’t aberrations, they’re an operating principle that was enshrined into Bermuda’s political folklore after the 2003 election where the aspiring Premier notoriously conceded that he and his colleagues ‘misled you because we had to’ during an election campaign. Here we go again four and a half years later.

This psychosis has become so pervasive that the PLP party’s website regularly engages in the blatant misrepresentation of quotes, and even fabricates new quotes from fragments of others. This began months ago when the party propagandists edited aspiring candidate Ianthia Wade’s public condemnation of the party’s leadership into a ringing endorsement, inserted a full stop in the middle of a sentence of mine while ignoring whole paragraphs so they could attack me over the Workplace Equity Act, or most recently blatantly lied about the opening line of a Royal Gazette editorial so they could twist it into an (easily debunked) admission of pro-UBP bias.

It’s no wonder that Bermudians are becoming increasingly disconnected, disgusted and dismayed with the state of Bermuda’s political leadership and are cynically resorting to staying home on Election Day. It’s why bumper stickers like “I love my country, it’s the Government that scares me” don’t just make you laugh, but nod in agreement.

Presumably if truth were on the Government’s side they wouldn’t have to resort to this kind of unprecedented and pathological deception; the desperation is an admission of failure.

When critically important reports on the state of our health care system are surgically removed from existence and filed in the morgue, one wonders what ever happened to the concept of “First, do no harm”.

To have first hand proof that politics is trumping the health care needs of Bermuda is disturbing to say the least. Secret weekend meetings where a closed circle of hand-selected loyalists plot the future of health care in Bermuda – with the Premier himself revealed as the not-so-secret back seat driver of a portfolio where he has massive private business conflicts of interest – runs counter to the public interest.

It was offensive enough when the cover-ups concerned allegations of improper conduct by public officials with taxpayer funds; but to now be covering up vitally important but damning assessments of our public health infrastructure is more than “embarrassing”, it’s dangerous.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (07 Nov. 2007)

The next six weeks will certainly be interesting ones in Bermuda, with the announcement that we’ll be going to the polls on December the 18th. If the tone set by the PLP in the first few days is any indication, the season to be jolly will be anything but.

Judging by the misinformation which is being furiously peddled in the wake of the damning leaked corruption investigation of our highest elected officials – which reached a fever pitch with Dr. Brown’s rant on Saturday night to the PLP Banquet – there is going to be the need for a serious fact checking element to this election.

The temptation to respond to each of the individual untruths, slurs and character attacks will be huge; the sheer volume will render that impossible.

Dr. Brown has kindly, and repeatedly, warned us to expect lies, personal attacks and hysteria. He neglected however to identify himself as the primary source. After the latest seething tirade against…well, the world, he should consider seeking professional help, and I don’t mean with speech writing.

The local media seem stunned by attack after attack, an orchestrated campaign to discredit them for doing their jobs as the Fourth Estate. Trying to prove their objectivity (as defined by those who seek anything but) by dedicating massive amounts of type copy to these very attacks, which they meekly point out are patently dishonest, unfair and overtly political will achieve nothing. Nothing, other than complete and total submission, will ever be enough.

Despite – or because of – the obviously rattled and weakened PLP leader, the opening days of the 2007 campaign have been very instructive. The PLP are demanding to be re-elected on the basis of a cult of personality; an apparently unquestionable, unaccountable, infallible leader with a weak Parliamentary group being dragged along for the ride.

What is striking isn’t the partisanship or the distortion; to that we’ve become accustomed. It’s the increasingly strident rhetoric, the extremism, the militancy, the fanaticism. Dr. Brown has become so deluded and isolated that he seems to think that his powers of persuasion are so great that he can change the facts; that he can continue to mislead the electorate over things as clear cut as the source of the leak, disillusioned PLP member Harold Darrell. He insists that this was, is, and always will be, a global UBP media conspiracy (hell, if they could pull that off they deserve to be Government). The mountains and mountains of evidence to the contrary serve only as a platform to shout even louder from. The extent of the dishonesty or the delusion is shocking.

It is evident that his electoral strategy is to pick fights; attack the UBP, attack the media, attack whistleblowers, attack anyone who dare have an independent thought or deviate from the mandated racial allegiance.

Dr. Brown is banking on the “a best defense is a strong offense” strategy and hopes to draw select individuals from the United Bermuda Party into personal grudge matches; with the electorate and their issues reduced to mere spectators.

So the tactics are clear. Sure they’ll sprinkle in some policy ideas here and there to provide a breather, but ultimately it’s a smear campaign – disguised as a response to a smear campaign. Brash, but not surprising.

The question then becomes what should the UBP do?

That’s simple. Dr. Brown and his party don’t set the agenda unless they’re allowed to. Not that they won’t continue to try.

The UBP shouldn’t be distracted from executing its own campaign. They should simply bypass the desperately shrill and increasingly irrelevant Ewart Brown and speak directly to the issues and how they will address them. Of course the lies, distortions and personal attacks can’t go without a swift and strong rebuttal, but if a personal fight is what he wants then he can shadow box his way out of a seat and his party right out of Government.

The lessons of the past decade are clear: it’s time for leadership that delivers more than scandals and spin. The serious social and economic issues which have exploded since the late 90s impact the lives of everyone living within our tiny 21 square miles.

There’s only one party that, if we’re honest, knows that it has no option but to produce results, be collaborative, and move Bermuda out of a half century long racial/political argument that is going precisely nowhere.

The United Bermuda Party cannot possibly be successful by polarizing the community around race or trying to build a cult of personality. They cannot demand a free pass for lack of performance and outright negligence with a cynical appeal to racial solidarity. They must be responsive.

The United Bermuda Party should run their own campaign built around the themes that they’ve been articulating consistently during their time in Opposition. They needed to spend some time out of Government reconnecting with the people, reassessing their core values, and finding that hunger to serve. This is time well spent for a party that governed for an unprecedented thirty plus years and laid the foundation and infrastructure that is the Bermuda of today; accomplishments that are dismissed as non-existent by Dr. Brown and his inner circle yet deserving of being renamed in the PLP’s image.

It is time for change, positive change, around issues of honesty, transparency and accountability in public life; not a self-aggrandising, self-indulgent, self-destructive cult of personality. Personality politics are not serving Bermuda well.

United Bermuda Party candidates don’t need to be drawn into a one on one fight with a flailing, embattled, discredited politician. Bermuda needs a cohesive team, a collection of individuals from a variety of backgrounds, both economic and social, who don’t want to connect with political punches, but one on one with their constituents. The way a party campaigns is how they will govern.

Political parties, MPs and Premiers come and go; but an entrenched, legislated culture of openness, transparency and accountability, complemented by a results driven Government, will go a long way to putting Bermuda on a steady footing as we look towards many more years of success.

An ever broadening cross section of Bermudians should be able to participate in this prosperous future; not just a narrow and rapidly out of touch political elite.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (26 Oct. 2007)

One of the major topics of discussion lately – or at least the one that the press isn’t temporarily gagged from reporting on – is “will he or won’t he”, call an election that is.

I’m not sure why this is such a hard question and generates such hand-wringing. The answer is obvious: he might.

Predicting an election is always an entertaining exercise for everyone from the political junkies (to whom it is an obsession) to the casual observer. There are the usual warning signs; although the shark oil of election preparation is the timing of a taxi driver fare increase (before an election as expected but this time after the lucrative summer months and the PGA Grand Slam and the Music Festival have passed).

Lately however, the prediction game has turned out to be a little different. If you feel like we’ve been in election mode for the better part of a year, it’s because we have.

First there was talk of a snap election after the PLP Gala (aka Presidential Inauguration), then there was the slow(ish) build during the summer months – a plan clearly scuttled by a rather notorious leak and the subsequent extraordinary attempts to suppress information by the Premier and his inner circle - the speculative but unlikely Labour Day timing talk to preempt the Privy Council ruling, and now we’re at it again as the next logical window of November’s reconvening of Parliament and a December poll approaches.

The signs that an election could be imminent – again – are everywhere: race has predictably moved to the forefront, Cabinet Members are touring uncompleted housing projects (complete with shiny green hard-hats), they’re trying to reverse course on Southlands, graduation rates and tourism numbers are being misrepresented, the taxi industry received their large fare hike and our litigious Premier is again trying to silence the press.

These are all reliable indicators that the PLP spin doctors are trying to put on their best face, mend some fences and minimize their vulnerabilities.

As previously mentioned though, we’ve done this dance before. So is now the real deal? Maybe. Although there’s another dynamic probably driving our Premier to be The Constant Campaigner.

One is inclined to believe from the PLP insider rumblings in newspaper articles, word on the street, and talk of the PLP delegates returning their leadership elections to two from four years, that there remains an entrenched dissatisfaction with both the style and substance of the PLP’s latest leader both within his party and outside.

Whether it’s The Friends and Family Plan that drives the Brown Government’s agenda; the expanding inner circle of unaccountable taxpayer funded consultants and advisors; the confrontational approach which has destroyed any good faith with the business community; the lack of consultation over controversial development or the lingering ethical problems and troubling but unanswered questions, there’s a lot to leave one disenchanted.

The days of an emboldened and boastful PLP post Alex Scott are long gone. The polls appear to have shifted – substantially it would appear – after the public became aware of things previously buried in Police files…at which point the Premier began his perpetual campaign.

If you were a party leader with growing discontent inside (and outside) your party what would you do? How’s about put your party into non-stop election mode, or as a friend recently described it to me, as a constant state of arousal? (Well he used a different rather cruder term that rhymes with ‘election’, but that would be crass.)

It isn’t a bad survival strategy to load your election rifle, look down the sight, take aim, remove the safety, apply a little pressure to the trigger but not pull it all the way. It’s a surefire way to ensure that the firing squad is pointing in the other direction.

It might have appeared strange during the summer months to see the Premier working his supporters into frenzy after frenzy, dragging the press around for day long photo-ops, hitting the PLP-friendly media circuit, announcing candidates in a very deliberate and planned manner and dropping election hint after election hint all for naught. Until you consider the alternative that is.

Unhappy party members with idle time on their hands can make life difficult for a leader with big ambitions but bigger liabilities.

Observers of recent political developments in the UK will be aware that when Gordon Brown publicly changed his mind on calling an election after the Tories built some momentum he experienced another sudden drop in the polls; the move was an acknowledgement that he knew things looked bleak and was weak.

Only time will tell if an election will materialize from this latest re-upping of the election ante, and there are only so many available opportunities before that hard deadline of July 2008 hits, but something tells me that part of that decision will hinge as much on developments in the courts as in the constituencies

It would appear that the Premier knows he’s not in a very strong position, and is waiting either for a little good news or a mistake by the UBP to pull the trigger and hope for the best.

The one mistake he won’t make however is to admit that things aren’t going as well as he’d hoped; but you don’t have to be a political pundit to see that.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (10 October, 2007)

The past several weeks have seen a renewed focus on the relationship between international business and the PLP Government. This debate was re-ignited after anonymous comments expressing concern over Bermuda’s political leadership made at an influential annual gathering of reinsurers were printed in several international reinsurance publications.

Local attention on this issue has been intense, with good reason; international business directly impacts every Bermudian’s quality of life, whether you are employed in it or not. Indeed the long overdue detailed breakdown of air arrivals reveals that business travel has even been used to mask tourism’s ongoing decline.

Generally I avoid writing on the insurance industry too directly as I work in it. Even though the opinions expressed are always my own and not those of my employer I am well aware that there are those who will attempt to use me against my employer and my employer against me. However, I believe the concerns raised recently are sufficiently important and should be addressed from the perspective of a Bermudian in the industry.

Firstly, on Friday September 28th, 2007, The Royal Gazette published a column by an anonymous senior Bermudian reinsurance executive entitled “External Threats, Internal Challenges”. This column addressed a potential business ‘exodus’ from Bermuda. I was subsequently informed by a number of people that it was alleged on a radio talk show, by PLP candidate Laverne Furbert, that I was in fact the author of this article.

Let me say definitively that I was not the author, nor was I privy to its composition. I, like everyone else, read the article for the first time on the morning of September 28th.

The predictable attempt to ‘out’ the author entirely validates the writer’s desire to protect their identity; it’s precisely why those reinsurance executives at Monte Carlo spoke off the record. This retributive behavior is contributing to a climate of unease among those within our largest industry, both Bermudian and otherwise.

I can think of many Bermudians insurance workers who share the sentiments of that article but wouldn’t want their names attached to it for fear of retaliation against themselves and/or their employers. As someone who puts his name on his opinions daily, I understand this concern as I am the target of this at times, but at some point we must stop being scared of our shadows and speak up.

Where are the young Bermudians in International Business in this debate? There are many, many of us working our way up through the industry quite successfully at various levels – with no help from the Government – who are far more qualified to discuss this topic than Cabinet and their advisors; few who possess more than a superficial understanding of Bermuda’s biggest economic engine.

As a young Bermudian reinsurance underwriter, I regularly meet with international clients, brokers and competing reinsurers. So I was not at all surprised to read the comments in The Royal Gazette articles entitled “Prepared to take flight: Bermuda's $64bn reinsurance community unhappy with Island situation - new report” and “More claims of discontent among reinsurers”, although the phrase ‘preparing to take flight’ is a bit of an overstatement.

It is indisputable that the impact of term limits, the precedent setting deportations of several non-Bermudian workers for minor issues, threats to prohibit car ownership by non-Bermudians, Ministerial warnings to non-Bermudians to stay out of politics (ie. by all means publicly agree with the Government but never dissent) and Dr. Brown’s intensely adversarial approach has created an environment of unease among our billion dollar corporations.

This is discussed within the industry regularly, both informally and otherwise. Mr. Ed Noonan of Validus Re was recently reported as characterising the chatter as “bar-talk”, prompting the Premier and his proxies to spin away the concerns as those of people “who had been drinking”.

Here’s where it’s useful to actually understand how the industry works; conversations and discussions aren’t limited to set agenda meetings in a board room. Bermuda’s companies are friendly but fierce competitors who operate in a small market. “Bar talk” doesn’t mean getting full hot; it means casual but frank conversations about issues facing the industry as whole conducted outside of regular business hours, versus the specifics of an individual business deal.

No-one schedules an open session at a conference entitled “Threats from the Bermuda Government”, but you can be absolutely sure it comes up afterwards. Just as many important discussions are held and relationships solidified on a golf course or over dinner, “bar talk” plays a major role in this industry, both as a networking tool and a way to discuss broad concerns and sometimes vent. If you doubt that assertion, take a wander over to Little Venice Wine Bar any day after 5:30 and see it for yourself.

It is also undeniable that Bermuda’s international businesses, which are broader than just insurance, are moving jobs out of Bermuda. This is due to basic economics but also a hedge against the increasingly hostile political climate which is hamstringing companies’ ability to compete, hire and retain key staff. These policies seem designed to generate a political rallying cry for rallies which the industry is asked to finance through political donations while being told to stay out of politics.

The Premier’s recent speech in Washington DC about a program labeled as Goodwill Plus, whereby every expatriate employee has a Bermudian college graduate attached to them to succeed them in 3 years, simply put an exclamation point on the lack of realism and pragmatism in the election year policies which are being rolled out.

Goodwill Plus should be called Opportunities Lost; it is at best naïve, at worst disingenuous. Either way it’s counterproductive.

As a Bermudian in the industry who would like to see other Bermudians continuing to benefit from it, it is clear to me that young university educated Bermudians hoping to pursue a career in insurance will in fact suffer if this policy is ever acted on (versus just hyped before an election).

Term limits are equally as counterproductive as Goodwill Plus. The cumulative effect of all of this politicking, and the never-ending scandals, is a drastic reduction in Bermuda’s attractiveness as a long term business home.

Talk about replacing experienced and skilled ‘Sven’ with fresh out of college ‘Johnny’ is little more than political headline generators which will not achieve the professed results for a number of reasons, some obvious others not.

Firstly, it seems to be treated as a given by the Government that businesses in Bermuda are discriminating against Bermudians. But with the Government admitting that the public education system is grossly inadequate – and has been for some time – and has labeled young black males as a problem, it seems rather unfair and insincere to then put the blame on employers for not having enough senior Bermudians (of any race) in their ranks.

An objective observer would most likely conclude that businesses are being handed a problem rather than creating one. Politicians are motivated to shift blame for this, at least the ones running for re-election are, which is why departing MP Renee Webb felt free to point out that we have to deal with education first before we can claim rampant discrimination.

Secondly, international business, and insurance in particular, is an industry that is built on relationships and experience, not ‘jobs’. We as Bermudians must stop thinking about ‘jobs’ and start thinking about careers, relationships, experience and credibility. This takes time. Goodwill Plus talks about 3 years; 10 to 15 is more realistic.

And bear in mind that Bermuda’s insurance and reinsurance industry really only began to ramp up rapidly in the last 15 years, at which point Bermudians began to transition out of tourism and into business roles. A massive culture shift had to occur as well as re-calibration of skills.

Thirdly, Bermudians working in the industry in Bermuda have a much better chance to advance because our companies currently locate their most senior staff here. The key decision makers and most valued employees in our billion dollar companies are interacting on a daily basis with entry level staff in a way that does not occur in North America, Europe or Asia.

While every Bermudian should spend time overseas building up experience prior to returning to Bermuda (hence the need for an EU passport) those of us working on island should exploit the unique opportunity to be exposed to key figures in the global financial services industry. The value of that is unquantifiable.

Fourthly, the cumulative effect of forcing companies to terminate experienced and skilled non-Bermudian staff after 3 years in the Sven example or 6 years for term limits will drive key positions to the many competing jurisdictions where our companies already maintain a presence; jurisdictions that are anxious to erode Bermuda’s dominance as a global financial market. Sven will never get here, so who is Johnny going to be attached to?

A key employee in this industry is someone who can generate tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and/or investment for their firms. When they are re-located, so will the positions around them; resulting in opportunities lost for Bermudians. And if we’re honest, one of the hardest things for our companies to do is retain Bermudians, they are in such demand.

I wonder how – with this phenomenon already occurring in a low-key manner – the next generation of Bermudians will be able to enter the business that fuels our economy the way I did. The vital entry level professional positions are moving elsewhere.

The associated promising career paths are shifting to Dublin, Zurich, London, New York, Halifax or even Waterloo Ontario. Ten to fifteen years later those non-Bermudian beneficiaries might end up here in the top level positions that remain on island, positions which Bermudians could have previously aspired to.

Furthermore, the net impact of this is that we will begin to push Bermuda back to a model which we’ve successfully moved away from, much to our benefit. Bermuda is far better served by having companies with a genuine physical presence and the accompanying skilled analytical, actuarial and management roles, rather than by driving those elsewhere and being attractive as a holding company location only. That model holds less benefit for us economically and re-invites intense scrutiny as a tax haven.

The Bermudians in international business can’t remain silent. There are plenty of us methodically working our way up through the ranks quite successfully; I interact with them in Bermuda and overseas and see them handling important financial deals.

Those of us in this industry have not been called on by the Government in this discussion, and we can’t sit idly by as observers. We are in fact far more knowledgeable about this topic than those who keep telling us what is good for us. We deserve a voice.

There are many Bermudian success stories in the industry, and we can tell the Government a thing or two about what should and should not be done, about what is and isn’t helpful. Chasing away broad economic opportunities for present and future generations of Bermudians in an effort to secure another political term isn’t productive.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (26 July, 2007)

One of the best things about politics is the unintended humour of it all; the blatant hypocrisy, the self-important personalities, the thin-skinned bullies, the opportunists and the revisionist history for example.

Friday’s PLP “Main Event” at West Pembroke school field had them all, let’s just hope that the school children weren’t around to have their impressionable heads filled with some of the most hateful stuff you can hope they never have to hear.

The PLP’s 2007 campaign has started where the 2003 one left off: racially divisive and destructive for the future. And you wondered why the UBP’s Parliamentary Code of Conduct was rejected out of hand by the PLP?

If the events of Thursday night hadn’t been so offensive they’d have actually been comedic. Well, even then it was comedic, unintentionally for sure, but a virtual comedy routine nonetheless.

What else can you call trotting out Jamahl Simmons to talk about a leopard not changing its spots, when he’s done it five times now (PLP, NLP, UBP, IND and PLP again – not the ABC though…yet) in a decade, then comparing the UBP’s Shawn Crockwell to a pedophile before hilariously invoking a biblical reference about himself as the Prodigal Son. How very Christian that speech was.

What else can you call an event that in the year 2007 saw a new PLP candidate refer to someone in the UBP as a “confused negro”; welcome to the 1960s. Who said dinosaurs were extinct.

What else can you call an event which saw the PLP Leader incite his devotees to draw their swords to ‘slay the lying, vile, underhanded, vengeful UBP dragon!” (Does that qualify as a bladed weapons offence?) Someone’s been counting down the days to the new release of the final installment of Harry Potter it seems.

Evidently Dr. Brown got a little caught up in the moment and forgot that he was at a political rally not a Harry Potter convention. Come to think of it, maybe Dr. Brown was waiting in the book release line outside a New York bookstore with the 10 year old dress-up wizards, before “flying in for The Main Event”.

Speaking of wizards, the whole rally had a whole “Wizard of Oz” feel to it actually.

Dragon’s and negroes and paedophiles. Oh my!

I was looking for the munchkins and the Lollipop Guild, but evidently they weren’t among the 500 – or was it 1,000, or was it 5,000 attendees (as new PLP candidate Walton Brown’s ‘news’ site was reporting for half of Friday) – in attendance. Maybe the difference was attributable to whether you counted the Presidential entourage or not?

It’s not hard to pick out a Cowardly Lion, a Tin Man and a Scarecrow among other characters on the stage, but I’ll leave that up to you. Whichever way you slice it – and there’s a lot of material here but I only have a word limit – “The Main Event” was both a national disgrace and a comedic triumph.

Just follow the yellow-lined road to the Emerald Field and behold the Wizard – don’t pull back the curtain though, you’ll find the act is all a big manipulative fraud.

No doubt after all this racial incitement, Dr, Brown probably spent the weekend with the white oligarchy he just demonized at those exclusive institutions called The Mid Ocean Club or The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club where he’s a member.

Now that’s funny!

It’s just a shame that “The Main Event” was the foundation for a modern day political campaign and not a Not the Um Um or Saturday Night Live skit; the rally was the carefully planned, scripted and choreographed launch of a political campaign…in the year 2007. Divide and conquer never loses its appeal does it.

Believe it or not, seven years into the new millennium, the content of the PLP’s campaign to determine our future is built around racial slurs not issues. The list is long and shameful: “slave masters”, “confused negroes”, “lying, vile, underhanded, vengeful dragons”, pulling mortgages, “racist dogs”, “throwing out the milk with the rest of the garbage” and threats of a race riot if the heat isn’t reduced.

If it’s a comedy it’s a farce. If it was intended as drama it’s a tragedy.

The comedic element to this is of course the hypocrisy of a party that has been predicting that the UBP is going to run a nasty campaign before initiating theirs with such unbridled small-minded hatred; it’s the PLP putting words in UBP members mouths – Phil Perinchief did exactly that when he claimed that the UBP has talked of dictatorships – so that they can then attack them for things they’ve never said; it’s a party that demands that people are respectful of their MPs, while they ruthlessly smear anyone who dare take an alternative view.

The problem here – or at least one of the many problems – is that the PLP’s campaign has started on such a shrill note that it is hard to imagine how much worse the racism will get. And it will get worse. You can’t pivot from “Don’t vote for the former masters and their confused negroes” to “by the way, have you seen our housing plan?” and expect the latter to be heard.

Supposedly, elections are about the future. So far, it’s more like back to the future. Intolerance and the political exploitation of racial wounds is not going to move Bermuda forward. Tolerance, ideas, accountability, integrity and honesty will.

There was none of that at “The Main Event”.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (16 July, 2007)

If there’s one thing that is becoming more and more apparent as every day passes, it’s that the 2007 election is shaping up to be a lot like 2003.

All indications are that the PLP are headed into yet another election with a leader who has little internal support (with good reason), and, if 2003 is anything to go, fully intend on replacing if they mange to cling on to the Government.

That’s not a mischievous assertion on my part, that’s about the only thing that can be read into the series of comments by aspiring and rejected PLP candidate Ianthia Wade, departing PLP MP Renee Webb and recently removed from his incumbent constituency PLP MP George Scott made.

Let’s start with the harshest comments first and then work our way back.

Ms. Webb released a barrage of criticism that makes me look like a shrinking violet; the MP described her party leader and Bermuda’s Premier as believing that ‘rules are made for others’, that he uses ‘people to get what he wants and then steps on them’, and that ‘integrity and honour at the top are not what we currently have’.

Hot on the heels of this white hot assessment came Ms. Wade, who quite astoundingly made an out of the blue call to The Royal Gazette begging voters to support her party despite its leadership; outright pleading for the public to ignore their instinct and gut feelings of lack of trust and disillusionment.

Finally, George (Don’t you know who I am?) Scott was rolled out in a stop the bleeding damage control candidate announcement after weeks of public turmoil and infighting. The best endorsement that he could muster was little more than the statement that he’s ‘a party man’ (translation: This sucks but I’m doing this out of loyalty).

In the wake of the BHC scandal, and with the isolating and self-indulgent Presidential style of the Dr. Brown, these public comments – and the suspiciously silent members of the PLP – strongly suggests that the not-quite-a-whisper campaign of “vote party we’ll remove the problem after the election” is in full swing; Dr. Brown looks like he’s about to get a taste of his own medicine.

What this really reveals however is just how weak the party is; they’re either unwilling to take a principled stand against alleged misdeeds by their colleagues, preferring to continue on with a leader and other colleagues mired in multiple ethical scandals, or they’re about to go into a second consecutive election fully intent on again misleading the public. Actually, it’s probably a combination of both; lack of principle and the need to mislead.

We deserve to know fully the facts around the extent that public officials mixed private and public business at the BHC, asbestos removal and other public projects. We also deserve to know how public funds have been spent around the mysterious faith based tourism initiative.

Unlike religion you see, politics isn’t about relying on faith. Lord knows that history is replete with faith being used as a front for all sorts of misdeeds, both financial and otherwise.

Hell, we shouldn’t even have to trust our politicians. Sure it would help, but trust is a bonus; we should have access to information about anything that involves public funds and the public interest, not suffer through politicians who continually dance around issues with vacuous evasive statements such as:

"The Opposition's wrongful assault is not just an assault on this Government and Mr. Curtis, but an unprovoked and unnecessary assault on a religious effort, an effort which has lifted the hearts of many tourists and touched the souls of many Bermudians."

The Devil’s in the details as they say (no more religious puns, I promise).

The UBP have laid out detailed and overdue plans and a fundamental reform and opening up of our political process. The PLP? They’re relying on the slogan they ridiculed so shamefully used against the UBP in 2003 with their racially divisive “Trust me” ads.

The only proper response to questions involving public funds is to lay out the details? What is going on in our country when information is withheld on public project after public project, with a trite sound-bite offered in its place?

What is going on in our country when we start parsing illegal versus unethical and charged versus not charged? What ever happened to right versus wrong?

Forget the Ministry of Social Rehabilitation. We need a Ministry of Ministerial Rehabilitation.

This compulsive secrecy and incessant evasion leads one to believe that the reason the Premier shut down Parliament one week earlier than anticipated is because he didn’t want to answer Wayne Furbert’s Parliamentary Questions on the Faith Based Tourism and to debate the damning Cedarbridge mold report – a report the Education Minister promised to much fanfare would be tabled and debate in full – before an election. Postpone the pain until November seems to be the plan, much like the BHC Police Report.

Delay, delay, delay. Evade, evade, evade. Confuse, confuse, confuse.

In fact, the PLP seem to be in such dire straits that they’re resorting to the same scare tactics that they to this day decry they were subjected to while in Opposition; with the Premier, in full attack mode, reaching way back, dusting off the cobwebs, and tossing out the “voting for the UBP will see a return of the 40 Thieves” bogeyman; that’s the 2007 version of “Don’t vote yourself back on the plantation”. And to think that the PLP have been criticized for not being environmentally friendly. They certainly believe in recycling.

This desperate 40 Thieves meme is no different than the claim that business would flee Bermuda if the PLP were to win in 1998.

Don’t believe the hype. The PLP are not the romanticized party of the past that they pretend to be and the UBP aren’t the demonized party of the past we’re told they are.

Times change. People change. Parties change. It’s time for change.

It’s clear that the PLP would love to keep us focused on what happened in the past, rather than what is happening right now.

But the public deserves better. We deserve to go into an election with all of the information in front of us, not tied up by legal maneuvering, Parliamentary tricks and a replay of the events of July 2003.

Don’t be misled again.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (02 July, 2007)

Four weeks and counting with no denials; law suits, plenty of lawsuits and threatened law suits, but still not one denial about the allegations in the BHC Police Report.

Instead we’ve heard plenty of noise but very little clarification about the extent to which high level public officials participated in the exposed alleged improprieties at the BHC.

The longer this goes on, and the more attempts are made to suppress and obscure the information about apparent misappropriation of public funds, the more the public will reach the inescapable conclusion that the information yet to be revealed would cause us all to reel in horror at the extent of the corruption and breach of public trust.

It is notable that the response to this scandal by those implicated in alleged wrongdoings and their proxies has been to try and confuse the issue and make the unethical but not illegal actions secondary to other considerations.

It is also notable, and undeniable, that with every court ruling in favour of the public’s right to know about public officials and public funds, there is an accompanying intensification of blame the media and opposition syndrome and racial red herrings, when the truth is very much the opposite.

Mr. Julian Hall for example, like the Premier, managed to tie himself in knots in an effort to confuse, redirect and obscure the facts. Mr. Hall’s arguments were so contorted that only his chiropractor would have benefited.

Essentially Mr. Hall’s argument boiled down to “well, unethical they may be, but their critics are racist”. In fact, Mr. Hall lumped every Bermudian who wants to get to the bottom of the BHC scandal as either a white supremacist or a white apologist.

That’s quite a wide net; you either agree with everything that Dr. Brown and the PLP have ever done or will do, or you’re a white supremacist or a white apologist. I’m sure that won’t sit well with most people.

This all or nothing, black or white, the-best-defence-is-a-strong-offense (offense in all meanings for the word) feels remarkably similar to the media strategy of George W. Bush as his Presidency began to crumble along with his war in Iraq.

Mr. Bush’s approach to building support (and subsequently losing it) was quite simple: He portrayed things as good or evil: You’re either with me or you’re with the terrorists. The Bermuda version is black and white, as usual: “You’re either with Dr. Brown or you’re a racist.”

The other interesting aspect was Mr. Hall’s ability to hold two absolutely contradictory positions with such certainty and ease.

Mr. Hall happily trotted out decades-old leaked police information which suggested that there may be racism within the Bermuda Police service and heaped praise on then Opposition member Alex Scott for presenting this to the public. In the next breath he proceeded to criticise the leaking of police information about apparently unethical Government politicians. So it’s okay to leak information about racist cops but not unethical politicians?

It’s okay in both circumstances. Anyone who provides credible information in either event is doing the public a great service. We don’t need racist cops or unethical politicians. And we certainly don’t need racist unethical politicians.

Mr. Hall isn’t alone in his selective use of principal in defending the allegedly unethical behaviour of our public officials. The Premier and his publicly funded army of spin doctors have produced some rather extraordinary examples as well.

The Premier was widely quoted during a radio interview as refusing to answer the now public allegations of misappropriation of funds at the BHC, abuse of power and undeclared conflicts of interest by himself and some of his colleagues as ‘demeaning, embarrassing and insulting’.

Strangely, late last week, he released a statement denying allegations that hadn’t even been reported, but had been looked into by reporters but never reported…because the claim wasn’t deemed credible – responsible journalism indeed, a far cry from a “media frenzy”. Dr. Brown is now in the peculiar position of having denied things he wasn’t accused of but not those he is.

And then there are the misdirected talking points by the Premier’s Press Secretary and former Royal Gazette reporter Glenn Jones, which revealed that answering the allegations would be a ‘zero sum game for the Premier and the Government’.

Now, that’s a very interesting statement. Zero sum games are ones where once you add up a participant’s gains and losses they equal zero, ergo in this situation, some allegations might be deniable but others aren’t. Whoops. And even if there is no benefit for the Premier in answering the allegations, what about the public's right to know?

And then there’s the idea that this is some UBP and media conspiracy to destabilise the PLP’s election prospects. I think by now almost everyone knows who the un-named ‘Son of the Soil’ is (as well as the other individual who was questioned by the Police), and they are by no means UBP or “the media”.

This is clearly an inside job, this isn’t a UBP effort to oust the PLP; it’s a PLP effort to oust Dr. Brown. That is patently obvious to all but the most deluded.

What really is intriguing however is why the investigation by the Bermuda Police and Scotland Yard included the FBI and Homeland Security? Surely that is what the massive legal effort to prevent further publication of the investigations findings is intended to cover-up.

Why on earth the FBI and Homeland Security – two US agencies – would be interested in a localized corruption scandal in Bermuda is beyond me? The Premier suggests that the involvement of these agencies and subsequent lack of charges ‘exonerates’ him. To the contrary, the investigation appeared to reach a premature conclusion, and leaves hanging some particularly concerning and serious questions about what we still don’t know, and won’t know for some time pending the Privy Council appeal – unless the file appears on the internet somewhere that is.

Every Bermudian must be wondering just what potential revelations could warrant such an extraordinary effort to conceal information from the public. What is so damaging that has caused this cover-up to go to such lengths over the past four weeks?

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (13 June, 2007)

Two weeks on, conversation in Bermuda continues to revolve around the details of the leaked BHC Police Report, compounded by the Government’s legal effort to silence any further public discussion of the scandalous revelations contained in the Mid Ocean News of June 1st, 2007 – and presumably any new leaks from the report.

And, two weeks on, every allegation which the Police detailed in the leaked report, remains unanswered – every one. Now, only one week later we have a new twist in the Government corruption scandal; Government MP Nelson Bascome was arrested and reportedly charged with Official Corruption (ie. in his duties as a Minister) and theft – matters separate from the BHC investigation.

While Dr. Brown can posture and buy time through contrived confrontations with the Governor and legal maneuvers, the genie can’t be put back in the bottle, the allegations can’t be retracted and new details are almost certain to emerge. You can gag the local press of you want, but we live in the internet age. Dr. Brown can’t press rewind.

Regardless of how this scandal develops over the coming days, weeks and months, the ramifications of the allegations in the Police report will be far reaching.

Firstly, they put to the test one of the underpinnings of modern democracies – that is the idea that Governments should be “of the people, by the people, for the people”; it’s the ‘for the people’ that seems to have been thrown by the wayside. The un-answered revelations reveal suspected behaviour which if true, would fail even the poorest ethical tests.

The longer these allegations go unaddressed by Dr. Brown, Mr. Bascome and others named in the report, the more they’ll be deemed to have substance – gag order or not – and the more the public should demand answers.

So far, Dr. Brown’s defence has been more interesting for what he hasn’t said than what he has. What has not been said is that the suspicious relationships and incidents that the Police uncovered did not exist; that is the glaring omission of the Premier’s sole comment on this matter. What has been said is sorely lacking in substance, but revealing in that it speaks to the double standard and hypocrisy of Dr. Brown’s brand of politics.

Dr. Brown advanced some rather weak yet novel defences in his non-rebuttal rebuttal of June 1st to The Mid Ocean News revelations; standards which he clearly believes are not universal.

Firstly, let’s dismiss the outright false and desperate claim that the report ‘exonerated’ those implicated. Quite the contrary, the report raised serious allegations that the Police wanted to pursue further as potentially criminal offences – but were prevented from doing so.

Secondly, the Premier made the following declaration:

On a personal note, I give my fellow Bermudians the assurance that my professional practice and my business interests have long provided me quite adequately with the means to live in relative comfort.

I am blessed with the good fortune of being married to a businesswoman of independent income. I have absolutely no need to seek to improve my net worth by any questionable actions. I deserve to be given credit for being sensible enough to keep my hands clean and my character beyond question.

What’s notable here is that the Premier doesn’t say that “I’ve kept my hands clean, the multiple allegations in the Police report weren’t true”, instead he vaguely pleads for the benefit of the doubt, saying that he deserves “credit for being sensible enough to keep my hands clean…” Deserves credit? Not after that report. The public deserves answers.

We deserve to know if public officials were engaged in the behaviour the Police uncovered (which can’t currently be repeated due to the impending ruling on the gag order) or not. Considered in a political context, that argument is weak and reveals a whole ‘lotta hypocrisy.

Firstly, the argument that Dr. Brown and his wife make too much money for him to be corrupt just doesn’t hold up, even to the gentlest probing. The line of reasoning is essentially that rich people cannot be corrupt, because they don’t need the money.

Most of us weren’t born yesterday and therefore are aware that greed knows no boundaries. Most of us are also aware that the past decade has seen some of the most fabulously wealthy individuals convicted of corruption (Enron, Worldcom, Tyco for example). So it’s not hard to prove that living in ‘relative comfort’, or even ‘extreme luxury’, doesn’t immunize someone against corrupt behaviour.

Secondly, and here’s the hypocrisy, Dr. Brown routinely attempts to turn the tables on his political opponents and avoid his own dubious actions (Pay to Play, T.H.E. Foundation, Kurron Shares hospital contract, Medical Clinic Closure etc.) by labeling his critics as corrupt, most recently Michael Dunkley and Grant Gibbons; two of his favourite targets.

It’s safe to say that both Mr. Dunkley and Dr. Gibbons live in the ‘relative comfort’ that Dr. Brown speaks of. Therefore – according to Dr. Brown’s own defence – they should likewise deserve credit for ‘keeping their hands clean’. He’s never afforded them that. In fact, it’s safe to say that they live in probably a little bit more ‘relative comfort’ than Dr. Brown, which according to Dr. Brown makes them less likely to be corrupt; because the more wealthy you are the less corrupt you become, right Dr. Brown? The Premier wouldn’t believe his own defence if used by others so why should we believe it in his?

Furthermore the BHC Police Report contains very specific allegations, ones apparently supported by documentation, something Dr. Brown’s attacks against his political opponents have always lacked; innuendo and wishful thinking is a sufficient foundation for Dr. Brown to throw the corruption charge around.

In fact, his latest broadside against Michael Dunkley – that the UBP gave Dunkley’s Dairy a legislated ‘virtual monopoly’ in milk production – is a flat out lie; one delivered under the protection of Parliamentary Privilege where an MP can’t be sued for slander or libel*. [Quite the opposite, the legislation actually protected dairy farmers from monopolistic behaviour and was supported by Dr. Brown and the PLP.]

While Dr. Brown professes outrage that the BHC Police report ‘defamed him’ (isn’t it only defamatory and character assassination if untrue?), he’s quite capable of defaming others on far less substantial evidence. At least those he’s targeted don’t hide behind the convenient ‘Plantation’ defence; they stand up and rebut the accusations

This hypocrisy on matters of defamation and the presumption of innocence was further highlighted by the Premier’s statement on MP Nelson Bascome’s arrest last week. The Premier characterised Mr. Bascome’s plight as a ‘human tragedy’ and pleaded for the benefit of the presumption of innocence for his colleague:

"This is a deeply regrettable development and a human tragedy. We must allow the law to take its course. However, we must not forget he is innocent unless guilt is determined by the courts. Every accused person is entitled to that."

How does Dr. Brown reconcile that statement with his regular and unsupported public characterization of his political opponents and critics as corrupt? The Premier has never afforded his political opponents the presumption of innocence; individuals he attacks relentlessly for fabricated incidents that have therefore never come before the court let alone the Police, allegations that he never backs up with specifics and that he delivers under the cloak of Parliamentary Privilege.

Even more hypocritical is the frequent defence we hear that because the Police Report is four years old and no-one was charged, that they are ancient history and we should move on. This rings particularly hollow when you consider that the PLP’s political strategy is founded on dredging up things that happened not four – but four hundred years ago in many cases – and attempting to attach them to those who didn’t perpetrate them.

In PLP-time four years is an eternity, too long for them to be held to account for their own actions, while four hundred years is not long enough for their opponents to answer for the actions of others.

If Dr. Brown continues to avoid answering the specifics of The Mid Ocean News reports, one can only conclude that the New Bermuda is intended to be the worst of the Old Bermuda but in someone else’s image.

It would seem that the public is expected to tolerate – or outright ignore – today’s corruption while remain outraged about yesterday’s. Or, as someone said to me not long ago, the message being sent to the voter by the PLP leadership is “Wouldn’t you rather we ripped you off?” To which the only reasonable response is: “We’d rather not be ripped off. Period.”

[* CORRECTION: The attack on Dunkley's Dairy was delivered via a press statement, not in Parliament with Parliamentary Privilege. It was the "Racist Dog" attack on Grant Gibbons which took place in Parliament.]

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (25 May, 2007)

Twenty four hours is a long time in politics, or so the saying goes. A few months therefore are an eternity.

If there’s anything that we’ve learned in Bermuda over the past few years, months, and hours, it’s that the more things change the more they stay the same. As we head into election season, we find ourselves in a very interesting situation.

A few short months ago we were assured that the United Bermuda Party was dead in the water, courtesy of a couple of disgruntled members and a leader who struggled to find his footing. After a rather prolonged production, that group appears to have weathered the storm, selected a new leader and is moving forward by attempting to win hearts and minds one vote at a time.

The flip side of this coin is where things get much more interesting, once you scratch at the surface that is and look past the scripted press conferences, press releases and bravado.

The Progressive Labour Party under Dr. Brown is an invincible re-invigorated political juggernaut, not the bitterly divided party of the past decade which stared into the abyss only 7 months ago, and, seeing electoral defeat held their noses and cast their lot with the Prime Misleader – or that’s what we’re told.

But while the Brownies exude ultimate confidence through their calculated aura of invincibility, led by cocky declarations from Dr. Brown that his party will take 30 out of 36 seats and obliterate the UBP, the reality is that one of the Premier’s top generals had to be brute forced back into his incumbent seat in Southampton, the Premier’s Chief of Staff can’t find a home, nor can many other of his hand-selected loyalists; there is a confirmed full fledged quiet riot in the PLP between the new power elite and the branch workers.

It’s uncanny that exactly four years on from the post election internal coup of 2003, we’re right back where we started, with a stand-off between two entrenched camps within the PLP.

Not one to consider other perspectives, the omnipresent, omniscient Premier has described the castrating of his branch infrastructure as a ‘deepening of democracy’ rather than an obvious attempt to install his disciples, aka The Entourage; the friends, business associates and yes men who hover a foot or two behind the Premier with their adoring gazes, no-bid Government contracts and rubber stamps, determined to stay in the good graces of their Messiah so that they can swoop in at the last minute to displace those who aren’t feeling the love.

The official line of course is that anyone who doesn’t receive Dr. Brown’s blessing can’t win a seat; which puts the lie to the idea that the UBP are the walking dead and confirms that this election will be competitive.

The truth is that while the UBP had their problems, those were isolated to a couple of individuals who made a disproportionate amount of noise over their personal disappointment in a way that caused maximum disruption; the PLP on the other hand appear to be in the middle of yet another power struggle, or more accurately out, the continuation of an almost decade old one.

Four years on Bermuda finds itself with a governing party with the too familiar battle lines drawn. The only material changes appear to be that the showdown might occur before the election this time – not immediately after it (or maybe before and after) – and a role reversal of sorts, with Dr. Brown on the receiving end in 2007.

Payback’s a bitch; welcome to the PLP’s pre-election showdown: The Untouchables versus the Unelectables.

This could get very interesting, because it’s a battle for the heart and soul of the PLP, with Dr. Brown and his new brand of Forty Thieves attempting to purge any check on his power base by an independent party structure to clear the way for years and years of rampant excess, lack of oversight, over the top perks and backroom sweetheart deals.

In many ways the PLP’s internal choice parallels the inter-party choice which will be placed before the electorate in the next coming months. This feels familiar.

In 1998 the UBP received a well-earned kick in the pants from the electorate after 34 years at the helm; now it’s Dr. Brown and the PLP’s turn, after they’ve demonstrated an incredible proficiency in refining the very traits they decried for decades.

Evidently when we were told that the way things operated in the past were wrong we misunderstood; it’s clear now that the acts themselves weren’t wrong in the minds of the PLP elite, it was the perpetrators that were the problem.

The Bermuda Emissions scandal has demonstrated that yesterday’s corruption is today’s ‘entrepreneurship’; or that’s what Dr. Brown would have us believe.

In the few but tumultuous months since Dr. Brown seized the reigns of power, Bermuda has witnessed a tsunami of self-absorbed excess in the form of motorcades, entourages and luxurious overseas junkets; the obliterating of ethical boundaries with political donors, political wannabes, and friends and family receiving lucrative Government contracts (Kurron Shares of America, Bermuda Emissions etc.); well-functioning public services have been axed with little and changing justification; the emergence of clear conflicts of interest (how can we tolerate the owner of a private clinic closing a public one while only recently stating his aspirations to open a private hospital in Bermuda?); and a green light for big money and Dr. Brown’s foreign financiers to help themselves to Bermuda’s treasures.

If this is how Dr. Brown and his followers behave before an election, imagine what we’re in for if they think they’re free and clear for a five year reign.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (14 March, 2007)

"The hijacking of race": An open discussion cannot happen in the run-up to an election

As the likely summer election creeps closer by the day, the best indicator of the soft launch of election season will be the increasingly frequent insertion of race into every issue, no matter how tortured the connection.

And it’s begun, with the budget’s racial scapegoating of employers, the announcement of a Government sponsored forum on race, and racial comments creeping into even the dump saga courtesy of Senator David Burch.

The premise on which this election tactic is predicated is that Bermuda’s overdue for an ‘honest discussion on race’ according to the Premier.

This statement unintentionally raises a very serious question which must be addressed before this discussion can begin: Is an honest discussion on race possible in the political arena?

I don’t ask that question to attack all politicians, but the examples of dishonest political discussions on race are everywhere; the most obvious recent example being Dr. Ewart Brown’s ‘racist dog’ attack on Dr. Grant Gibbons in Parliament, a speech which was founded on a lie (that Dr. Gibbons has attacked Dr. Brown’s wife) and whose racial punch line (tying the term ‘political eunuch’ to slavery) is tenuous at best.

If that shameful display was supposed to lay the groundwork for an ‘honest’ discussion on race we’re in trouble. To be honest, the run up to an election is the worst time to discuss any issue in depth, but in particular one like race.

Politics, particularly election time politics, is a zero sum game; you either win or you lose — there’s no prize for second place. This reality makes the political arena incompatible with an ‘honest’ discussion about race; that conversation requires a starting point of not trying to ‘win’ something but to exchange experiences and perspectives in an effort to foster empathy, understanding and hopefully reconciliation.

Do empathy, understanding and reconciliation sound compatible with a political campaign to you? One of the tragedies of Bermudian political life is that the issues which should be the focus of our attention (education, crime, housing, healthcare etc.) seem to generate little enthusiasm, whereas if we were able to harness the energy created by the mere mention of race we could put BELCO out of business.

Discussions of race in Bermuda are uninteresting, predictable and futile for one simple reason: race is no longer an issue; it’s been hijacked as a political device.

In that context we’ll never reach a greater understanding between the races, or the implementation of policies to address the resulting historic inequities of racial segregation. Those of us who believe that politicians can lead us to the racial Promised Land are hopeless optimists, naive or a politician. It’s time we took back this issue from the politicians, not hand it over to them so they can run us through the ringer one more time.

Like most of us, I’ve read and exchanged hundreds of thousands of words on race in Bermuda. We’ve undoubtedly made progress, but today we appear to be at a fork in the road where this progress can quickly unravel if we continue to permit race to be wielded as a political weapon to polarise the community; divide and conquer is a proven method to win votes.

We all know the jibes: the UBP is the white party, the PLP is the black party, so-and-so is too white, so-and-so is not black enough, sell-outs, shysters, black buffoons, Uncle Toms, or the latest being “a black man with a white man’s heart”. I could go on but I won’t.

And who are the authors of each and every one of those examples? Politicians. That alone is proof that politics isn’t the platform for this discussion. Ultimately, even the best intentioned politicians have a very simple goal: to get elected. In that context they often believe that the ends justify the means while others are just utterly convinced that they’re in the right.

One of the things that I’ve come to appreciate is that there are basically two types of politicians when it comes to race: those who appreciate that political jousting is ill-advised and approach the topic reluctantly and with reverence, versus those who delight in talking about it at any opportunity because they know they’ve got it totally figured out and effectively shut down discussion.

The latter tend to rarely offer any depth or insight on the issue, just cheap shots, while the former offer thoughtful efforts geared at promoting dialogue and understanding which is tragically lost in the political shouting match.

Discussing race in Bermuda has become so predictable, so repetitive, so boring that it’s counterproductive. It’s a distraction to the real issues, and if a political party can convince you that their performance and ideas are secondary to their (and your) race they’ve won.

The outcome of this is that we have one side which preaches ‘blackness’ (for lack of a better term), while the other preaches diversity. I prefer the latter; however I believe the term ‘diversity’ is used far too simplistically.

‘Diversity’ in the Bermudian sense means black and white working together, which is great, but diversity goes much deeper than that; the truth is that there is a great deal of diversity within the races.

And I’m not talking measurements of melanin; I’m talking about diversity of opinion, philosophy and an approach to life. That aspect rarely gets discussed, or even acknowledged.

We are told that whites think one way, and blacks (should) think another. How wrong is that? This is the aspect of diversity which needs surfacing if Bermuda is to move forward and put the political division behind us.

We continue to allow race to dominate the real differences of philosophy and ideology. Is the PLP really progressive? Is the UBP really conservative? Or are they both loose coalitions built around an outdated racial argument? The PLP’s current leader, Dr. Brown, is hardly progressive, or labour, for that matter.

He’s the most unrestrained pro-big (foreign) business Premier Bermuda has seen in a long time — if you’ve got the money he’ll listen. One PLP member described Dr. Brown’s philosophy as ‘racial capitalism’, which is about as accurate a description as I can think of. If however you define the PLP as purely a racial movement then he fits nicely.

On the flip side, the policies that the UBP touts today are hardly textbook conservatism as the party is often characterised. Instead they reflect the broad ideological coalition they’ve assembled and is decidedly centrist, a mix of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism.

A recent Royal Gazette editorial had it right when stating that the traditional political labels have very little relevance to the parties today.

The persistent use of race as a political device is preventing the real issues and the real differences between the parties being debated openly; race is sucking up all of the oxygen. That is a tragedy.

What will serve Bermuda best over both the short and long term is the promotion of diversity of opinion both between and within the races. An ‘honest’ discussion of race designed to promote someone’s re-election prospects isn’t going to achieve that.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (22 Feb. 2007)

Given that Dr. Brown is so fond of renaming Government agencies, he might as well make it official and make the Department of Immigration the Department of Intimidation. The deportation of the Elbow Beach chef and revocation of construction site manager Curtis Macleod’s work permit confirm that the change is warranted; intimidation is the name of the game in the third attempt at a New Bermuda. I suppose we should have seen this coming. We weren’t promised a better Bermuda, just a new one.

As every day passes it’s clear that the New Bermuda is a rollback to an era that most of us hoped we’d progressed past, a time when overt racial antagonism and nationalistic incitement ruled the day.

Today, anyone who refuses to worship at the PLP altar will be deported as a first option, alternatively attempts will be made to silence them with racist dog, shyster, House n**ger or Uncle Tom slurs.

What remains is a select group of those racially authentic Bermudians apparently permitted to speak in this community. The rest of us – and that would be most of us – should just shut up and go home, even if this is home.

The launching pad for this campaign of intimidation was Dr. Brown’s “racist dog” attack in Parliament; an event which emboldened and authorized his sidekicks’ exercises in intimidation and abuses of power.

First the Elbow Beach chef was deported for a joke; then Dr. Wakeley of the Medical Clinic was fired for advocating for her patients instead of sending them off to private clinics (of which Dr. Brown just so happens to own one); and now it’s Canadian construction worker Mr. Macleod who failed to kowtow to George Scott, opting instead to offer a character assessment of Mr. Scott that is impressive in its all encompassing brevity: “…you racist, uneducated, ignorant a**hole”.

Maybe it’s me, but on a construction site I thought those kinds of comments were terms of endearment? I guess not.

But yet again, as with everything in Bermuda, ego, race and a resurgent nativism are the root of the dispute, with Mr. Scott allegedly demanded respect because he’s an MP, while racially taunting Mr. Macleod with this statement:

“You are not from here and you don't know what it is like to be a black man. You are a black man with a white man's heart.”

I suppose we should thank Mr. Scott for his own all encompassing brevity, capturing Bermuda’s debilitating political problem in two short sentences.

The optimists among us might be willing to dismiss these events as background noise – personal disputes that have bubbled over into the political domain – however the incendiary diatribe that was infused into the budget speech confirms that intimidation is now official public policy.

Finance Minister Cox, perhaps uncharacteristically for many people, inserted conclusions drawn from the CURE report into the 2007 Budget speech, cavalierly labeling our business community as racist, lacking “good faith” in their hiring practices, doing Bermuda harm and “profiteering” at Bermudians’ – particularly black Bermudians’ – expense.

Where to start? How’s about with what the CURE stats do and do not tell us? The CURE statistics identify issues, not explain why they exist; it’s up to others to diagnose the cause. Ms. Cox, an intelligent and educated individual who is more than capable of connecting the dots, didn’t diagnose the cause, she obscured it.

Her highly provocative diatribe ignores a major reason for the poor representation of black Bermudians in “the upper echelons of the private sector work-place”: Public education.

Just weeks ago Ms. Cox’s colleague, the Minister of Education, declared in solemn tones that the (disproportionately black) public education system’s graduation rates made for “grim reading”, that over half of our students are failing to complete a second rate diploma and that the Terra Nova test results revealed severe underperformance with our US counterparts (a system that underperforms itself). This Government has even gone so far as to label young black men as ‘a problem’, yet professes astonishment that we don’t have more black CEO’s.

If Ms. Cox and her colleagues had a shred of intellectual honesty they would draw the connection between the CURE results and the performance of the public education system which they’ve submitted to an independent inquiry. Politically that doesn’t play as well as attempting to shift the blame on the business community.

The poor representation of Bermudians – black Bermudians in particular – in senior business posts is an entirely predictably result of a public education system in disarray, not proof of institutional racism. That statement doesn’t deny the disparities between Bermudian and non-Bermudian, black and white and all of the cross sections of those categories, but honestly acknowledges one of the major drivers of this phenomenon.

Unless and until we produce students sufficiently educated to steward the assets of multi-billion dollar international corporations, no business would – or should – engage in social promotion to placate politicians who’ve sat on their hands for the past decade rather than start tackling the problem.

Simply put, the public education system’s continued dismal performance masks the extent of institutional racism in Bermuda and contributes to the racial disparity in senior executive positions.

In fact, it’s the business community that have been ringing the education alarm far longer than the PLP Government – which found religion only weeks ago – preferring to spend the majority of their past two terms deriding anyone and everyone – including myself – who dare state what they’ve now acknowledged.

This decades old political strategy of racially dividing and conquering has run its course. The endless racial antagonism, xenophobic nativism and endless tests of racial authenticity serve no-one other than a clique of egotistical, thin-skinned and self-serving politicians.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (07 Dec. 2006)

In the aftermath of Dr. Brown’s racial attack in Parliament on Friday night, I’m going to do something inherently dangerous in Bermudian political debate; I’m going to introduce a few facts. I apologise in advance:

Question: What politician made the following statement? “On paper, the role of Deputy [Premier] is more the role of a political eunuch.”

Answer: PLP Finance Minister Paula Cox and current Deputy Premier.
(The Royal Gazette: ‘I’m running for the Deputy Leadership’, 25 October 2006)

Question: Who first questioned the role of Premier Brown’s wife in the Tourism Helps Everyone Foundation (T.H.E.) in a letter leaked to the press?

Answer: Bermuda Public Services Union Secretary Ed Ball
(The Mid Ocean News: ‘Unregistered charity is above board says Brown’, 22 September, 2006)

Question: Who instructed reporters to address their questions about the T.H.E. Foundation’s fundraising to Dr. Brown’s wife in the wake of Ed Ball’s letter?

Answer: The Tourism Minister himself, Mrs. Brown’s husband, one Dr. Ewart Brown.
(The Royal Gazette: ‘Brown downplays critical letter’, Nov. 1st, 2006)

Question: What politician went to the press with concerns about Dr. Brown’s desire to fund the PLP with foreign corporate dollars as ‘something to be wary of’ and raised the prospect of ‘sweetheart deals’?

Answer: Former PLP Premier Alex Scott
(The Royal Gazette: ‘Beware sweetheart deals’, 22 November, 2006)

Question: Who did Premier Brown attack as racist for using the term “Political Eunuch” (coincidentally the title of UK Conservative MP Sir Arthur Douglas Dodds-Parker’s political memoir); for daring mention his wife’s role in the T.H.E. fundraiser and for questioning the ethics of foreign fundraising?

Answer: Dr. Grant Gibbons

Question: What is the difference between Dr. Gibbons and Ms. Cox, Mr. Ball and former Premier Scott?

Answer: Dr. Gibbons is the white dude.

So the Premier should tread lightly with the “racist dog” epithets. Bermudians are smart enough to judge for themselves to whom that tag might apply after Friday’s attack.

Don’t be fooled though. The attack on Dr. Gibbons wasn’t some heat of the moment personal dispute as many would have you believe; this was a prepared speech, a calculated decision to lower the tone and tenor of debate in the run-up to a 2007 election.

The message was clear, the Premier went to great pains to manufacture phony incidents of racism as a launching pad for his party’s election campaign; signaling his intention to unleash a vicious brand of racial polarization intended to bury the possibility of a debate of ideas.

There was one line that Dr. Brown delivered which nicely summed up the problem Bermuda faces today, only not as he intended.

Dr. Brown accused Dr. Gibbons of being the “uninformed representative of Bermuda's racist legacy”, which has a nice ring to it but serves only to highlight that Dr. Brown sounds an awful lot like the representative of Bermuda’s racist present…but hopefully not the future.

Recently, in promoting his book “The Audacity of Hope”, US Senator Barack Obama delivered a very insightful quote about the state of US political debate, which bears striking resemblance to where Bermuda finds itself today:

"When you watch Clinton vs Gingrich, or Gore vs Bush, or Kerry vs Bush, you feel like these are fights that were taking place back in dorm rooms in the ’60s. Vietnam, civil rights, the sexual revolution… All that stuff has just been playing itself out and you feel like, okay, let’s not re-litigate the ’60s 40 years later."

Senator Obama’s comment strikes a chord, at least with me, someone 30 years younger than Dr. Brown who has no desire to ‘re-litigate the 60s 40 years later’.

Unlike Dr. Brown and many of his colleagues, I was not ‘born into the divided era’ that he discussed with a skeptical group of Bermudian students in London; and I have no desire to return to it.

After Friday’s display it would appear that Dr. Brown is determined to roll back Bermuda to this bitterly divided time; hence the painful contortions and distortions he engaged in Friday night, a valiant but futile effort to resurrect a bogey man that simply no longer exists.

That’s not to say that racism isn’t real in Bermuda. It is. But white Bermudians hold no monopoly on it that’s for sure, and there can’t be a genuine effort to tackle it when a Premier engages in physical threats of violence and vitriolic character assassination.

Is it any wonder we have a problem with machete violence and gang retribution when the leader of the country emulates it in Parliament? A little introspection for Dr. Brown, his cheering colleagues and the mob in the public gallery is in order.

I can see only two ways that this destructive racial campaigning will end. Either the electorate flat out rejects electoral campaigns built on the foundation of outdated racial hostility, or we’ll have to wait for those politicians tragically trapped in a decades old time warp to expire.

We can’t afford to lose more time. We as a community must take a stand and reject the exploitation of a legitimate issue – racism – for short term political gain.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (29 Nov. 2006)

Here’s a topical piece of trivia for you: What’s the difference between one non-Bermudian or two non-Bermudians filling a job over 12 years? Answer: A few votes.

There’s little else that can be read into the PLP Government’s stubborn persistence in pursuing the dangerously counter-productive work permit term limits policy; a policy that is a month away from triggering a mass exodus of non-Bermudian workers who will be replaced by…a mass influx of non-Bermudian workers.

That’s very sensible public policy indeed.

The only beneficiaries of this revolving door of non-Bermudians might be the moving companies, the airlines, and Premier Brown, who will classify a few more air arrivals as tourists.

It’s time for Cabinet to make a long overdue announcement. It’s time to admit the obvious: the work permit term limits policy was a 2003 election stunt that has run awry and can now be shelved. Except of course that we’re almost certainly facing a spring election, meaning we’re in a period when reality is irrelevant and the Government will act irrationally.

The refusal to change course on term limits is our equivalent of George Bush’s refusal to admit that his Iraq policy was failing, because that would amount to a pre-election admission that it’s failing…even though everyone knew it was failing.

Election or no election, the time has come for the Premier to announce that the policy was a mistake, that term limits won’t work, that they were never going to work and that sending experienced professionals to mentor young Dubliners or Cayman Islanders instead of Bermudians is economic suicide.

The policy itself admits that. Shortly after the 2003 election was resolved, the PLP Government announced that the ‘key employees’ of ‘good corporate citizens’ would be excluded; an admission that the policy was counterproductive, ill-advised and a cynical attempt to grab a few votes.

The irony of this policy is that it isn’t the non-Bermudians who we should subject to term limits; it’s the politicians who are implementing them who should be. Bermuda is led – in the loose sense of the word ‘led’ – by a collection of politicians well past their ‘sell by’ date; 1960’s thinking in the 21st century isn’t serving us well.

Not once in the past few years has the Government articulated what this policy will achieve, or has achieved, other than a sound bite or two that the PLP is the party of Bermudianisation; the facts notwithstanding.

The facts are that the eight year tenure of the PLP has been characterised by a reduction in the number of jobs held by Bermudians and a corresponding increase in the number of jobs for non-Bermudians. Those are the facts.

Inconvenient I know. But true.

The ratio of Bermudian to non-Bermudian jobs has worsened during the PLP’s tenure; the realization of which no doubt triggered the term limit window dressing to desperately shore up support.

In the past week we’ve heard the PLP Government espouse two disturbing positions: foreigners bad (term limits), foreign money good (Premier’s Gala Weekend); two myopic stances which are damaging both our economy and our reputation.

Let’s get real. Can we really call ourselves the friendliest place in the world when we greet our tourists and foreign workers with: “Welcome to Bermuda, when are you leaving?”

This pervasive attitude feeds into one of the most common of the many complaints we level at non-Bermudians: they’re insular; they don’t truly immerse themselves in our culture; they just come to work, work, work.

What do we expect? What would you do if you were told that you can’t stay here for more than 6 years – whether a local successor exists or not – because your presence is both the cause and solution of our problems. The Government has even gone so far as to blame the rush-hour traffic problem on non-Bermudians, with our at least two-car-Premier suggesting that foreign workers shouldn’t own one.

This hostile environment exacerbates ‘expatness’; a phenomenon where the more we demonize and scapegoat foreign workers the more they withdraw from the greater Bermudian community and maximize the economic benefit of their legislated short stay in Bermuda.

Term limits are bad. They fail to increase opportunity for Bermudians, but do increase the cost and operating burden on our businesses, which will look for more welcoming homes.

There’s no two ways about it. Government must step back and admit that it was a mistake.

This is absolutely critical to ensure the continued success of Bermuda’s prosperous but tenuous economy; the continued professional and technical education and training of Bermudians; and to prevent our Government from redirecting some of the most talented individuals in their fields to other jurisdictions, where they’ll ply their trade, share their knowledge and threaten Bermuda’s dominance in insurance and reinsurance.

Economic complacency isn’t unprecedented in Bermuda; we went through this twenty years ago and never recovered. Back then it was tourism’s success which we took for granted; now it’s international business.

Let’s not repeat history.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (22 Nov. 2006)

‘When they want change the preacher says “shout it”.
Does shout bring about change? I doubt it.
All shout does is make you lose your voice.’

“Fishin’ 4 Religion” by Arrested Development

If raising the standard of Bermuda’s public education system were as simple as raising your voice, then Randy Horton, the latest Minister of Education, is the man for the job.

If there’s more to it than Mr. Boombastic waxing lyrical on the Parliamentary mic about taking the education system “by the scruff of the neck”, believing “that our young people can succeed” and having “passion” for education we’re out of luck.

Ring the bell, not just my ears Minister Horton. School’s out. Our public education system is broken. All the passion and belief in the world aren’t going to change that fact.

Now I know that I can’t make that statement without being accused of undermining our public school students, but it’s true. I believe in our children. I just don’t believe in the system. How can I?

All the belief in the world, all the shouting, won’t change the fact that we’re not equipping our public students with the skills they need to fully participate in our economy; a fifty-three percent graduation rate – of an inferior diploma – is a testament to that.

Sadly, Minister Horton’s speech reeked of the all too prevalent idea that we can fix education by building self-esteem and having faith. First the PLP brought us faith based tourism; now we have faith based education. Lord help us.

If there’s one thing our kids don’t suffer from it’s a lack of self-esteem. Too many of them have too much of it in fact; too much self-esteem and too little education.

The public education system has been overwhelmingly successful at instilling in our under-equipped students the belief that they possess the skills and tools to succeed in our economy – and the world. They don’t. And they never will if we refuse to face reality…and fast.

This mismatch between expectations and reality has been created and perpetuated by the Ministry of Education and some politicians to the point that it’s almost criminal.

For years we’ve been preaching the gospel of entitlement to our public school kids: the sky’s the limit; the best, highest paying jobs in our prosperous community are yours for the taking; racism and foreign workers are holding you back, not a lack of education.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is that too many of our young people, through no fault of their own, enter the workforce without the skills to cope, let alone advance. Frustration sets in as they see others moving past them into positions they’ve been told they are entitled to as Bermudians.

Not surprisingly the result of this is resentment and the outright revolt that we’re witnessing in some segments of society today. This isn’t a disaster waiting to happen, but one happening before our eyes on a daily basis; so much so that many of us don’t seem to notice anymore.

But there’s hope. Ironically, buried in the Throne Speech and Minister Horton’s passion was a solution; albeit not under the Education heading.

The closing of the Indigent Care clinic at the hospital, a move designed to allow those who can’t afford it to see the doctor of their choice at taxpayer expense, is one of the major ideas of the Throne Speech.

What does this have to do with education?

Simple: equal access to equal healthcare despite your economic means.

Surely, if the Government believes that everyone, despite their means, is entitled to private healthcare, they should also believe that everyone, despite their means, is entitled to private top-notch education.

Same concept. Different Ministry.

If, as Minister Horton declared on Friday, we should run the education system as a business, why not do just that? Why shouldn’t every student in Bermuda have equal access to any school of their choice?

The simple fact of the matter is that we have two education systems, one for those who can afford (barely in many cases) $14,000 a year in private school tuition (plus the taxes they pay to fund the public system) and those who can’t.

This has resulted in de facto segregation which is perpetuating a divide that is primarily economic, but often viewed as racial in nature. We can end this by giving every parent in Bermuda a school voucher redeemable at the institution of their choice, whether public or private.

Or take it a step further. If the private schools do education better and cheaper – as they do – why not get the Government out of the education ‘business’ all together?

While there’s hope, I’m not optimistic. For years we’ve had Education Ministers content to tinker with the system, looking only five years ahead to the next election – or a few months as is the case today, with Dr. Brown preparing for a spring 2007 election.

When our interests and those of our policy makers aren’t aligned you get platitudes and passion, not the massive structural change – or complete privatization – of public education that is long overdue.

Even under the best case scenarios, turning around public education will take at least a generation to bear fruit. It can’t be managed in a political timeframe.

The PLP Government, or any Government, must stop pretending that public education can be rescued by playing on the fringes. It can’t.

Our educators and politicians must stop telling our children that they can be whatever they want to be, that we believe in them, that we have a passion for them, while churning them through a broken system.

Only when we truly commit to equal educational opportunities for all of our children, will we begin to address the manifestations of a failing public education system: a widening economic gap, increasing crime or an increasingly alienated youth for example.

Without education there can be no empowerment, merely empowerment zones.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (3 Nov. 2006)

What a week it’s been. Bermuda now has its third Premier in four years, only one of whom has faced the electorate as their party leader and achieved a popular mandate (barely); and we all know what happened to her.

Monday’s swearing in at Government House made for great TV, as our media savvy Premier – whose first order of business (even before he was sworn in) was to secure the keys to GP1 – rolled out his new Cabinet to much fanfare and a simple message:

Out with the old and in with the…. old – and one really young one.

Alright, alright, that wasn’t quite the message. There were some fresh faces in the Senate to go with the permanently scowling one that survived the latest coup, but contrary to the spin, what’s new is old; and that’s without factoring in how much some PLP MPs have aged in the past couple of weeks.

Haven’t we been through this before? Don’t we already know what the probably soon to be called next general election will be run on?

In 1998, after 30 plus years in the wilderness, the PLP asked for a chance, and the public agreed it was finally their time.

Five long and empty years later the party asked for another chance to get it right, and the public begrudgingly obliged.

Now, three years later they’re back, asking for another, “another chance”.

Eight years since the PLP got elected - that’s as long as a US president can serve in total by the way - we’re advised that they’re ready to get started. And I’m supposed to be thrilled about this? Forgive me for not sharing in the excitement. The more things change the more they stay.

The carefully selected message of the past few days has been clear: Change. Work. Time to get things done.

As Dr. Brown basks in the glow of his recent ascension to number one – a position we were told he deserved because he’d always wanted it – the PLP are in hurry-up mode, with word that some PLP MPs want a quick election…before they have the chance to screw things up again I guess.

Normally the saying is “hurry-up and wait”, but in PLP-land it’s “wait for eight years….now hurry-up, an election is on the horizon”.

The reality is, much like Dr. Brown’s ‘results’ in tourism, the problems they say they’re now ready to address have grown exponentially after eight years of neglect and political infighting.

For example, the air arrivals that we are supposed to get excited about in tourism haven’t even got us back to the numbers we had two years ago, yet Dr. Brown is hailed as a tourism Messiah?

That’s the upside of low expectations: air arrivals plunge for seven years, and Dr. Brown buys a small up-tick through undisclosed subsidies and statistical manipulation, and suddenly he’s turned tourism around.

Any initiative on housing for example will, if its successful, only be able to get things back to where they were a few years ago, long after the PLP were elected and well aware that there was a problem.

Task one for the new Premier and his recycled Cabinet has been to go out and convince us that the party has changed. This angle might be palatable for those who want to forget about the two terms of inaction and mismanagement but it flies in the face of the party’s whole criticism of their political opponents.

The PLP, and Premier Brown in particular, tell us that the UBP hasn’t changed – and can’t change – from the party of 30 or even 400 years ago, despite the fact that the party didn’t exist 400 years ago, none of their MPs are 400 years old or, to be a little more serious, any of the current team served in Parliament before the early to mid-90s.

It’s takes an incredible amount of gall for those who were a part of the past eight years of two self-confessed negligent PLP administrations to disown that legacy and ask us to forgive and forget – as much as we understand why they want to do it – while persistently trying to tie the current UBP team to things that happened decades or centuries ago.

Dr. Brown and his new Cabinet have been intricately involved in what he and his own colleagues have conceded has been an eight year reign of error. Now-Premier Brown – the second in command for about half of this time – has emerged as the supposed agent of change, trying to make a clean break with the past. We’re supposed to see this as credible?

The new Cabinet is composed entirely of people who’ve been thoroughly embedded in the two failed administrations – and a number of scandals – either in front or behind the scenes.

It’s simply incomprehensible that Nelson Bascome, the Minister who allowed the BHC scandal to occur under his watch, is now the Minister who will manage the massive hospital redevelopment (as nice of a guy as he may be) - Bermuda’s largest ever capital project and one that will need strong management controls and oversight.

It’s amazing that the very same people who brought us the past eight year debacle don’t want to take responsibility for their own record, yet spend their days blaming the current United Bermuda Party team for things which go back centuries.

Personal responsibility is a selective thing it seems. In fact, responsibility of any sort seems to be a foreign concept.

The latest spin, after the predictable ‘our screw-ups are the UBP’s fault’, is that the civil service is to blame for the lack of results of the past eight years and that Premier Brown will make them perform. That remains to be seen.

While the civil service certainly has problems – not the least of which is that it has exploded in size under the PLP (contrary to their commitment to reduce it) – it’s pretty hard to get things done when you have no direction.

Put yourself in the shoes of a civil servant. Every morning you wake up with whiplash as yet another Cabinet Shuffle occurs, a new Ministry is created or a Premier has been replaced.

Bermuda is definitely in need of change – and stability. Rotating in another face off of the PLP bench – one that epitomizes division, excess and self-indulgence – isn’t it.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (25 May, 2006)

While the long knives are again being sharpened for this year’s installment of Friday Night Fights: Scott v Brown, the long-awaited no-holds-barred-fight-to-the-death political cage match, there’s an important question worthy of an answer:

Is Dr. Brown really “The Minister Who Gets Things Done” as he and others would have us believe? If only I had a government credit card for every time I’ve heard that phrase.

The media has willingly adopted the narrative that Dr. Brown gets things done, with an abundance of magazine profiles, newspaper editorials, fawning opinion columns (not mine) and carefully timed endorsements from those auditioning for PLP Senator under a Premier Brown. Just Monday, Julian Hall invoked this theme in The Royal Gazette when he declared that “you can’t argue with success”.

I beg to differ. Dr. Brown’s ‘success’ is an unanswered and unanswerable question; not a fact. Far from it.

The wanna-be Premier’s entire leadership campaign is based on the idea that he gets things done. It has to be. The alternative would be novel: a candidacy trumpeting deceit, condescension, ethical transgressions (Pay for Play, undeclared property sale to BHC and Club Med to name a few) and avoidance of scrutiny through legal threats and racial incitement.

Recognising this character problem Dr. Brown and his wife staged a big wet made for the cameras kiss; complete with the dutiful Mrs. Brown imploring us that “You can trust him”…a reminder of course that we can’t.

Ethical matters aside, the question remains: Has Dr. Brown got things done?

At Transport he gave us fast ferries…or fast boats to nowhere judging by the amount of time they spend moored at the end of East Broadway. The Minister gave us GPS; the benefits of which are yet to be seen after more than a year’s delay due to his high-handed Minister knows best approach.

Is buying boats and ramming initiatives down an industry’s throats getting things done? I don’t think so.

However, Dr. Brown’s preeminent claim to success rests in Tourism; where we’re all supposed to accept as indisputable his accomplishments of new flights and increased visitor numbers.

It’s here, in the very area that is supposedly indisputable, that things get murky. Why? Because Dr. Brown is a shrewd and cunning politician, one who’s acutely aware that the devil is in the details; so he denies access to those details.

Dr. Brown’s secrecy at Tourism is the equivalent of him denying his medical patients access to their records but declaring them cured. Tourism doesn’t need a faith healer.

But isn’t it a fact that air arrivals are up? Indeed. But at what cost?

How many taxpayer dollars have been sent overseas as airline load guarantees, marketing assistance or other undisclosed incentives? How much have our hotels shelled out to the airlines in deals Dr. Brown committed them to - without their knowledge in some cases?

Opening the Government cheque book wide and asking ‘what will it take’ isn’t getting things done, that’s giving away the farm. Ask any business person if they’re interested in a guaranteed profit on the backs of taxpayers and they’ll say “Hell yeah!” Businesses don’t turn down those kinds of offers.

What Dr. Brown should have been doing is building a profitable long-term tourism model; not throwing money at the airlines to spur an artificial short-term boost.

Bermuda tourism is a business, and as shareholders in that business we should focus on the top and bottom lines. Dr. Brown has been somewhat effective at pumping up the top line number through an overdependence on cruise ships and airline subsidies – trademarks of an unhealthy industry.

He knows that the majority of people only remember the headlines. The rest is hidden. What the Minister has succeeded at is generating cheap headlines at great taxpayer expense.

Dr. Brown’s success - or lack of it – should be measured against the bottom line not top line growth. But that net figure is incalculable due to an intentional lack of disclosure.

Are we spending more on subsidies and marketing than the resulting tourists are putting back into the economy? What’s the duration of the subsidies Dr. Brown committed the Bermuda Government to? Will the airlines continue to fly if the profit guarantees go away?

Dr. Brown’s unwillingness to answer those questions means that we can’t reach a conclusion on his ability to get things done. What it does is suggest that he’s generating top line growth at the expense of the bottom line; and many a failed businessman can tell you that it’s easy to make the top line look good. It’s the bottom line that counts.

While the presentation of Tourism’s statistics has become more glitzy of late, the transparency has decreased – all those smoke and mirrors I guess. The baselines have changed while the last set of numbers were just flat out wrong, while the Minister stopped reporting ‘tourists’ in favour of ‘air arrivals’? And there’s been a marked increase in air arrivals wearing suits and carrying briefcases lately. Is that a result of Dr. Brown or a tight reinsurance market?

How many of those new flights are geared at locals than tourists? Take the Miami flight for example? I recently flew on a flight which was 100% full; 50% was Bermudians going to a wedding and the other 50% was Bermudians going to Disney world.

Dr. Brown has used the tourism budget to entertain locals at the expense of attracting tourists: feel the love at a taxpayer sponsored party.

Look at this year’s Bermuda Music Festival. Dr. Brown proudly declared that attendance reached an all-time high of over 10,000 people.

But how many of those were tourists? Two thousand - less than 20%. That’s not a tourism event, that’s a local concert that a few tourists show up for. I have a good time too, but I’m under no illusions that it’s designed for tourists.

If it were the line-up wouldn’t be so R&B heavy. If we were really trying to appeal to our East Coast demographic we wouldn’t be running an exclusively R&B festival; we’d select a line-up with broader appeal. But Dr. Brown knows that he can please the local R&B fans, boost his numbers and keep the festival afloat.

Except that it isn’t afloat.

So what was the total cost of the 2006 Bermuda Music Festival? We don’t know.

What we do know is that ticket sales exceeded $700,000 this year. Wow, $700,000 you say. That wouldn’t have covered the artists’ fees alone.

A Music Festival of this scope would cost many multiples of $700,000 to stage. The budget has so obviously exploded under Brown that he’s resorted to hiding the cost in an unregistered charity headed up by his wife.

Is running an event which consistently loses money success? Not by my standards. But maybe that’s just me.

And then there’s Movies on the Beach, another ‘tourism event’. Or not. It’s another example of the Department of Tourism entertaining residents.

Maybe that’s what people want from their Tourism Minister? It’s not what I want. I’d like a tourism industry that is economically viable and doesn’t have to buy - at great cost - the few tourists who come here.

So let’s not get carried away with the idea that Dr. Brown has got things done. That’s far from certain.

What is certain is that he’s thrown tens of millions of dollars around in a cynical PR campaign intended to convince us that he gets things done, as opposed to actually getting them done.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (Oct. 05, 2006)

Politicians rarely limit themselves to reality, particularly when they’re simultaneously professing their greatness and blaming the other guys; but Dr. Brown demonstrated a new level of competency at this last week with his speech to the African Heritage Conference.

Never one to respect the facts or the truth, the Deputy Premier delivered a real howler:

“Ours is a curious nation. In 2006 we are still forced as a Government to defend policies that are aimed at empowering a majority of the population and made to consult with representatives of the minority to reverse years of economic injustice against the majority.”

If you’re scratching your head in bewilderment wondering just what policies - or even policy - that would be, you’re not alone.

The simple fact of the matter is that in their eight years in power and two terms with unassailable Parliamentary majorities and a compliant Speaker of the House, the PLP has neither implemented - nor attempted to implement - a policy or piece of legislation aimed at empowering the majority of which Dr. Brown speaks.

Not one. Ever. In eight years. There was nothing to oppose. That’s an indisputable fact. An inconvenient one I know; but indisputable. What Dr. Brown delivered to the conference was a confession, an admission of guilt.

What’s curious then is not Dr. Brown’s fabrication of aggressive white opposition to his party’s attempts to implement economic empowerment; that one’s easy.

He was pandering and misleading; two of his favourite pastimes. The Minister was pandering to the international attendees at the African Heritage Conference, pandering to the PLP base and again attempting to mislead everyone in the process.

We’ve been through this before haven’t we? Back then it was called the 2003 election campaign.

But Dr. Brown had few options at his disposal. He couldn’t stand before the attendees and cite how his party - after 30-plus long years of electoral futility - finally broke through and at long last implemented their agenda of economic empowerment.

That would have been a very brief speech: “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Now I must go. Thank you for your time.”

Nor could he rattle off impressive statistics and display charts demonstrating the measurable positive impact these policies have had on the upward mobility of the majority of the population since his government took power all those years ago.

Perhaps understandably then, to compensate for his party’s aching Achilles heel, the Doc reverted to a familiar strategy of misleading when he has to. So he just…well…he just made it all up.

Fortunately for him the conference audience was none the wiser; the international audience that is. Unfortunately for him, the rest of us know better and can separate fact from fiction.

The more interesting question is why hasn’t a party that rose to power almost a decade ago, with two large parliamentary majorities, on a platform promising a larger piece of the economic pie to the historically disenfranchised black population, lifted a finger on the defining issue of their two successful election campaigns?

Now that’s curious.

While Dr. Brown and his colleagues would like you to believe that despite their best efforts they’ve been unable to overcome white - and UBP resistance - to these policies, those desperate claims just don’t hold water.

The PLP have a commanding Parliamentary majority, one they’ve used to great effect on important social issues, like Parliamentary salary increases for example.

This has been coupled with a ruthless willingness to violate Parliamentary procedure and House rules; forcing through amended salary legislation in the final hours of the final session of Parliament after desperately sidestepping the Senate.

When Dr. Brown and his colleagues want to get things done they can; nothing will stand in their way. Sadly, the issues that warrant their attention have been limited to bigger Cabinet cars, houses for two Premiers or Parliamentary salary increases for example.

The UBP are the party which took the initiative on empowerment and made a legislative effort to address it – an attempt which was flatly rejected by the PLP Cabinet and backbenchers in a lively Parliamentary debate – the highlight of which was Finance Minister Paula Cox referring to the empowerment legislation as ‘a trifle patronizing and condescending to small businesses’.

Oddly enough, as I wrote this column on Monday evening, a television ad for the Government’s Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC) ran during the local evening news. The Finance Minister herself made a cameo, providing the introductory and closing remarks.

What did the Minister have to say? Ms. Cox assured us that the SBDC will “empower and enable” small businesses. I wonder where the Minister picked that up from?

Nor can we forget that the SBDC was created under the UBP; being largely ignored by the PLP since 1998. Yet now – eight years later and at most two years out from a general election - the Finance Minister (and Dr. Brown) have got religion on the issue of empowerment – their party’s supposed defining issue.

Curious that. Suddenly it’s all empowerment all the time – again.

The groundwork for an election campaign is being laid, with the PLP deciding that they must look like they’re finally doing something on empowerment, while blaming others for their eight years of inaction.

Few would argue however that there hasn’t been empowerment in the New Bermuda; just not for those who were told it was coming to them. Where there’s no political will there’s no way, and empowerment outside of the PLP inner circle has proven to be little more than an election slogan, worthy of nothing more than lip-service. The next two years will see plenty of that.

Talk about patronising and condescending.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (12 Sept. 2006)

As the battle for the future of the Botanical Gardens begins, one thing seems certain: the Premier has decided to single handedly produce enough manure to fertilise the old hospital site. Take this absurd and insulting statement for example, delivered at Tuesday night’s Sustainable Development meeting:

“…the greenery will be incorporated into the design. You won’t just walk up to the door and the green stops. It may go into the building. If there’s a tree that needs sustaining, you may find that tree next to your hospital bed in the future.”

Got that? The Parks Department will be mowing the lawn in the lobby and newborns will be swinging in hammocks from that lovely Indian Laurel (covered in ants) which grows through the middle of the maternity ward.

Is the Premier so self-deluded that he actually believes his own nonsense, or does he think we’re absolute idiots? Which one is it Mr. Premier?

With the word ‘national’ on the rise in conjunction with the Premier’s never-ending independence obsession it seems only appropriate then to wonder if Premier Scott is intent on becoming our National Disgrace.

Ironically though, the Premier has two major legacy building initiatives underway; the first no-one is interested in (Independence), while the second (Sustainable Development) he isn’t interested in. Funny that.

So here we are, with the proposed and unnecessary desecration of the Botanical Gardens poised to become not only the largest capital project in Bermuda’s history, but also the most bone-headed; and that’s saying something after Alex Scott and his colleagues’ shameful legacy with the Berkeley project.

Which leads to an interesting study in priorities: while money is reportedly the driving issue for the new hospital it certainly wasn’t at Berkeley.

The difference though is simple; one is about saving the environment while the other was about saving face. And when it comes to saving face, no expense is to be spared, with the Berkeley project running $50 million over budget…and counting…with a secret and no doubt large legal settlement looming. That’s about 100% over-budget in case you’re counting.

Alternatively, when it comes to preserving Bermuda’s most iconic park, an additional 20% or about $100 million over ten years is too much.

You should be cautioned at taking those figures at face value however. A crafty accountant can do a lot with a few numbers, let alone a shifty politician. It doesn’t take much of a leap to believe that the amounts being used to justify the new site versus existing decision are little more than a shell game.

For starters, does the $500 million ceiling estimate for a new site include the cost of tearing down the old structure? It doesn’t look that way, although it certainly is a part of the 20% increase for the existing site proposal. Reality dictates of course that the old structure is going to have to come down regardless. The only difference is that Cabinet can bury the demolition cost elsewhere in the budget and not in the Bermuda Hospitals Board proposal.

Which leads to the next accounting and public relations gimmick: the 14 acres of the existing KEMH site will which (in theory…for now) be returned to the Botanical Gardens - an increase over the existing 10 acres.

Setting aside the two obvious problems – being the absence of any access roads to the new hospital in the middle of the Gardens and the unlikelihood of this ever happening – there will be a large financial cost associated with rebuilding 14 acres of new and immature Botanical Gardens and replacing the lost buildings.

Was this included in the $500 million? Nope, because that cost can be shifted over to the Parks Department budget, not the BHB’s; creative accounting 101.

These are the same gimmicks which the Corporation of Hamilton used in its proposal for the Hamilton Waterfront redevelopment; the projected $600 million cost ignored the cost of relocating the container docks – a massive undertaking and hence an absurd exclusion.

If the sketches of the proposed new hospital were scratch and sniff, the stench would be overwhelming. So little information has accompanied the decision that it’s hard to know what is included. But that’s probably the point.

What would be useful is an all-in estimate and cost comparison between the proposals on a like to like basis. The final costs probably won’t be too different at the end of the day, and far within most of our tolerances to save the Botanical Gardens.

Cost isn’t the only issue at play however; there’s also credibility, but this Government has none of that.

The Botanical Gardens will have to be removed from the schedule of parks (which can’t be developed on) to be placed completely under the auspices of the Bermuda Hospitals Board.

So the suggestion that the actual footprint of the Botanical Gardens will increase is a tad dishonest when you consider that the Gardens will become the property of the BHB, with future expansion on the table.

At its core, bulldozing the Botanical Gardens is just too dangerous of a precedent to set. We can’t allow the few remaining large tracts of green space to be earmarked as fair game for future development. If that’s the case, what’s the point in having a Parks Act?

Sustainable development is about making the hard choices, accepting some of the inconvenience and additional costs that comes with that and not taking the easy way out. Isn’t that what the Premier’s dog and pony show – not the Ag show, that’ll be a thing of the past, I’m referring to the Sustainable Development show – has been preaching?

A little more honesty and a lot less spin from Cabinet is a good place to start this discussion.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (19 July, 2006)

Sadly, but predictably, it's taken a single shocking incident to refocus our attention on a major issue; whether it's a road traffic fatality, a shooting at a bar or most recently the vicious beating of a Portugal-supporting Bermudian football fan, one event spurs people to act.

While it's important to highlight these individual examples – which have a lasting impact on the families and friends of the victims of violence and hate – we tend to miss the forest for the trees.

Also sadly but predictably, the fallout from these incidents tends to be relatively short-lived; we drift back into our collective slumber, to be re-awakened after the next inevitable event.

There are times though when an event becomes a catalyst for change with a lasting effect. Judging by the flurry of activity on the heels of the alleged World Cup attack on Mr. Medeiros, this may be one of those times. Only time will tell.

The incident has been rather simplistically characterised as racial. The motive behind the attack seems to be driven by something more complicated: race as a proxy for a politically stoked anti-foreigner sentiment, one which has been simmering for years and may now be boiling over.

The irony of the attack of course is that Mr. Medeiros was allegedly advised to "go home" while getting kicked in the face. He is home.
Mr. Medeiros is first and foremost Bermudian, not Portuguese-Bermudian, Bermudian. Full stop. To some that distinction may seem strange, but sometimes it's important to state the obvious.

There's been an increasing tendency of late to add a qualifier before the word 'Bermudian', be it white-Bermudian, Portuguese-Bermudian, black-Bermudian or others. Isn't it time we returned to plain old 'Bermudian'? That doesn't mean you disown your heritage, but we must come together as Bermudians.

The use of a prefix is one component of a long-running political effort to redefine what is and is not Bermudian. Listen closely and you'll hear it, the conscious and subconscious effort to make 'Bermudian' synonymous with black and 'Expat' with white (and more recently everything else).

A few examples to make my case.

Like any good Bermudian at Cup Match I head east or west to sweat with the oldies, watch a little cricket and lose a few bucks in the crown and anchor tent. Simple pleasures right? Not so much lately.

In recent years, after entering the grounds I've been very politely and courteously directed – by a no-doubt well-meaning worker – to the tourist tent, where I can have the game explained to me in baseball terminology.

For the record, I don't wear flowered shirts, ride a rental bike, sport a lobster-red sunburn and have a massive camera hanging from my neck. None of the above to be precise.

There is only one reason why I would be immediately directed to the tourist tent, which comes complete with free beer if you're interested in working that angle this year; it's because of my complexion.

There's no other explanation: white equals expat or white equals tourist. Harmless enough in that context I know, but highly annoying nonetheless.

Here's another. Several months ago, in responding to the Bermuda International Business Association's critique of the Government's workforce empowerment programme (which is different from the Parliamentary salary empowerment programme), Minister Dale Butler said the following:

"The Government is saying if you have a hundred employees, 50 of them are black, you have ten senior positions and not one of them is black. Tell us why you have no Bermudians in your top ten positions."

Notice how casually Minister Butler uses 'black' and 'Bermudian' interchangeably. Is this an accident, a slip of the tongue, an isolated incident?

Nope.

This dynamic was also on display in the Bermuda Sun last week, where Mid Ocean News columnist Alvin Williams, in commenting on the attack of Mr. Medeiros, said:

"It had to do with the soccer thing and the display of Portuguese nationalism and in the background of that was the feeling among the young, black working class that they're being displaced….Bermudians do not have a sense of this country belonging to them and they feel insecure about it."

There it is again. The 'young, black working class' becomes 'Bermudians' in the next sentence; hence my visits to the Cup Match tourist tent. We're teaching people that skin colour is the sole criteria for being Bermudian.

You hear it all the time in Parliament and in particular during elections. Why? Simple.

The PLP has made a strategic decision that their political success is best served by continuing racial divisions in our community, pitting a black majority against a (mostly) white minority and vice versa.

The list is long and legendary:

The PLP's 1998 election campaign was dubbed 'emancipation', while the 2003 campaign was 'affirmation'; campaign ads/rally skits were used labelling UBP MPs as Uncle Toms, Shysters and sun-burned; Dr. Brown advised people to not 'vote yourself back on the plantation'.

More recently we've been treated to Minister Butler's kindler and gentler rephrasing of his colleague's 'House Nigger' comment into black UBP MPs 'wanting to be white' (his implausible denial notwithstanding) and Dr. Brown's quaint 'plantation question' get out of jail free card.

These incidents are not, as Minister Butler attempted to explain away last week, 'aberrations'. Even if they were, surely he should heed his own advice from the anti-racism rally and condemn all acts, not reinforce them. These statements are not anomalies; they're the cold calculated components of an ongoing political/electoral strategy to incite racial hatred.

To be fair, the roots of racism in Bermuda are old and run deep, preceding the PLP. The party is throwing plenty of manure on them though. One could argue that in the last eight years they've decided to reseed the lawn.

This fixation on race has even extended to tourism, with Dr. Brown wanting not just more tourists, but specifically more black tourists (ignoring the more lucrative gay travel demographic….I wonder why?), even delivering a bizarre quote that 'money is brown', whatever that means.

Reality of course paints a different picture. The PLP have done nothing to address the racial problem which they claim is their reason for being. Quite the opposite in fact. They've rejected proposals for an Economic Empowerment Bill, a Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians, and just last week a Truth and Reconciliation Commission while offering up nothing as an alternative, just slurs.

The PLP Government isn't interested in fixing the problem; they want us to keep talking about it while they do nothing but fan the flames when politically expedient. The rising chorus of enough is enough – from all segments of the community – suggests that they may have finally overplayed their hand.

So much is wrapped up into that little word, 'Bermudian'. The term has become a political weapon, so loaded, so judgmental that the real meaning must be reclaimed before we tear ourselves to shreds.

We can't allow PLP politicians and their proxies to speak in code, delivering speeches professing racial unity with a wink that only black Bermudians are legitimate Bermudians.

It's terribly divisive. But that is of course the intent. It's easier to breed resentment and hatred than understanding and unity.

It's up to us to emancipate the PLP from their racial campaigning by not affirming it at the polls.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (11 July, 2006)

My high school math teacher used to display a poster in his classroom with what seemed a rather harsh sentiment: “It’s better to say nothing and be thought a fool, than speak and confirm it.” Now I understand.

The world of politics, both local and international, is littered with the output of those who’ve failed to heed this advice. I suppose that when you talk as much as politicians do, you’re bound to say something stupid everyone once in awhile (me included), for that the public tends to be quite forgiving. Every one of us can compile a list of our favourite examples of stupidity from Bermuda’s politicians; some are humourous and benign, others offensive and harmful.

Bermuda politics however seems to have moved firmly into the offensive and harmful territory lately with the Government practicing both sides of the saying; the Premier says nothing while some of his Ministers seem stricken with a political strand of Tourette’s Syndrome.

It may come as news to the Premier but the onus is on him to disavow and disassociate himself and his Government from the impulsive brain dumps and lashing out of his proxies. Mr. Scott’s self-assigned designation as a strong leader notwithstanding, his management style – if there indeed is one – stinks; a classic example of silent but deadly.

The stench of two recent events lingers, both courtesy of the Premier’s most prolific Tourette’s patient, Minister Burch.

The first instance is the now notorious insult that won’t go away, where the soon-to-be Senator – on his officially non-political but rabidly political talk show – labeled anyone of his race who doesn’t share his political ideology a “House Nigger”.

What has the Premier had to say publicly about this matter? Nothing.

And when the boss is away his Ministers will play. While the Premier was off the island his loose-cannon Regimental recruit engaged in a ready-fire-aim attack on the Defense Board/Governor and the Auditor General; the pungent odour of his earlier racial attack still lingering.

Only hours after the Human Rights Commission delivered their ruling on the slur, this very same Minister attacked the selectors of the Regiments new Commanding Officer and steamrolled the Office of the Auditor General; the latter a blatant act of intimidation and revenge for a factual – and hence unfavourable – audit.

When our strong leader returned to our shores for a brief stop-over visit he pledged to meet with the Senator, but pledged before the meeting that he would remain a Minister. And the point of the meeting was what then if the outcome was predetermined?

But what was the outcome? Did the Premier denounce the actions and words of his hand-selected Minister? Nope. The Premier opted to say nothing; an act of silence which is at best described as indifference, at worst an endorsement.

The simple fact of the matter is that Senator Burch is a Cabinet Minister, one of two non-elected Ministers. He’s not just some harmless backbencher with a big mouth in a safe seat whose antics we can just chuckle at; a harmless class clown.

When a Cabinet Minister defames all Bermudians who don’t share his dogmatic views – white or black – it’s up to the Premier to sanction that type of behaviour. Yet he doesn’t. He promotes the culprits into his Cabinet. The Premier sees no evil and hears no evil while allowing others to speak it on his behalf.

And where oh where has our Premier’s voice gone on the matter of the Auditor’s Report? We already know Senator Burch’s response; pack him up and shut him down to shut him up.

The only logical conclusion to be drawn from the deafening silence is that our Premier is wholly un-concerned with the contents of the Auditor’s report and its un-audited estimate of $800 million dollars. That’s a fact. An amount totaling approximately one full fiscal year’s revenue and spending is not certified.

The CEO of any publicly traded corporation, who the Premier is fond of likening himself to and wants to be compensated like, would have been fired or resigned in disgrace long ago. Mr. Scott gives us nothing. The buck stops nowhere in his administration. Not so much as a whiff of concern. Silent but deadly.

Need someone remind Mr. Scott, fresh off of his sightseeing tour of Washington DC, that Bermuda’s unparalleled economic success invites unjust attacks on our reputation and credibility as a financial services centre?

The attack which presents the most difficulties for our companies is the one on our regulatory framework. It’s also the easiest to address, because the allegation that Bermuda is unregulated is not true. However when those who regulate the private sector flout the very regulations in their own affairs these attacks gain traction.

Permitting hundreds of millions of dollars to go un-audited only emboldens and increases the ammunition of those who want to shoot us down. Nor does it suggest that our tax dollars are under good stewardship.

Bermuda as a financial centre must comply with international standards, regulations and good financial practices. This is necessary if we are to prevent punitive regulatory attacks from competing jurisdictions and ensure that our firms are treated fairly and can compete on even terms.

Notably our financial services sector is seeking more regulation by the BMA – at its own expense and initiative. While the private sector increases their compliance, Government Ministers attempt to tear theirs down.

Mr. Scott’s lack of comment on the Auditor’s Report undermines our credibility and endorses poor financial controls. His silence on the Burch outburst reinforces the bigotry and divisiveness of some of his members.

The Premier can’t sit mute while his Ministers act in such a cavalier and dangerous manner, both socially and economically. Too much is at stake.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (16 June, 2006)

An open letter to the Independent Senators:

Bermuda’s Parliament is frozen in time; grid-locked by partisan bickering and an antiquated political process. Sadly, the only thing both sides seem able to agree on – either by design or by accident - is to not debate a human rights amendment. Surely we can do better than this.

You will soon have an opportunity to return a semblance of sanity and gravitas to our political process; I refer to the recent Parliamentary pay hikes approved on a partisan 16 (PLP) -13 (UBP) vote.

While the relative pros and cons of this have been widely discussed, the issue goes much deeper than the distasteful manner in which 16 PLP MPs dramatically and retro-actively raised all MPs compensation without deferring implementation until the next set of Parliamentarians arrive; or the patently absurd system where Ministers opt to collect either a full or part-time paycheck – a setup that will likely result in the ridiculous situation of a part-time Minister of Finance but a full-time Minister Without Portfolio; or the top-loaded nature of the increases; or the fact that the Premier’s true compensation includes 2 homes and – like his colleagues – taxpayer funded cars and credit-cards where all charges are “assumed to be legitimate”.

We’ve heard much about the disparity in political pay between Bermuda and other jurisdictions. The arguments were uninspired, unoriginal and unconvincing.

The crux of the matter is that this move enabled MPs to have their cake and eat it too. The Premier’s formula authorised his Cabinet Ministers to optimize their take home pay as they see fit, at vastly increased levels.

A Minister with a presumably better-paying ‘day-job’ will maintain that post while creaming a few extra dollars off the top as a part-time Minister (a la Minister Cox). Alternatively, if becoming a full-time Minister is a better financial arrangement they’ll opt for that designation. It’s a no lose proposition.

Typically in Bermuda, we’re putting the cart before the horse. A more fundamental question needs answering before discussion of Parliamentary pay-scales is appropriate:

What type of Parliament do we want? Does Bermuda deserve modern democratic institutions, or a continuation of the current antiquated framework?

Predictably, the PLP MPs who voted to reform their salaries – in a bid to be paid like modern politicians in other jurisdictions – haven’t shown the slightest interest in reforming the Parliament and Government to keep pace with these other modern jurisdictions.

Smooth operators indeed; all the money, none of the responsibility.

A comparative analysis of politicians’ salaries is meaningless without an accompanying comparative analysis of the accountability measures and democratic protections in place.

The fact of the matter is that in Bermuda it’s easier to stay abreast of foreign politics than the local antics. I can watch live debate in the US Congress on TV or the internet, courtesy of C-SPAN. I can read transcripts of debate and speeches on Congressional websites. I can search the US Library of Congress online at thomas.loc.gov.

I can also watch the UK Parliament’s Question Time – questions which by the way aren’t submitted in writing ten days in advance as they are here. Nor can verbal responses be avoided through tired tactics such as extending the pandering Congrats and Obits (little more than canvassing via the House clerk), or filibustering through Ministerial Statements until question time’s time is up.

Bermuda’s Parliament is not broadcast over television, only via a muffled AM transmission. Video or still cameras are only permitted for useless ceremonial exercises, and Lord knows Fresh TV could use the content for their ongoing experiment in appallingly bad TV.

By one recent account, those watching from the public gallery are not permitted to take notes. Even pen and paper is too high tech and transparent for our Parliament.

There is no official transcript of Parliament, a most basic feature of legislatures. None. There are minutes of the proceedings, but they’re as illuminating as one of David Burch’s trademark tirades.

In 2006 Bermuda’s Parliament lacks its own website which should contain contact information for our MPs, the legislative agenda, official documents, policy statements or bills to name a few items of interest. The much ballyhooed Government portal doesn’t cut it either; it’s little more than a million dollar brochure designed to caress the fragile egos of a fragile Cabinet.

And then there’s the alien concept of openness, transparency and accountability.

Committees? What are they? Well there are a few, but they meet behind closed doors – if they meet at all.

All the hype of the Public Access to Information initiative is just that. A projected almost decade-long implementation may be warp speed in Governmental terms, but in this case it’s a cynical attempt at information suppression under the guise of actually opening it up.

A PATI act might make for good headlines, but a Government truly committed to openness wouldn’t hide its Cuban memorandum, the mysterious $700,000 Berkeley bond receipt, the Coco Reef lease or years of backdated annual reports. They wouldn’t just talk about it, they’d just do it.

And then there’s the lack of any sense of accountability, either financial or professional.

Un-audited public sector expenditures of almost a billion dollars – or one fiscal year – have accumulated. Direct and unambiguous attacks on the checks and balances of our political system are so commonplace few seem to notice and none are held to task; the most recent example being an out-of-control unelected Minister abusing his 48 hour stint as acting Finance Minister to threaten an audit of the Auditor General before operationally shut down the AG’s office through his own Ministry.

Senators Oughton, Basset and Hughes, it’s up to you to block this blatantly shallow money grab and send an unequivocal message to those mindlessly roaming the halls of power.

Broader parliamentary reform is a mandatory precursor to parliamentary pay hikes.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (June 07, 2006)

It’s too early to declare Friday’s Parliamentary protest a turning point in Bermudian politics, but it was significant.

If those who converged on the hill to confront their mute politicians take one thing from the exercise it should be that a little anger, appropriately channeled, produces results.

Immediate results.

After indicating that he’d be taking up the Parliamentary salary increases, the Premier changed course, acutely aware that for MPs to raise their own pay, hard on the heels of an unexpectedly large protest, would further inflame matters.

Rest assured that our elected representatives do take notice when they’re being watched by a public no longer willing to tolerate fast-ones being pulled at their expense.

There are a number of important lessons from the past several weeks, as well as the unintentional exploding of some long held myths and misconceptions – to borrow a quaint phrase from the Bamboozle Indoctrinate and Condition (BIC) Report – about Bermuda politics.

First, one of the lessons.

While the churches have received a disproportionate amount of attention for their political lobbying, their methods should be emulated not attacked. Churches will always be a potent political force; they’re active, organized and unafraid to air their views. That’s not a negative.

Those angered over the lack of debate and rejection of the Human Rights Code (HRC) amendment shouldn’t get mad, they should get even by tearing a page out of the Church’s handbook: get active, organized and air your views.

Sitting around with the expectation that politicians will understand what’s expected – simply by osmosis – and do the right thing is pointless.

On Friday, the protestors succeeded in getting the attention of the Premier, Dale Butler, the Opposition Leader and most of their colleagues. While they’d all wish the issue went away, it continues to dominate the news cycle.

This issue has legs. The next step is to keep up the pressure.

Another important outcome of this Human Rights saga is that an old political adage may have been turned on its head; what you see is not always what you get, perception doesn’t always equal reality.

For decades the PLP have presented themselves as the party of principle, a de facto civil rights movement which views the world through a prism of right and wrong; a collection of individuals committed without exception to the cause of equality and human rights.

The lie has been put to that idea. It’s evident that the PLP leadership does not stand against discrimination nor for equality; they’re not interested in right and wrong, only black and white.

This pro-discrimination view was laid bare by PLP Central Committee member Laverne Furbert in her recent – no doubt angrily penned and hence highly revealing – Letter to the Editor (The Royal Gazette, June 2nd, 2006).

Setting aside the classic ‘but I have gay friends’ lead-in and subsequent inference that homosexuals are AIDS riddled heroin addicts, her defense of discrimination was rife with hypocrisy and prejudice, the likes of which she’d rightly rage against were the word “homosexual” exchanged for “black”.

Ms. Furbert confidently states that a sexual orientation amendment to the HRC is unnecessary as she “saw no evidence of either of [the only two gay people she’s ever known but who are now dead] being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.”

Is that so?

What would the reaction be if someone were to make the following statement?

“I know a couple of black people and I’ve never seen any evidence of them being discriminated against because of their race, therefore there’s no need to list race in the HRC.”

Rest-assured you should run for cover while Ms. Furbert and her PLP colleagues fuel their flame-throwers.

And let’s dispense early with the predictable response to this comparison: homosexuality is a choice, race is not, therefore there is no parallel. While meaty fodder for debate, it’s absolutely irrelevant from a human rights perspective.

Not only is Ms. Furbert protected from discrimination based on her race, so are her political and religious views which are choices. The Human Rights Code doesn’t just cover matters genetic, it covers choices such as those political or religious; ironically the very protected classes which are being used as the foundation for her pro sexual discrimination stance.

The most damning and revealing statement in the letter comes at the end, with the suggestion that in Bermuda a hierarchy of discrimination exists, with race firmly perched on top:

“I must remind those who think that the matter should have been debated last Friday, that slavery was abolished in Bermuda in 1834, however it took over 100 years of debate, public demonstrations, and other forms of protest before blacks were legally considered equal to whites”.

Which is loosely translated to “race trumps sexual orientation, you’ve got another hundred or so years before you should expect to be treated as an equal.”

A lovely sentiment indeed. Not only does it cut to the heart of the politics of the PLP but it exposes a key myth.

The PLP Government and their puppet masters don’t value broad based human rights; they’re interested in race and only race. Everything else comes a distant second, as confirmed on Friday by one unmoved PLP MP who was overheard saying “these are your people” to a UBP MP, reflecting on the complexion of the protestors.

This myth feeds into another, one long overdue for debunking.

How many times have we seen supremely-assured-in-their-blackness PLP members verbally assault black UBP members as “sell-outs”, “Uncle Tom’s” or “House N**gers” for their involvement in a supposedly “white” (ie. anti-black) party?

Apply this same logic to Dale Butler for example, who recently espoused this position when he accused blacks who join the UBP as wanting “to be white” – and for the record Mr. Butler, no-one buys your belated “I said wanted to be ‘right’ not white” nonsense.

So how do these racial attacks, black or white, all or nothing positions reconcile with his stance on sexual orientation?

Mr. Butler is a supporter of the amendment (but had to pee), was unable to garner the support of his political colleagues yet continues to serve in a party espousing an anti-gay pro-discrimination agenda?

The answer is they don’t.

Even more striking were Julian Hall’s comments about the PLP leadership, which touched on the open secret of Bermuda politics (and the ultimate irony of the defeat of the sexual orientation amendment):

“It isn’t for me to ‘out’ anybody but they have enough gay and bisexual members in their own ranks, I would have thought, to protect.”

Uh-oh. Sell-outs anyone?

Bermuda’s political evolution has been held hostage to a single issue for too long. It’s time to get active, organized and unafraid. Race is but one human rights issue, not the only one.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (31 May, 2006)

Last week certainly was an unusual one. On Wednesday a drag queen defied Cabinet to take centre stage at the Bermuda Day Parade, before Parliament was invaded on Friday by drama queens who delivered a collective “talk to the hand” to the sexual orientation amendment for the Human Rights Code. Someone seems to have confused holidays; I thought we were celebrating Bermuda Day last week? The Queen’s holiday is in June.

All jokes aside, and there’s an abundance of material here, last week was a sad chapter in Bermuda politics. No-one emerged from these embarrassing episodes looking good…except the drag queen that is – two snaps for Sybil. Fabulous!

Ok, no more jokes I promise.

Last week produced no winners; not the PLP, the UBP, those who opposed the change, those who supported the change, not even Ms. Webb who sponsored the amendment. We should all take a step back and consider what transpired last week. Two of the most high-profile segments of our community, our elected officials and segments of the clergy, sent a message that discrimination is ok.

That our MPs on both sides of the House sat silently when presented with an opportunity to stand strong and united against discrimination has been rightly condemned and all too sadly praised. There’s little value in revisiting that argument, Monday’s The Royal Gazette editorial summed it up nicely.

The irony of the defeat of the Webb amendment is that while its time had clearly come, and a majority of MPs almost certainly supported it, timing is what killed it.

Even without the benefit of hindsight it was a safe bet that the amendment adding sexual orientation as a protected class under our Human Rights Code stood little chance of succeeding, for a number of reasons.

The most obvious impediment being the Premier’s positioning of his party for an election (sometime after July 24th 2006 – once his 3 year Premier’s pension vests at a dramatically increased level). Whether he takes the leap and drops the writ is anyone’s guess, but the stage is clearly being set.

The past eight years have seen one debacle after another with the PLP Government desperately trying to make nice with as many voters as quickly as possible. It should therefore come as no surprise that the Premier and his colleagues wouldn’t want to alienate the huge ‘church vote’ – for lack of a better term – on the eve of a potential election.

The same goes for the UBP.

It’s no secret that Bermuda’s black middle class are religious, but more importantly in the political context, they constitute the much-sought after swing vote – the Holy Grail of elections. As distasteful as it may seem, there’s one thing that all politicians can do, and that’s count votes.

Both parties made the calculation that this amendment was a net vote loser; something every MP other than Ms. Webb decided had to be sacrificed with the anticipation of an election in the air. This is the type of change to be made early in a term so people can get over it, not on the eve of an election. This complicating factor leads to another.

It’s all but certain that Ms. Webb is not running for re-election. According to UBP MP Michael Dunkley, Ms. Webb has already assumed part-time resident status. Whether to run again and how much time to spend in Bermuda are entirely Ms. Webb’s prerogative, but the political impact is that Ms. Webb’s colleagues on both sides of the aisle felt that she had less skin in the game than they did. And it showed.

Politics is not a zero-sum game. Nor is it always about being right. It’s about building consensus to achieve a desired outcome – the art of compromise and the art of the possible. By this measure Ms. Webb’s attempt to do the right thing failed miserably, arguably to the extent that it may have actually set back the cause she was championing. I certainly hope not, but time will tell.

A skilled and shrewd politician would have been cognizant of all of these potential obstacles, understood that this process required a gentle hand and deftly guided it through the political minefield.

Unfortunately Ms. Webb opted for the opposite approach, drawing a bright spotlight to a sensitive issue and attempting to publicly cajole her colleagues into agreement.

The approach was all wrong. If Ms. Webb had done her homework she’d have known that the votes weren’t there and held the amendment back until they were.

Several MPs have indicated that they had heard nothing from Ms. Webb since she tabled her amendment. That’s not good politics and suggests that Ms. Webb lost sight of her primary goal: to amend the Human Rights Code, not to simply be right – which she is.

Contrast last week’s shenanigans with the events of 1994, when the Stubbs Bill decriminalized homosexuality, and you have an interesting case study in managing politically sensitive changes through a skittish Parliament.

There was no more skilled a politician than John Stubbs, a man who was acutely aware of the climate in the community, the sensitivities of his colleagues and the art of enacting legislation. Dr. Stubbs spent months working tirelessly behind the scenes, lining up the required votes, and fostering a climate where those who supported the bill but found themselves in a political bind felt secure that they could do the right thing, not what was politically expedient. Only then did he move the debate forward.

Unfortunately political expediency won this time. But it can’t end there.

If those seeking to discriminate feel empowered by last week’s events they shouldn’t. We must stand against discrimination while engaging all sides in an open and honest dialogue about equality and respect for each others human rights. Vilification serves no useful purpose, no matter how disappointing the outcome or how angry one might be.

Bermuda is a community which responds to incremental change. While this slow pace may not satisfy everyone, it may be the only way.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (Friday 26 May, 2006)

If the recently staged production of “Premier Scott: International Man of Diplomacy” is any indication, we’ve opened a new chapter of Alex in Wonderland. Down the rabbit hole and off to Washington DC we all went last week, with the Scott hype machine firing on all cylinders for this highly orchestrated image makeover.

Desperately in need of some high-powered, well-connected statesman mojo, the Accidental -- and unaccomplished -- Premier embarked on a long overdue visit to our most valuable friend and economic partner.

While the Premier delivered such awe-inspiring pronouncements like “very few countries get that kind of access”, “they now know the Premier by name” and noted that the trip had been the highlight of his political career, reality paints a very different picture.

Even the most casual observer of Bermuda politics would be aware that this trip was by no means ‘unprecedented’, nor did it provide a higher level of access than we’ve been afforded in the past.

This trip confirmed an uncomfortable but undeniable truth: decades of close relations with our closest ally have been squandered during the PLP Government’s eight year tenure. You don’t have to believe me, listen to the words of the US Government’s representative in Bermuda on his return from the whirlwind visit:

“For ten years both Governments, frankly, did not speak to each other too much.”

We’ll attribute the ten year comment to some diplomatic rounding error -- Mr. Slayton is a diplomat after all -- but the Consul General bluntly pointed out that dialogue between Bermuda and the US came to an abrupt halt on the PLP’s ascension in 1998, while relations with Cuba and Caricom flourished.

For every junket our jet-setting Cabinet have taken to the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East or even Brunei over the past eight years, not once have they found the time to call on our closest trading partner, a mere two hour flight away.

It’s Mr. Slayton who deserves the credit for taking the initiative and organizing this brief meet and greet; a refresher course on just whom our friends are. We should thank him for that, despite his co-starring role over the past two weeks in the creepy Premier-Consul Mutual Adoration Society.

On the other-hand, Mr. Scott remains so characteristically self-absorbed with his new found and weighty world power-player status that it’s not clear he’s taken the hint. From the Premier’s perspective this visit was little more than a shallow opportunity to seek some desperately needed uplift for his sagging popularity; an attempt to gain some street cred and position himself as the viable leader of a dreamy independent Bermuda where all problems vanish as we hold hands and sing Kumbaya around a campfire.

Nonetheless the reviews are in; at least the Premiers are, in a textbook example of the self-graded exam:

Mr. Scott boldly laid out his agenda to the world’s superpower on their home turf: relax the travel stop list, set up a coast guard outpost and give us our respect as a financial jurisdiction.

The meetings were presented very much as a one-way street: behold our very own international man of diplomacy telling US lawmakers what they can do for us.

Message: Alex Scott is the chosen one to lead us to the promised land of independence, at which point tiny Bermuda will assume our rightful place on the world stage as a powerful micro-state. [Cue nationalistic music and video of Bermuda’s new PLP Green flag waving majestically in the breeze.]

Reality: That’s best left to the Consul. In responding to questions about the stop list, “The Hat Guy” put it all in succinct perspective when he said that “we don’t need to be importing felons to our country … if you want to maintain the right to travel don’t get involved in crime, even smoking drugs.”

Translation: Not a chance, but thanks for showing up.

In two short sentences the Premier’s pipe dream goes up in smoke. Admittedly one can’t understate the entertainment factor of our legends-in-their own-minds Cabinet, but it’s time to emerge from the rabbit hole with our eyes wide open.

The moment for a dose of hard political reality is long overdue for the gang that can’t shoot straight but have delusions of grandeur.

We’re a politically insignificant spec in the middle of the Atlantic; a unique spot on the map which has achieved success like few others, the continuation of which is by no means guaranteed. We’d all be better served if the PLP Government accepted reality, dropped the sideshows and showmanship, and re-focused on our historically winning formula of “think global, act local” to borrow a phrase.

We’re by no means perfect, but the Bermuda miracle can be attributed to a coupling of an entrepreneurial spirit and a brutally honest self-awareness that we’ll never be a world player. Pretending otherwise is either delusional or dishonest; but primarily it’s self-destructive.

We’ve prospered both socially and economically through an understanding that the homegrown issues and longstanding friendships deserve our utmost attention. Vanity projects like Independence, Cuba and Caricom are irresponsible and potentially damaging.

This visit was better late than never. It’s a shame that it’s taken eight years and a US Consul to make it happen.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (15 February, 2006)

One of the most frequently invoked words by politicians on either side of the aisle is “The Youth”. Whether the issue is housing, crime, education or the economy for example, you can rest assured that our political leaders will profess to be acting with a deep and profound concern for our youth and their future.

So why is it then that a quick glance around the Cabinet Office, and Parliament in general, reveals an elected and appointed leadership severely underrepresented by Bermuda’s younger generations?

If so much of our public policy is geared towards the youth, why is there such a glaring absence of young people in the political parties?

What is it about Bermudian politics that doesn’t inspire, or actively repels our best and brightest young (and older) minds from pursuing political careers?

There are a myriad of reasons contributing to this under-representation. Whether it be younger Bermudians establishing their professional careers, starting families or just plain old trying to make ends meet in one of the world’s most expensive economies everyone can cite a cause. But there’s got to be more to it than that.

As a 32 year old Bermudian, I can assure you that there’s more to it than that.

Bermuda’s current political debate is built around a framework that, quite simply, has no relevance to the majority of us who were either too young to remember, or born after, the era of segregation ended.

That terrible time, those battles and those politicians continue to dominate our political landscape, bringing with them their hostility, animosity and anger that comes with it.

So while younger Bermudians struggle to find affordable housing, raise their young families in safe communities and educate their children to the highest standards, the PLP relics desperately cling to outdated issues at the expense of the current ones.

It’s hard to believe I know, but according to the PLP Government, the most pressing issues in a 21st century Bermuda are the potential for a return to a plantation system, a manufactured conflict with a non-existent colonial foe and a strategic alliance with a brutal Cuban dictatorship.

Simply trading in his safari shirts for suits and shaving off his beard can’t conceal the undeniable fact that Alex Scott, and most of his colleagues, are political dinosaurs on the verge of extinction.

The majority of Cabinet, and the radical PLP base who put them there, came of age in the 1960s, but ceased to mature. Meanwhile the rest of Bermuda has passed them, leaving them to shadow box their imaginary issues and opponents, thoroughly convinced that they can somehow win a battle in which they’re the only ones fighting.

The PLP political model is simple: stoke the fires of racial hatred; keep those fires burning and the public will turn a blind eye to neglect over housing, education, crime, healthcare and seniors. This lack of vision, dynamism and compassion is crumbling under its own weight.

It’s little wonder then that the very youth whose interests are so frequently invoked find little appeal in politics, opting instead for that familiar brand of political cynicism. While understandable, this is the wrong response.

Never before has Bermuda enjoyed such an abundance of well-educated, business savvy and highly successful young people. Never before have Bermudians of all ages been presented with so many opportunities on a global scale, complete with the skills to take advantage of them.

A promising and prosperous future will be secured only when forward looking Bermudians, free of the shackles of the past, step forward and demand their place on the political stage and deprive that racial fire of its oxygen.

The narrow-minded and increasingly irrelevant obsessions of our current leadership can no longer be allowed to dominate Bermuda’s political stage. Young Bermudians must step forward with their energy, their ideas and their time.

It’s not easy, and we owe a great debt to those visionaries who have come before us. But it’s time for the next generation of political leaders to step forward and claim the mantle. Public service remains a noble calling, despite the best efforts of some of its current practitioners to prove otherwise.

It’s time to get involved.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (01 Feb. 2006)

It’s said that nothing in this world is certain except death and taxes. That has never been more true than in today’s Bermuda where a disturbing attitude seems to have taken hold in the corridors of power: we the residents of Bermuda exist solely to fund Government’s wasteful spending habits.

The recent comments by former United Bermuda Party Leader Grant Gibbons and Senator Bob Richards were on the money: overtaxing Bermudians – to the tune of $50 million in 2005 alone – is not a virtue. Government is not a profit making venture.

While it’s reasonable for Government to turn a small budget surplus each year, overtaxing us to the tune of $211 million over the past four years is a disgrace. Excess revenue of this magnitude should not simply be thrown into the Government coffers, but returned to the taxpayer as tax reductions in subsequent years. A quarter of a million dollars is much better used by the people, not politicians who think they’ve won the lottery.

Sadly, Premier Scott and his colleagues seem to measure their effectiveness on the basis of how much money can be extracted from our pockets: the more we pay the better job they’re doing. Of course the opposite is true.

Good governance involves doing more with less. Typically, like most things in the New Bermuda, the inverse is true; the PLP Government is doing less with more. Much much less, with much much more.

Not only is Government’s budget growing at a worrying rate, but taxation is outpacing that growth. That might be tolerable if we were receiving value for money, but we’re not, despite the incessant invocation of that tired phrase “The Social Agenda”.

The outcome of this increased taxation and spending is that everyone wants a piece of the action. To their credit, Cabinet is leading by example, treating this over-taxation as a license to travel; permission to furiously swipe their Government credit cards; an incentive to lavish perks on themselves – like two renovated residences for two Premiers; and allowing capital projects like the new Berkeley Institute to run obscenely over budget.

It’s not surprising then that others, including the Civil Service and the BIU want their cut. Give the BIU their due, they were the more creative side, requesting a reduced work week for the same pay, which translates into a financial hit on multiple levels: an effective pay raise and increased overtime requirements.

It’s bonus time in the public sector.

But who can blame everyone for drooling over that taxpayer slush fund. The pot of taxpayer funded goodies is being raided from the highest levels at the expense of those at the bottom. “The People’s Government” indeed.

These tens of millions of dollars of excess revenue collected annually aren’t even finding their way to programs and organizations that would presumably qualify under the auspices of the vaunted but vacuous Social Agenda. Just ask the Salvation Army.

Here’s an organization quietly doing important but difficult work in housing the homeless, and the Premier and Health Minister show their gratitude through budget cuts and insults. Sad but true.

You see, Cabinet values their $340,000 parking lot over a homeless shelter in a period that the Housing Minister himself has described as a ‘crisis’. Again, sad but true.

This taxation and wasteful spending will catch up with us soon enough, if it hasn’t already. It’s not a coincidence that tourism and retail – our most taxed sectors – remain on a multi-decade slide, while international business – the least taxed – is booming.

Our future economic success depends on the reversal of the tax, tax, tax, and spend, spend, spend ways of the current administration.

Bermuda is an increasingly expensive place with taxation and fiscal mismanagement as its primary driver. But don’t be mistaken. Government’s insatiable appetite for revenue and unrestrained growth will catch up with international business as well.

The gap between Bermuda and our competing jurisdictions is narrowing, as Government drives the cost of doing business in Bermuda into the stratosphere.

Our consumption based tax system detaches us from our taxation to a large extent. If we filled out tax returns annually we’d be shocked at how much we pay in tax.

We wouldn’t just be complaining that Bermuda is expensive; we’d be complaining that Government is overtaxing us. And we’d be right.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (11 Jan. 2006)

If the first few weeks of the year are any indication, the United Bermuda Party and the Progressive Labour Party are going to have to start paying attention to their ABCs and 1, 2, 3s: the All Bermuda Congress (ABC), a new political party.

Perhaps surprisingly Khalid Wasi (Raymond Davis), one of the primary organisers of the ABC, is adamant that he isn’t in fact looking to start a third party; his intention is to replace the United Bermuda Party.

He contends that the current parties are no longer relevant, that their existence retards Bermuda’s political evolution, and that the demise of the UBP will have a cascading effect, eliminating the PLP and triggering the emergence of a new, healthier and more productive political paradigm.

He’s probably right. What he proposes should happen, but it probably won’t.

Politics is, at the best of times, an exercise in frustration. But we’ve taken it to a new level in Bermuda. Here, any issue – and I mean any issue – is without fail conveniently reframed by the PLP to fit the parameters of a forty year old racial argument which they feel they control.

Therefore, ABC proposes that the UBP’s mere existence, regardless of their best intentions, plays into the PLP’s hand and perpetuates this cycle, allowing the PLP to act as an agent of division and an impediment to progress.

In a recent television interview Mr. Wasi put it well when he characterized the parties as “two sides of a racial argument” (whether they know it or not). It’s precisely this outdated racial argument that is preventing the advancement of a modern social and economic vision and meaningful Parliamentary reform.

Ironically as some have pointed out, the ABC is targeting the UBP – the party which talks of moving past this racial argument – for elimination. On the surface this approach might appear backwards, a strategy that would entrench the PLP and their racial politics. Unless you consider the old adage that every action has an equal and opposite reaction that is.

If you regard the UBP and the PLP as two sides of the same coin, one minted in the 1960s but still in circulation today, the picture starts to take shape. While the PLP was created first, the two parties essentially formed as reactions to each other, two halves of a whole, opposite sides of an equation.

So while the ABC is proposing to take out the UBP, they are in fact aiming to drive both parties into irrelevancy; to unbalance the equation as such. Their draft manifesto states as much:

"The only moral authority legitimising the PLP, seemingly, is that the UBP exist. Every argument of the PLP is predicated by what the UBP did for 35 years if not 350 years. With the UBP gone the PLP will ideologically fold because it has no natural ideology asides from its reaction to the UBP.”

Two examples may help illustrate this point, one fictional, science fiction to be precise, and the other true and in play today.

Fans of The Matrix trilogies might relate to this (bear with me here) if they parallel the UBP and the PLP with the fictional foes of Agent Smith and Neo. These two adversaries remain engaged in a seemingly endless fight, capable of winning individual skirmishes but not total victory. Only when Neo realizes this and sacrifices himself – unbalancing the equation (and becoming one with Agent Smith) – does the war end. Idealistic? Maybe. But it’s worth considering.

Conversely a real world example of what ABC is proposing is currently being attempted in Israel, although recently complicated by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s recent stroke.

Mr. Sharon embarked on an ambitious and unprecedented bold course of action, one designed to obliterate the traditional political battle-lines in Israeli politics and clear the way for the emergence of a new paradigm: Mr. Sharon, a sitting Prime Minister and his party’s leader, resigned from his own party to found a new entity. Idealistic? Maybe. But it’s worth considering.

The latter is almost certainly what it will take in Bermuda for the ABC’s goal to be met. While admirable, it may not be achievable. The last election result is probably the problem.

The UBP came very close to a win in the popular vote, or at least a draw, after being written off in 1998. Conventional wisdom almost certainly maintains that the PLP Government has proven so ineffective, so scandal-plagued and so arrogant that a win at the next election is highly achievable.

It is that political reality which renders ABC’s efforts to woo away a few UBP MPs difficult, if not insurmountable; Opposition MPs can taste victory. Without significant defections from sitting UBP – and to a lesser extent PLP – Members of Parliament, ABCs goal will be unachievable.

It might just be worth a shot though.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (30 Nov. 2005)

Architectural design is an inherently subjective thing; what’s attractive to one is hideous to another. You can test that statement by trying to find a consensus on whether the ACE or XL buildings are more aesthetically pleasing. This is why the response to HSBC’s Front St. glass tower has been so surprising.

Remarkably, the bank has achieved something unprecedented in Bermuda, they’ve identified an issue that virtually everyone can agree on (other than opposition to Independence that is): The feedback to the proposed HSBC building on the former Trimingham’s site is ugly, or ‘Ogly’ as we prefer to say.

Let’s be thankful then that something positive might arise from HSBC’s redevelopment of the historic site; but let’s also be realistic.

Objecting to the development because it is ugly is an exercise in futility; there are lots of ugly buildings in town. And whether or not you believe that we need a glass palace towering over the charm of our flagging retail district, something other than a quaint department store will be built. The only question is scale.

But before we can decide what can be done to rein this in, it’s important to understand how we arrived at this point, and what the respective responsibilities of the public, Government and HSBC are.

If we’re honest with ourselves, the writing has been on the wall for some time, ever since Cabinet approved the sell off of Bermuda’s landmark retail real estate space to a foreign corporation – notwithstanding Finance Minister Paula Cox’s rather disingenuous assurance that the Bank of Bermuda is a local company, despite its 100% ownership by HSBC.

Conversely HSBC didn’t do itself any favours by pitching such a massive development – and a potential turning point in Front St. development – as a selfless act of corporate benevolence; this is primarily in Bermudians’ best interests we were told, shortly before the CEO of the "world’s local bank" rather presumptively told locals what our capital city should look like.

What is needed in this process, one that is going to act as a benchmark for future Front St. development, is for all the parties to this process – and that’s everyone – to be honest about whose interests they are representing, and then represent them honestly.

Whether they’ll admit it or not, HSBC’s sole responsibility is to maximise their shareholders’ return. And that’s exactly what it should be. All this noise about how much the bank cares about Bermuda is just a distraction.

The decision to buy the Bank of Bermuda was an economic one, as were the decisions to take over the Trimingham’s site and its subsequent redevelopment. Sure, they’ve made some concessions along the way, but those were designed to facilitate the goal of maximizing the return on that real estate.

HSBC is a shrewd operator, more so than most international conglomerates. Modern corporations are well aware that building and maintaining an image in the community as a ‘good corporate citizen’ can be good for business, but it isn’t because they’re benevolent, it’s because they want to make more money.

Then there’s the Government. The current leadership have displayed a penchant for rolling over to the banking giant; whether it be approving the buyout of the Bank of Bermuda or the subsequent takeover of the Trimingham’s site; two acts which required explicit Cabinet level approval.

But that’s water under Flatts bridge. We are where we are. The question before us now is where do we go from here? And the answer to that rests entirely with us. We have the power to put the brakes on this project and ensure a satisfactory resolution for both Bermudians and the bank.

What is clear from the fast-track planning request by HSBC is that they are looking for the fastest path to Ministerial approval by sidestepping the usual bureaucratic channels, aware that the proposal will almost certainly be rejected as is.

And that brings us to our responsibility as Bermudians. The Minister, the Government and the Opposition, need to know that they are expected to prevent this unsightly blot on the Bermudian landscape or suffer the political consequences. But both political parties have been suspiciously quiet to this point, at least publicly. John Barritt’s comments during the Throne Speech are the only ones I’ve heard from anyone thus far.

As a last resort, there is one surefire way to get HSBC’s attention, particularly as they’re so enthusiastically playing the role of caring corporate entity. If enough customers feel strongly that the Bank is over-reaching and not acting in the best interests of the community, you can take your business elsewhere.

Then they’ll sit up and notice.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (24 Nov. 2005)

Welcome to the New Bermuda, a twilight zone where our political leaders exist in a parallel universe, one where up is down, regress is progress and wrong is right. With consistency having no place in the PLP Government it’s become abundantly clear that Cabinet functions as little more than an auto and dining club, a fragmented collection of individuals with competing agendas, little cohesion and a lack of leadership.

The sole unwavering message emanating from the Cabinet Office is that the United Bermuda Party is the big baddie; PLP mantra has long dictated that the UBP are responsible for all that is wrong, nothing that is right, everything that will be wrong and most importantly all that the current Government have screwed up.

What’s striking in all of this is just how much Mr. Scott and his colleagues are emulating exactly what they decry; whether it’s the rolling back of democratic reforms and accountability, back-room deals or most remarkably the discarding of the Holy Grail of “one man one vote”. The PLP Government’s ability to hold entirely contradictory positions on simple issues, blissfully oblivious to the patent absurdity of it all, is impressive.

The PLP’s position on Independence is a useful starting point to demonstrate the extent of the cognitive dissonance which grips our current political leadership. For a party that claims to abhor all things British, their desire to shatter our flimsy but advantageous ties and go it alone is oddly predicated on retaining everything British. Juxtapose that with their fervent desire to entrench Bermuda in Caricom – oddly predicated on rejecting everything it stands for – and the issue becomes all the more unintelligible.

The PLP advocates that we cut ties with the UK - but retain the Privy Council, Queen as Head of State, EU passports and British citizenship ie. keep all our UK ties.

And it advocates joining Caricom but rejecting its raison d’etre – the Caribbean Single Market Economy – which includes the free flow of labour, single currency and the Caribbean Court of Justice for example.

Therefore establish no meaningful ties with Caricom other than the Ministerial trips.

It’s little wonder then that no one outside of the ideological fringe find either of these positions coherent, let alone appealing.

But the PLP leadership can’t even remain consistent with their own intellectually inconsistent positions; whether it’s Dame Lois – the PLP’s guiding light and legal advisor to BIC – recommending that Bermuda cast aside the Privy Council, or Dr. Brown – the number two man in Government – recently expressing his desire for Bermuda to expand our role in Caricom’s Single Market Economy.

The Government is as predictable as the weather, hence the increasing public concern. Sadly, it’s not just around policy that Cabinet fails to demonstrate consistency or follow their own advice; it’s also evident in their interactions with those who they serve.

A good rule of thumb in politics is to not insult the intelligence or character of the electorate. Recently we’ve seen both. As leadership starts at the top, let’s start at the top. Several months ago “The Man” led his party straight into the gutter when he publicly insulted the intelligence of the 14,000 registered voters who’d like a direct vote on Independence. Generally that’s not a good idea, and you don’t have to be a PR expert like the Premier to understand that.

But it gets worse. The Premier’s favourite tagline is “Bermuda works best when Bermuda works together”. Sounds nice right? Except he doesn’t believe it, judging by the Colonel’s – who doesn’t care what you think – successful audition for a return from Cabinet exile.

On his officially non-political but obviously totally political radio talk show - the one where he routinely hangs up on callers – the newest PLP Senator uttered a phrase so heinous that it will no doubt supercede his previous efforts at infamy.

Back in August Mr. Burch, frustrated that his talk show callers wouldn’t fall into line like his regimental conscripts, referred to anti-independence black Bermudians as “house n***ers”. Impressed, Premier Scott promptly invited the shock jock back into Cabinet; because Bermuda works best when Bermuda works together. Or not.

Again, that type of comment isn’t smart at the best of times, but it does seem to fly in the face of the Premier’s professed desire for unity and rational debate does it not? While Senator Burch may not care what people think, he’ll surely think twice about lobbing that slur again outside of Cabinet.

It’s an inconvenient fact for a Cabinet which strives to polarize Bermudians around race, but polling consistently indicates that not just a majority of Bermudians oppose independence, but a majority of black Bermudians do so as well.

Well done Mr. Burch. In two statements you’ve insulted and ostracised 48% of the voters who didn’t vote PLP in 1998, and now more than 50% of black Bermudians who you deem “house n***ers”. Nice. Welcome to Cabinet.

In fact, whether he cares what anyone thinks is irrelevant. What matters is that most voters will care what he and his colleagues think, and that type of offensive, intolerant and outdated mentality has no place in politics, let alone Cabinet.

A twilight zone indeed.

The Royal Gazette
Opinon (12 Nov. 2005)

If you’re looking for a copy of the 2005 Throne Speech you probably won’t find it where you expect. Bermuda’s librarians and archivists face an interesting conundrum this year: just where should it be filed?

Convention suggests that it be categorised no differently than the myriad of other Throne Speeches. However this year they might contemplate the appropriateness of that approach. A more efficient approach would be to classify it by one of the many genres it encompasses: fantasy, fiction, ancient history and self-help. Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde can’t hold a candle to our Premier.

Fantasy: Throne Speeches are, by design, little more than lists of initiatives padded with flowery political verbosity. In that regard this installment was a success, if not terribly predictable.

The goal however was much greater than the usual trumpeting of minor initiatives as mind boggling examples of political ingenuity; we can all agree that the PLP Government is proficient at that, albeit unconvincing.

The ability to actually accomplish anything of note, or complete a project at all, on time or on budget, is what has been in short supply. Nowhere was that issue addressed. We were never told what has changed that will suddenly render Cabinet adept at public policy implementation. On this front the Premier and his Cabinet have failed miserably, by the speeches own admission:

“The next phase of the Social Agenda will see the introduction of legislative and
social initiatives designed to protect and sustain Bermuda’s growth, environment,
economy and culture.”

Any guesses at what the first stage involved then? The mindlessly parroting of the phrase “Social Agenda” and a glossy mailing come to mind. Even ‘P’ himself is lamenting the fact that, despite his underperforming Ministers best efforts, they haven’t been as mindless as he’d hoped. The Premier’s recent publicly scolding of his Cabinet colleagues for not promoting his “Social Agenda” enough confirms that. Perhaps it’s because there wasn’t – and isn’t – anything to promote? If you’re still a kind-hearted soul giving them the benefit of the doubt, get a load of this passage:

“Therefore, in the coming months, the Government will appoint respected members
of the community and research groups to provide assistance to a newly established
Social Agenda Management Resource Team (SAMRT). This Team will serve
as a think tank to provide high level and independent advice from the private sector
and wider community. The Team will also be utilised in the implementation and
long-term management of the Social Agenda.”

To summarise: a year after the roll-out of the much-hyped “all-encompassing, cross ministry, Social Agenda”, Government has realized they need to add some substance to the slogan.

Just how are they going to do this? By appointing a think tank. Why do they need a think tank? Well, to think for the ever-expanding Cabinet of course, in addition to implementing these as yet un-thought of initiatives. Why are we paying Cabinet then? To work the cocktail circuit and lounge in air-conditioned Music Festival luxury boxes?

The Social Agenda: found in the fantasy section of your local bookstore, right next to The NeverEnding Story.

Fiction: While fantasy is fun, fiction is an endearing genre, and the Throne Speech dabbled in that quite effectively. Credibility clearly wasn’t a concern, with Government hitched their wagon to that dead horse known as the Bermuda Independence Commission.

Referring to the Commission’s report, Premier Scott stated that the “work of the Commission and the contribution by the public has left an indelible mark on Bermudian society”. An indelible mark? A scar might be more appropriate. But this Premier has never been one for facts. They’re so passé.

Unashamedly then, the Government will plow ahead to ‘educate’ the public – two-thirds of whom aren’t interested in Independence – about BIC’s intentionally erroneous and dishonest conclusions through more public meetings.

Note to the Premier: the public knows what they think; BIC are the ones who failed the class and should be in detention. Drop it.

All this leads us quite nicely into the next genre of this dynamic piece of literature, one the Premier’s literary idols of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde would be hard-pressed to duplicate: Ancient History.

Ancient History: Undoubtedly the most worrying but revealing initiative is the Orwellian pledge to launch a Government Information Television Channel, aka Propaganda TV.

Any pretense of the PLP’s move to the centre has just been blown away, with Alex Scott returning to his extremist roots and deciding to dive right back in and emulate his Cuban idol. Who said the Cuban Cultural Agreement isn’t bearing fruit? Gramma, the state news agency, is going to take over Bermuda’s media.

Much like the Premier’s London announcement in 2004 when he announced his intention to retool Bermudian society through ‘social engineering’, the idea of propagandizing through state sponsored television stations is a long discredited relic of a long discarded communist era.

Whether this chilling effort at indoctrination goes ahead or not, the damage has been done. Alex Scott and his colleagues are so desperate to have someone, somewhere, anyone, anywhere, praise their lackluster efforts that they’ve decided to do it for us.

The speeches equating of propaganda with Public Access to Information confirms that “The Man’ and his colleagues are political fossils frozen in a bygone era and a bygone ideology, one comprehensively discredited as a fundamentally flawed and failed.

While the Premier was no doubt disappointed that Chairman Mao was unavailable to deliver the Throne Speech (due to his untimely death in 1976), and had to settle on Prince Andrew in his place, next year he should simply end the façade and invite one of his ideological peers of Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez to do the honours – if ‘P’ is still around that is.

You can also find the 2005 Throne Speech right alongside Alex Scott’s copy of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto.

Self-help: Almost as notable as Government’s official foray into propaganda was the promise to tackle race. Like credibility, evidently sincerity wasn’t an issue either:

“…the Government will facilitate and support the Human Rights Commission, CURE and Non-Governmental Organisations in a major race relations initiative. Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda – or CURB – will be the vehicle tasked with recommending to the Government tangible, achievable strategies for the elimination of racism.”

While it’s heart-warming to hear that the Government has now decided to support the Human Rights Commission and wants to eliminate racism, may I suggest that CURB implement a 12 step program for Cabinet – now that they’ve seen the error of their ways and are taking up the modern literary genre of self help:

Step 1: admit you have a problem
Step 2: confiscate the Premier’s blackberry or never let the Premier write his own apologies or place print ads
Step 3: never allow a PLP MP to speak publicly
Step 4: develop new talking points for PLP MPs
Step 5: prevent the PLP from participating in election campaigns or producing radio advertisements
Step 6: keep trying to develop new talking points for PLP MPs
Step 7: pull the plug on Sen. Burch’s talk show
Step 8: don’t give up trying to develop new talking points for PLP MPs
Step 9: focus group led by Minister Dale Butler on the perils of stereotyping
Step 10: tell the Tourism Minister that the colour of a tourist’s money not skin matters
Step 11: hire a political consultant to develop new talking points for PLP MPs
Step 12: return to step 1

We should support the Government in their efforts to change their ways. But don’t forget, recovering addicts will fall off the wagon several times while they engage in the process of recovery. Be patient.

Or was that not what they were really getting at?

The Royal Gazette Opinion
02 Nov. 2005

With Friday’s reconvening of Parliament all eyes and ears will be on the Cabinet lawn for the delivery of the 2005 Throne Speech, or “Social Agenda version 2.0: the second attempt at the second attempt”.

While Governor Vereker will no doubt be pleased that his cameo role of Englishman will this year be filled by Prince Andrew, if this Throne Speech is anything like its predecessors there will be little for the rest of us to smile about.

As the past seven years under the PLP Government have driven so many of us to drink, it’s only appropriate that we derive some pleasure from Friday’s festivities. Therefore, as Bermuda works best when Bermudians drink together, it’s time for the Throne Speech Drinking Game; yes the speech takes place at 10AM…but it will be Friday after all.

(Disclaimer: I do not condone the excessive consumption of alcohol – know your limits and drink responsibly – but after seven years of living through the New Bermuda, I completely understand.)

The Throne Speech Drinking Game is quite simple really, as any good drinking game should be: with a sufficient supply of your favourite beverage handy, sit back and listen for any of the following words, phrases or issues. Each item’s utterance signals the need for a different number of drinks, with a drink being either a shot or a gulp.

If the Government lives up to their part of the deal, and normally they don’t but in this case they will, you’ll be comatose well before the Speaker is.

Take one drink whenever you hear:

• Mr. Speaker
• Social Agenda
• Sustainable Development
• Housing
• Seniors
• Crime
• Youth
• Independence, Bermuda Independence Commission, BIC
• Sovereignty, nation, nationhood or national pride
• Unique solution
• Community or community spirit
• Public Access to Information
• Watershed or unprecedented
• Grass roots
• Partnership or collaboration
• Refocus or recommit

Take two drinks if you hear:

• “Have’s continue to have and the have-nots will have more”
• “Bermuda works best when Bermuda works together”
• “One man, one vote”; or any reference to democracy
• Divisiveness, voices of division, or “those who seek to divide us”
• Caring Government, listening Government
• The invocation of God or a higher being (excluding the Premier or anyone in Cabinet)
• Racism, race or race relations
• Media bias
• Free speech

Contain your laughter before taking a generous swig if you hear:

• Openness, accountability or transparency
• High standards, ethics or ethical standards
• “Government that delivers”
• Tourism has turned around
• Fiscally responsible

Wipe the spray off your neighbour and take two drinks if an actual example is provided of:

• Openness, accountability or transparency
• High standards, ethics or ethical standards
• Anything that the Government has delivered for anyone other than themselves
• Tourism’s turnaround
• Fiscal responsibility

Pick yourself up from the floor; you’re half hot, but take a drink anyway if you hear:

• “People who look and sound like…”
• bringing us together or uniting us
• a quote from Shakespeare and/or Oscar Wilde
• 14,000 people didn’t know what they were signing
• any reference to Cuba
• a reference to the new $300,000 Parliamentary parking lot
• a reference to the unfinished bus terminal

Stop drinking; you’re full hot, if you hear:

• an apology for the past seven years
• “We’ll continue to mislead you when we have to…”
• BIC was biased
• a date for a stand-alone referendum on independence
• an apology to the 14,000 signatories to the Bermudians For Referendum petition
• an apology for screwing up the Bermuda Homes for People project
• an apology for the Berkeley debacle
• the announcement of an independent investigation into the “pay to play” scandal
• a reduction in Cabinet travel
• the use of satire or irony
• “John Swan had it right”

Enjoy, but don’t blame me when you can’t go back to work; blame the Government.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (26 Oct. 2005)

If a public meeting flops in the middle of town does it mean that we don’t care? That’s the question being asked after only seven – yes seven – people turned up for last week’s Government sponsored public meeting on the Public Access to Information initiative (PATI).

Most people almost certainly do care about having access to information over how our business is conducted, but they’d rather not have to think about it.

In fact, most people would probably prefer to not think much about Government at all, they’re rather it just got on with what it’s supposed to do quietly, competently and efficiently, so they can get on with their lives; but then that wouldn’t be Government would it?

So along comes PATI. The announcement was widely greeted as a welcome but long overdue step in the right direction, an opening up of the inner workings of Government to those who it serves. But judging by the public meeting turnout it’s not the type of thing that fires up the populous, just the policy wonks.

As laudable as the PATI initiative is, the announced target date of the year 2011 for its rollout is unacceptable – a little public access to efficiency might be in order. This legislation isn’t so complex that it should take six years to implement. It’s not rocket science… or building a school, so why is PATI on the Berkeley timetable? Six years is far too long, six months would be more like it.

Cabinet might be basking in the glow after embarking on this path, but what they won’t say is that at the end of the day all they’ll simply do is adopt and adapt existing legislation from another jurisdiction. But if only seven people seem interested who can blame them for slow-tracking it?

The lack of existing PATI legislation however is not an excuse for Government’s refusal to disseminate information over the past few years, obstruction that continues today.

We don’t need PATI to begin providing access to information at all. That doesn’t negate the need for the legislation, which will formalize the process, but a less secretive Government is the problem. No doubt, they’ll protest that accusations of secrecy are unfair and off-base when they are the ones who are introducing PATI legislation. But are they?

PATI legislation doesn’t have to be in place for the Premier to release the years old and still unseen performance bond from the Berkeley project, or the documentation that the $700,000 premium was collected? The controversial and secretive Cuban cultural memorandum can be released before PATI is completed. The absence of PATI legislation isn’t standing in the way of the publication of the controversial Coco Reef lease and its subsequent re-draft. The Government is.

And we can’t forget Parliament. If the Premier and his Government are so committed to openness, why do House committee meetings remain closed to the public? It’s been well over a year since the Public Accounts Committee recommended that their sessions be held in the open, yet Government hasn’t lifted a finger to make it happen.

Considering that Parliament is the people’s House, the lack of information that comes out of it is astounding. There are no transcripts of what is said in Parliament, the only sessions that are televised are the inconsequential ceremonial ones, and the most comprehensive written record of Parliamentary proceedings are the scant House minutes.

Public access to information is more than legislation; it’s a philosophy. Openness, transparency and accountability might be the Government’s favourite buzzwords, but actions speak louder than words, and that’s been in short supply.

But PATI isn’t the only area that the PLP Government only says one thing and does another; consider the cherished but clumsy PLP battle cry of: ‘one man, one vote of equal value’. It’s hard to argue against that right? Not if you’re the PLP, who continue to go to incredible extremes to prevent Bermudians from having one vote of equal value on Independence.

And how do you reconcile a Government that talks about public access to information but repeatedly signals its desire to regulate the media and free speech?

If the Premier and his Cabinet are serious about open Government they’ll provide access to the information that they’ve been suppressing for years… immediately. Additionally, relatively little effort and money is required to implement the simple reforms that are so sadly lacking in our archaic legislature and legislators, the first step in any move to provide better public access to information.

PATI is a welcome initiative, but it doesn’t get our secretive Government off the hook.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (19 Oct. 2005)

One wouldn’t expect that an island with a long and proud sailing tradition such as ours would be drifting rudderless into the doldrums. Yet that’s exactly what’s happening in the New Bermuda.

The PLP Government, devoid of ideas and internally divided, has rendered itself politically impotent by demonstrating proficiency at producing solely scandals and high-profile failures.

Our motto may be “Whither the Fates Lead Us”, but our future is too important and fragile to be left to fate. In fact, it isn’t fate that we should be concerned with, it’s the Government. We can’t, as the Premier would hope, wave the white flag of surrender – or at least one that looks and sounds like a white flag, in the Shakespearean sense of course. The Government is waging a war of attrition, one that must be arrested.

Even the most optimistic PLP supporters seem depressed and uninspired, unable to comprehend how after finally ending thirty years of electoral futility it all went so horribly wrong so fast. After seven years at the helm Cabinet continues to flounder; desperately resurrecting an outdated and unappealing issue that an ever dwindling number of Bermudians find even remotely appealing.

This Government has never articulated a vision or chartered a clear course, and as Sir John Swan recently pointed out, they have been unable to complete even the most rudimentary day to day tasks of governance. That’s a shockingly harsh indictment of a party which had over thirty years to prepare.

Under Alex Scott’s tenure the PLP Government has transitioned from what some might have termed benign neglect into malicious abuse. Bermudian voters, business leaders and international bodies are treated as objects of derision and ridicule, mere obstacles in a game of political chicken.

The current approach to governing involves little more than relentless damage control via highly staged press events and sterile press releases. These diversionary tactics are unleashed to obscure the chronic social and economic neglect and abuse that is the hallmark of the PLP Government’s tenure.

It seems that more and more Bermudians start the day in a crouched position, wondering just what today’s revelation will be; which shoe will drop next. And who can blame them? The past seven years have seen enough scandals, failures and public relations disasters to establish a Governmental Hall of Shame to compliment the Sports Hall of Fame.

It’s not all bad though. Bermuda’s NASCAR fans will have another source of entertainment; it’s not the left hand turns that keep them glued to the TV, it’s the high speed wrecks. The New Bermuda has an abundance of those.

Whether it’s the disgraceful and discredited BIC report; BIC’s calculated manipulation of the good faith of the business community; the de facto nationalization of a private business by WEDCO; the racially tinged email from the Premier, compounded by his ensuing intelligence-insulting half-hearted mea culpa; the public insulting of 14,000 democratically inclined referendum signing Bermudians; the collapse of the Southside housing project after months of denials and a meaningless housing lottery; a myriad of incomplete and over-budget capital projects; escalating violent crime; a deteriorating quality of life for our seniors; or a failing education system, little has been accomplished.

If you despair about the current stewardship of Bermuda you’re not alone. There is clearly a rising chorus of discontent, but it’s doubtful that we’ve been shaken from our complacency. Bermuda is on the brink of being sucked into a dangerous downward spiral, one that will be difficult to emerge from.

The potential decline of Bermuda as one of the world’s pre-eminent financial services jurisdictions is real, and our competitors are watching with glee. The list of potential suitors for Bermuda’s multi-million dollar world leading companies – and the associated jobs – is long.

This external threat however is secondary. The real danger will more likely be self-inflicted, driven by the instability and uncertainty spawned by a Government determined to impose their self-serving drive to Independence – with no clear timetable – on an uninterested public and distressed business community.

Notwithstanding Government’s efforts to convince us otherwise, our international business sector – the sole economic pillar - isn’t invincible. And we, more than anyone, should be painfully aware that once seemingly indestructible industries begin to crumble, there’s little that we can do to stop it.

Does the word ‘Tourism’ sound familiar?

Our former glory years as the world’s pre-eminent tourist destination should serve as a grim forewarning of what occurs when we take success for granted. Tourism’s decline didn’t happen overnight; it was gradual and continues to this day. Our complacency and arrogance led to a belief that success was guaranteed.

That a six month general strike coincided with the peak of our now defunct tourism industry is not a coincidence. We lost sight of what was important and undermined our own product. We became less than friendly to the industry and our visitors, wrongly assuming that tourists would always flock to our shores.

The PLP Government’s arrogance, negligence and complacency threatens to repeat this scenario in the international business sector, an industry who would not hesitate to look elsewhere for more friendly shores.

To borrow a phrase from a former PLP Premier, we ignore the concerns of the international business leaders and betray their good faith “at our peril”. Real trepidation has been raised over the impact the unpopular and back door push for independence will have on our attractiveness as a business centre. We have no fallback position. They are our sole economic engine.

Past and current success is no guarantee of future success. That’s a mistake we’ve made before. Need we be reminded? Let’s not go back to the future.

The Royal Gazette
Opinion (13 Oct. 2005)

Every 12 months or so, or after a particularly bad traffic jam, someone inevitably reissues the call for a ban on non-Bermudian car ownership, because we all know that every Bermudian problem is ultimately attributable to foreigners.

Several months ago Government flirted with an additional twist on this model by suggesting that not only should those pesky ex-pats be prevented from owning cars, but also single people. Not surprisingly that idea lasted all of a couple of days; Cabinet foresaw not only fewer vehicles, but fewer votes.

So with another Throne Speech imminent, it’s worth asking whether the traffic situation can be improved without taking such drastic steps.

The Transport Minister recently suggested, and he might be right, that it’s time to start taking the tough decisions. The question becomes however just whom these decisions will be tough for? If Cabinet is truly serious on this and other issues, they’d start at home, in their driveways for example.

A logical first step in tackling congestion would be to reduce the size of the Government fleet of vehicles; there are just too many GP cars and Government vehicles on our roads.

Contrary to the belief in some quarters, there is no God given right for Cabinet Minister’s to have a car, nor high level civil servants. No other business in Bermuda is permitted to buy corporate cars for its management to compliment their personal vehicles, so why should Government be any different?

There’s little doubt that most of the GP cars serve very little official purpose other than being a taxpayer-funded perk; a second vehicle to circumvent the single vehicle restriction. On any given morning these cars stream into town with a Minister or a civil servant and their spouse in them, and back home they go in the evenings.

Leadership as they say starts at the top, and Cabinet should set the example by curbing their appetite for this longstanding perk. A more appropriate solution would be to maintain a Government pool of vehicles for use as needed, hopping in a taxi, or simply expensing fuel costs.

Not only would this remove unnecessary cars from our roads, it would save wasted tax dollars and earn Cabinet some much needed credibility before they propose these tough solutions on the rest of us.

Secondly, we should start enforcing some of the existing laws rather than start writing new ones. A good place to begin would be with some of the ‘commercial’ vehicles on our roads.

You know the ones, the ‘you can’t have one of these’ glistening SUVs replete with leather seats, tinted windows and racing wheels. Most of these vehicles have never, and will never, see a bag of cement let alone a construction site; they’re nothing more than oversized second family cars disguised as commercial vehicles.

But it doesn’t end there. What with all of these commercial vehicles on the roads on Sundays anyway? Most don’t have the required permits to operate on a Sunday and clearly aren’t going to a job site, but that law seems to have gone by the wayside.

This trick isn’t limited to unmarked cars or vans either. Just look at the number of BELCO, TELCO, Cablevision, landscaping and other trucks cruising the roads after hours or on the weekends. Rarely is the driver in uniform, nor is it all that uncommon to see a family of 4 jammed into a dump-truck for a family outing.

Clamping down on the number of unnecessary Government and commercial vehicles on the road is a useful step, but it isn’t the only one. There are a few other moves we could take to ease traffic flow in and around Hamilton.

While the major pinch points are the South Shore and Crow Lane roundabouts, traffic through town moves like molasses as well…except when the traffic lights are out that is. Surely it isn’t a coincidence that when the lights were out for weeks after Hurricane Fabian, and again after the BELCO power outage, that traffic flowed great.

While the simplest way to reduce congestion would be for more people to ride bikes or take public transport, if you must drive a car into town you’re likely to spend as much time stopped as moving. A simple law change could ease this problem, one widely in place in North America; allow a left turn (in our case) on red.

If the junction is clear of pedestrians and no vehicles are approaching, why not allow a left-hand turn on a red light? Sure, some dingbat will take that as permission to charge through without stopping, but they do that already. The corners of Church and Par-la-ville, Reid and Court, Church and Cedar Avenue or Church and Parliament for example would be great candidates for a left-turn on red.

Finally, and somewhat less critically, why not turn all the lights in town to flashing oranges on Sundays and late nights as they do in some towns? When approaching an intersection it’s simply first come first served; no more waiting endlessly at red lights on an empty road.

These suggestions won’t solve the problem, but before we bring out the sledgehammer, we might want to try the nutcracker.

The Premier's weak reach for a plausible denial yesterday resulted in one of those "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" moments.

When you've got to come out and declare that what you weren't being racist, and the headline reads "Premier: I was not being racist" you're in a no-win position.

So it's little wonder that in his letter the Premier turned to the Lord as his saviour, and then swiftly pivoted to the devils in the media. Old dog, old tricks, same itchy fleas.

But Alex the Great was faced with a serious problem. The guy has no credibility...with anyone. He's an accomplished and established liar who was caught red-handed in Parliament months ago lying on the floor of the House to Maxwell Burgess over the insolvency at the now defunct Bermuda Homes for People.

Was the statement alluding to race? At the risk of wasting precious reak estate on the world wide web, I'll state the obvious: of course it was.

The Premier and his hired help are twisting like Chubby Checker and contorting like pre-pubescent Chinese acrobats in suggesting that Mr. Scott was following the tradition of great literary minds like Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare, but we all know he wasn't. Cuz he ain't that smart.

Anyone who bothered to read the poorly written letter itself would have learned that our esteemed Premier hasn't been close to a piece of good literature in some time, although he is starring in Alex in Wonderland.

I'd bet that "P" doesn't reading Shakespeare at all, he reads the Royal Gazette. (Gasp, horror I know.)

The old 'mean and hungry look' line was probably fresh in P's mind from the recent trial of his good buddy Julian Hall. (Now there's a gifted orator and writer, someone the Premier would have been wise to consult with before writing that dreadfully inadequate letter.)

And then of course there's the ridiculous threat the Premier concludes with - that Free Speech isn't free and he'll be announcing an initiative in the upcoming Speech from the Throne, which if it's like its predecessors might as well be read on the throne.

Just how the Premier promises to quash voices of dissent in the media is yet to be determined. But I promise to do my part in the interim and commit to upping the levels of derision and ridicule for such a pitifully inadequate man so clearly out of his depth.

RG Opinion (Wednesday 05 Oct. 2005)

The past several months, but in particular the past few weeks, have seen a notable increase in the public levels of discontent over the direction – if indeed there is one – that the PLP Government is dragging Bermuda and Bermudians; it seems that only now however, have we started kicking and screaming.

While Sir John Swan’s comments certainly increased the intensity of the criticism with his unexpected salvo several weeks ago, it’s unlikely that his remarks indicate the peak of the crescendo. The public frustration which has been simmering for many months, years in fact, appears to finally be bubbling over.

Although the Premier, or “P” as “The Man” affectionately refers to himself in his emails, may be tired of “taking crap from people who look and sound like [Tony] Brannon”, he should take a long hard look in the mirror; the public have tired of taking crap from him.

No single incident triggered this shift. It was more likely the cumulative effect of episodes like the release of the disgracefully dishonest and manipulative BIC report; the Premier’s public dismissal and subsequent insulting of 14,000 referendum petition signatories; the implosion of Dr. Brown’s tourism-has-turned-around charade; and the collapse of Bermuda Homes for People for example have all combined into the perfect political storm, catapulting generally deferential Bermudians into what could be the early signs of a broad-based revolt.

And just in case the Premier needs reminding, the voices of frustration, anger and disgust towards him and his colleagues aren’t restricted to outspoken white folks. The anger is palpable, and everywhere, from high-profile members of his own party (read Renee Webb’s recent RG Magazine interview) to newly empowered housing activists, or marching pensioners to mostly anonymous business leaders.

One week in politics however is a lifetime, things can change quickly. But what does the current situation mean?

Cabinet’s attempts to divide and conquer may have succeeded – in uniting Bermudians against a self-serving, self-aggrandizing political agenda. The culture of mismanagement and climate of sleaze that ‘P’ presides over is inflicting long term and potentially irreversible damage. Bermudians are now signaling in larger numbers that their patience has been exhausted and are no longer content to be treated as an after thought.

While vocalizing ones displeasure is great, there must be more to it. Letters to the Editor, calls to the talk shows or talking politics with your friends and co-workers might be therapeutic and have an impact, but effecting change and securing a successful future requires new people, quality people, to enter the political arena.

Of course politics isn’t for everyone, particularly in such a small community where tactics have become notoriously personal and intensely vicious, but until some fresh faces with fresh ideas take up the challenge little will change.

Despite the worldwide and somewhat justified cynicism and distaste for politics and politicians, this remains an important calling, and we’re blessed with some fine individuals, both past and present, here at home who’ve taken up the challenge.

Bermuda has a wealth of intellectual talent to call on; an oasis of charismatic leaders, community activists, accomplished professionals and civic minded citizens and businesses. But this pool isn’t choosing politics in large enough numbers, and a dearth of quality legislators and leadership will lead to a decline in our imperfect but entirely enviable way of life.

Much of the onus rests on employers. It’s no secret that many businesses frown on their employees being ‘political’. One sitting Opposition UBP MP was recently forced out of his employment for choosing to remain in public service. If we’re serious about ensuring and improving Bermuda’s stable social and economic systems for future generations our businesses must support, not discourage their employees’ aspirations to participate in the political process as they do with other community organisations. Some do, too many don’t.

Of course being a political candidate and ultimately serving as an MP or Senator is a huge time commitment, one that involves sacrifice on everyone’s part. It requires time away from your family, career and friends, but the contribution is of the utmost importance and will secure our envied way of life well into the future.

Bermuda needs and deserves our best and brightest at the highest levels of Government. We need individuals of integrity with successful track records running organizations or businesses that can articulate a vision, deliver initiatives on time and on budget, and never lose sight of whose interests they serve.

Being a nice person with a well known name but scant leadership abilities isn’t enough. We need our best and brightest. Our future depends on it.

RG Opinion 22 Sept. 2005

The Bamboozle, Indoctrinate and Condition Report, I mean the Bermuda Independence Commission Report, is in, all 600 pages of it. And what’s the conclusion? Let me summarize: “We misled you because we had to.”

The unwelcome six month intrusion by “not only a commission on independence, but also an independent commission” produced a report whose contents stood-up to a month of Cabinet scrutiny but seconds in the public arena; being swiftly discredited as a lightweight rehashing of decades old reports littered with outright misrepresentations, omissions, distortions, falsehoods and overly rosy projections.

Just what the Premier ordered. A job well done, The Man hoping to be King declared at last week’s press conference, with the delivery of a used-car salesman.

The document that the BIC’s Chairman characterized as “a light to the future” is about as illuminating as the BELCO fire. This one however fizzled out in minutes, a monumentally desperate attempt to further the narrow agenda, oversized egos and powerbase of an out of touch Cabinet.

The BIC vastly overplayed its hand by producing a report consumed with overwhelming bias. Confusing Bermuda Onions with Mushrooms was a rookie mistake; onions don’t appreciate being kept in the dark and fed … well this is a family paper, so let’s just say ‘manure’.

If any independent commissioners existed at the beginning of this exercise, they clearly acquired Stockholm Syndrome along the way.

With so little substance but so many problems, the toughest decision is what to debunk first. A good starting point is the most obvious and egregious error, one so untrue it could have only been intentional.

The BIC Report opens with a disingenuous bombshell, claiming that the “Commission learned that, in many cases, the decision on independence was determined by means of a general election and, in no instance, did the Commission discover the use of a referendum.”

This statement is so blatantly dishonest it is hardly worthy of correction. Compound that by the fact that the “general election versus referendum” debate was explicitly outside of the Commission’s remit and everything in the report becomes suspect.

But a correction is nonetheless in order. How’s about Bermuda, East Timor, Quebec and Jamaica in addition to many, many more? That the PLP urged a boycott of Bermuda’s 1995 referendum doesn’t mean it didn’t occur.

Bermudians didn’t want independence then, and we don’t want it now. Demonstrating a modicum of respect for the electorate’s intelligence would have been advisable before attempting to rewrite history.

But it gets worse; the UBP even did the BIC’s homework on this issue, by citing numerous examples of jurisdictions which decided the issue of sovereignty through referenda. Not to be swayed with facts, the BIC nonetheless claimed that they didn’t ‘discover the use of a referendum’ anywhere, while neglecting to include the UBP’s submission in the final report or on their website.

Did I say “we misled you because we had to”?

Off again on another tangent, the BIC proudly claimed that “after two decades of decline, the tourism sector appears to have stabilized and may even be improving.” The Prime Misleader of Tourism would be proud.

Except that statement didn’t hold up either; being swiftly debunked by a BIC Commissioner himself in a Mid Ocean News article of Friday 19th of September 2005, only one day after the BIC report was released. In the interview, President of the Bermuda Hotel Association – and prominent BIC Commissioner Mike Winfield – lamented the declining hotel occupancy rates over last year, noting that August’s occupancy rate plunged to 70% from a “not acceptable” 79% in 2004.

You couldn’t make this stuff up could you? But what are a few factual errors among friends?

How’s about those misrepresentations and rosy outlooks you ask? Well, try this zinger on for size, the misrepresentation of one of the biggest points of concern: the inevitable withdrawal of British citizenship?

The UK’s position is abundantly clear; citizenship would be withdrawn for those without familial connections. But don’t believe me, here’s what the UK said in their submission, and the Governor recently affirmed:

“In the past, the usual practice was to withdraw British nationality from the majority of those acquiring citizenship of the new state on independence but to provide for its retention where the person concerned had a residual connection - for example through a parent or grandparent – with the UK or a place that continued to be what nowadays would be referred to as a British overseas territory. We would not expect to take a different approach in Bermuda’s case.”

“We would not expect to take a different approach in Bermuda’s case.” Seems unambiguous enough doesn’t it? Not to the BIC, who contend that this could be negotiated at a constitutional conference. Have they no shame?

And then there’s section 3.8, where the Commission analyzed their data in two hopelessly pro-independence sub-sections entitled “Myths & Misconceptions” and “The Benefits”.

Where was the section on the ‘Cons’ you ask, as any objective analysis would surely have included? Evidently it was deemed redundant; the whole document is one big con.

The BIC suggests that Bermuda needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission before addressing Independence; an inspired recommendation indeed. A good place to start would be with the BIC report itself.

RG Opinion (14 Sept. 2005)

What we all knew would come to pass, has. Cabinet incompetence has destroyed Bermuda Homes for People (BHP), which formally disconnected itself from Government’s public relations life support systems; the latest casualty of The Social Agenda. And don’t let the latest promises fool you, the project isn’t “postponed”, it’s dead.

In fact, the housing portfolio is in such dire straits that even the mobile homes are homeless, and immobile; parked out of sight gathering dust while the Minister ponders their home.

What’s revealing about the BHP collapse isn’t that it failed, it’s that no-one’s surprised; not the lottery winners, not those who paid deposits, not the Opposition who predicted this long ago and definitely not a jaded public resigned to either failure or scandal at most Ministries, but in particular Housing.

If it wasn’t so predictable it would be sad. If the affordable housing crisis wasn’t so acute it would be comical. But it’s not. The implosion of the latest housing initiative and the hopes of too many is a tragedy.

That’s not entirely fair though. There have been several successes, even at the redundantly named BHP. Why the redundancy, the equivalent of saying “Paget Kennels for Dogs”? Well, because all the previous projects haven’t been for the people, they’ve been for the politicians.

Take Bermuda Homes for Premiers for example. Bermuda Homes for Premiers is a testament to Cabinet efficiency with the right motivation, achieving unprecedented success providing two Premiers different, and freshly renovated residences, as a compliment to Camden, the entertaining residence.

Premier Scott’s housing situation was evidently so severe that he’s yet to move into “Clifton”, formerly the Chief Justice’s home. According to the Premier’s PR flack, Mr. Scott is sacrificing on our behalf, reluctant to divert critical Works and Engineering resources from other projects.

Or perhaps the usurping of the Chief Justice’s residence wasn’t really necessary in the first place, occurring solely as signal to the Governor that “The Man” is the boss, after Mr. Vereker failed to heed Cabinet’s advice on the appointment? It couldn’t be the latter could it? That would be juvenile.

But wait, there’s more. Bermuda Homes for Ministers for example. Unlike Bermuda Homes for Premiers, this initiative doesn’t house Cabinet Ministers; it manages their real estate portfolios through the Bermuda Housing Corporation (BHC).

In Dr. Brown’s case BHM even facilitated the sale of his Flatts property to the BHC – after the BHC renovated it at their expense – for a vastly inflated post-renovation price; all in the name of increasing the affordable housing pool of course.

And least we forget Bermuda Cars for Ministers, Bermuda Travel for Ministers, Bermuda Credit Cards for Ministers. But I digress.

If the Government felt the same sense of urgency at housing “people” as housing Premiers they might get somewhere. Instead we’ll hear that familiar refrain: “Another chance, give us another chance. It’s not our fault. More time, give us more time.”

Cabinet isn’t committed to public policy, they’re addicted to public relations, spending our tax dollars to buy more time and more perks. The results are self-evident.

Day after day, failed initiative after failed initiative, scandal after scandal, we’re treated to press conferences trotting out the usual litany of excuses and finger pointing, followed by hype promising an imminent turnaround, again.

The creative but doomed Bermuda Homes for People saga is all too illustrative of the cynicism, desperation and callous manipulation of this hapless government.

Only 3 short months ago, amid a climate of uncertainty, Government staged a high-profile publicity stunt known as the Bermuda Homes for People Lottery, surely aware that the project was closer to failure than success.

Undeterred, the Premier and his Housing Minister used the hopes and dreams of potential homeowners as currency to acquire more time, three months to be precise. The manufactured public scenes of Bermudians literally dancing in their seats at the news that they’d won a house in the BHP lottery will live in infamy. All that remains today is a short lived photo-op and a gushing headline.

A responsible government, a caring government, a competent government would have ensured that the project was secured, financed and well underway before raising the aspirations of Bermudians. Using aspiring homeowners as props in a stage-managed public relations sham is disgraceful.

The public are so justifiably cynical that there’s been relatively little reaction to the announcement of BHP’s collapse. Instead there’s only resignation; no not a Cabinet one, just that of a jaded and spurned public, resigned to these outcomes.

It’s all too typical. The seven year parade of empty promises and grandly titled initiatives heralding the next big thing will continue unabated. Bermuda isn’t at a crossroads as the Premier said in his televised speech, we’re trapped in a house of smoke and mirrors. Political vaporware is the primary product of the New Bermuda, spewed out as glossy mailings, newspaper ads, press conferences and self-congratulatory speeches promising that more will be promised.

But there’s an elephant in the room, a huge one.

Few people are willing to say it out loud but everyone is thinking it: If this Government is so incompetent that they can’t build a house, what makes them think they can build a country?

RG Opinion (10 Aug. 2005)

I’d always been under the impression that boycotting The Royal Gazette was a point of pride for PLP Cabinet Ministers. So it was indeed a surprise to see the Minister of Education himself responding to my column of July 26th entitled ‘The Abysmal State of Our Schools’, which called for a public inquiry into the continuing failure of public education in preparing our young people to participate in our prosperous economy.

Other than the unbecoming tone, Mr. Lister’s response was notable for its evasiveness on an issue of increasing concern island-wide: that with a 47% failure rate the public education system fails about as many students as it graduates, while Bermuda’s economy demands record numbers of highly educated workers.

It gets worse. Exacerbating this declining education rate is the Government-led expectations raising game around the right to a high-level high-paying job. The result? Surrounded by wealth, yet not equipped with the qualifications or skills to perform at the required level to share in it, too many of the inadequately educated turn to an alternative lifestyle.

It’s little surprise then that the ill-tempered Minister resorted to lashing out at those of us who have publicly expressed our concern, disappointment and justifiable outrage that a growing segment of Bermuda’s young people face economic marginalization by a failing education system.

I for one will not sit silently, or be silenced as the Minister attempts, while bureaucratic incompetence and a lack of political will produces declining standards and plumbs new depths of futility.

And I’m not alone. Approximately 40% of Bermuda’s children are already enrolled in private education, indicating that the community has rendered its verdict: there isn’t a crisis of confidence in public education, there’s simply no confidence in it. Mr. Lister seems blissfully unaware of this fact.

He rants that people like me who “make blanket statements that condemn a whole system” need to “step up to the plate” to offer assistance, suggesting that the Minister broke rank and subscribed to The Royal Gazette in March of 2005.

Why? Well, in February of this year I wrote consecutive columns on the problems in, and a potential solution for, public education. The first was published on Feb. 1st and the second on the 8th, entitled Education: The other "E" word and "Set Bermuda’s schools free" respectively.

It was then that I discussed the decline of public education and proposed replacing the bureaucracy with elected school boards to introduce competition and accountability and eliminate the counter-productive meddling of career bureaucrats and politicians.

Unfortunately the Minister wasn’t interested in responding to those columns. Of course he is entitled to disagree with my proposals, but he’s just plain wrong in suggesting that those worried about public education are insincere, partisan and unfair.

Mr. Lister in his letter went on the offensive, calling me ‘intellectually dishonest” for failing to acknowledge the variety of factors that impact on student success, something previously addressed in those February columns. But for the Minister’s benefit, and as he failed to name any factors himself, I’ll provide the relevant quote:

“And while there are many factors that have led to where we are today, the most significant must be a tolerance for low standards, poor discipline, an inadequate curriculum, social promotion and a bureaucracy that seems to answer to no-one.”

The Minister goes on to assert that those of us who condemn the 53% graduation rate as inadequate are insulting the teachers, students, parents, scholarship recipients and graduates of public schools, as if the rate itself isn’t insulting enough.

But again, and for his benefit, I’ll direct him to my column of Feb. 1st where I wrote:

“It’s also important not to condemn everything and everyone within the public school system. We can all point to success stories – incredibly dedicated and effective teachers, successful schools, or students who have succeeded in spite of the system – but somewhere, something is terribly broken. And when something is terribly broken the answer is not to play on the fringes as we’ve been content to do.”

Perhaps then, if the Minister cares to respond again, he’ll dispense with the all too familiar diversionary personal attacks and turn his attention to my challenge for a public inquiry into public education?

Petty insults and vilification aside, Mr. Lister’s 423 words were very educational; they provided indisputable empirical evidence of what is wrong with the administration of public education, leaving me doubly concerned about the prospects for a turnaround.

Firstly, the Minister (and his Ministry) refuses to acknowledge that the system is broken, easily the most significant impediment to change. He even chides me for my inability to “acknowledge anything positive that comes out of this Government”. Is he serious? What was he expecting, a victory parade through town – complete with honking convertibles – to celebrate the 53% graduation rate achieved on his watch?

The Minister’s response also adopted the tried and true tactic of blaming others, having us believe that those who demand a better public education system are the problem. He argues that the parents of the 40% who have walked away from public schooling have no right to comment on the quality of public education as they have no “intention to associate themselves with the Bermuda Public School [sic], no matter how good it may ever become.” Because of course, hard working-Bermudians relish forking out tens of thousands of our hard-earned dollars annually to educate our children outside of a system we also fund through hefty taxes.

But did he really say “no matter how good it may ever become”? Wow. Maybe the Minister, unintentionally, did admit that the system is broken. That brief statement exemplifies the defeatist attitude prevalent among the administrators of public education. Evidently the Minister has little confidence that it will ever improve.

How’s about some bold confidence and optimism – backed up with proposals for comprehensive reform and measures to gauge their impact – that the public school system can and will be the first choice for every parent in Bermuda, as it should? How’s about some specifics to convince that 40% to entrust our children’s futures to the habitually failing Ministry of Education?

A few ideas from the Minister himself would have been welcome. Sadly they were glaringly absent. In their place was a call for everyone else to “step up to the plate and to offer tangible assistance in terms of their time to assist those who are in need.”

Which is yet another of the monumental problems holding back the public schools; those in charge at the highest levels are clueless. Not knowing where to start, they’ve resorted to chastising the community for not coming up with the answer; the ones that the professional educators and politicians lack. If this isn’t a sign that it’s past time to close the doors on the Ministry, nothing is.

But isn’t it precisely the Minister’s job to offer solutions? And Mr. Lister is the Minister right; or is he just a bad-tempered cheerleader for a failing system? Surely he was appointed to improve things? Was the Minister of Education really berating Bermudians for not offering solutions, when he himself offered not one in his rebuttal to my column?

If Mr. Lister really wants those of us who fault the system to get involved, then I’m confident that he will lend his whole-hearted support to a public inquiry. If he’s really so confident that things are going well in the Ministry then there’s nothing to fear is there?

Hell, we’ve thrown every taxpayer resource and 6 months at the Bermuda Independence Commission, an initiative that two thirds of Bermudians actually want to fail. Surely public education – something we all want to succeed – deserves the same treatment, or better. Or does it not warrant the same sense of urgency and high-priority that Independence does in the Cabinet Office?

So will you step up to the plate and appoint a Bermuda Education Commission, Mr. Lister? Will you send them off to investigate jurisdictions which have successfully reversed their educational decline? Will Cabinet bring in foreign experts to tell us where we need to go? Will the Minister invite public input at town hall meetings, with these experts in attendance? Will Cabinet release the BEC’s report, in full, at its conclusion?

Well, Mr. Minister. Will you?

RG Opinion (26 July, 2005)

The smoke over Serpentine Road had barely cleared before the politicians began circling, the Letters to the Editor flowed in and the talk show phones began ringing. Everyone it seemed was uncharacteristically singing from the same hymn sheet calling for a public inquiry into the fire and ensuing catastrophic power outage of July 14th.

Right on cue BELCO’s board announced a committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the fire; a reasonable and rapid response after a power outage wrought with potentially far reaching implications had gripped the island.

In their defense however, BELCO has an enviable track record of providing reliable – albeit expensive – electricity to Bermuda; non-storm related outages are a rarity, with an uptime of probably over 99%, which isn’t too shabby really.

But if you compare BELCO’s product with that of the Ministry of Education, you get a vastly different story.

That our public schools are in disarray is not news. What was news though, terrible news to be precise, was the recent announcement that our Government schools achieve a 53% graduation rate (or more accurately fail 47% of their students).

To put this into perspective, if BELCO performed at the levels of the Ministry of Education (with a 47% failure rate) we’d be in the dark for 11 hours daily.

So where’s the public inquiry into the chronic intellectual power shortage in our public school system? How can we be up in arms over an unprecedented 48 hour power outage but seem largely ambivalent over this? Why so few Letters to the Editor? Why are the talk shows so quiet? Where’s the Government’s plan to turn this around…immediately?

Almost two weeks ago the Premier did say that it is his Government’s “responsibility to ensure the public interest is always safeguarded and [I] support an investigation." Unfortunately the topic was BELCO, not one of his underperforming Ministries.

Surely education is in the public interest? So by the Premier's own standards we should be investigating the ongoing catastrophe that is the public education system?

One thing’s for sure though. Things are never this quiet when the social impact of the education system hits the headlines. Articles about Bermudianisation, crime, economic empowerment or racial inequities in the workplace inevitably trigger painfully predictable but non-solution oriented hand-wringing and finger-pointing.

If we spent half as much time focusing on the abysmal state of public education – the root of almost every social problem – as we do assigning blame for the issues it manifests, we might make some progress. At some point, hopefully not very far off, we as a community are going to have to stand up and say that enough is enough.

Successive Bermuda governments have spent plenty of time and ink heralding the Bermuda economic miracle, while neglecting to admit that we aren’t equipping the majority of our young people with the skills to participate in it.

“If we build it they will come” is the well known phrase; much like the movie Bermuda could be a Field of Dreams. But right now it isn’t. We built it alright, but without a strong education our children can only dream.

The continuing decline of tourism, coupled with the explosion of the Bermuda (re)insurance market in the 1990’s and again in 2001, has transformed our island into a highly successful and specialized economy reliant on a workforce of the best and the brightest.

We’re taking on the world, and they’re looking to knock us down. We’re not just attracting and competing against the best and the brightest within these 21 square miles, our corporations are competing (and winning) on global scale. Tragically, and despite the political rhetoric, this increasingly excludes Bermudians.

Recently the Deputy Premier displayed an impressively shameless level of political rhetoric, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, on this topic. A practitioner of managing perception but not reality, Dr. Brown predictably heaped praise on primarily himself, but also his colleagues, for their successful implementation of the ultimate vote getter: Bermudianisation.

Only the facts aren’t on his side, as revealed in the Government’s own 2004 Economic Review. This report revealed that jobs held by Bermudians dropped by 1,372 positions from 28,717 in 1999 (the year the PLP was first elected) to 27,235 in 2004, while positions for non-Bermudians increased by 1,500, from 7,480 in 1999 to 8,980 in 2004. That’s a 2,872 job swing against Bermudians in just 5 years.

Notwithstanding Dr. Brown’s well-known penchant for misleading the public, we shouldn’t be surprised. This trend will continue unless and until we demand a stop to the rot in public education. This Government’s obsessive political pandering is completely counterproductive in the face of a failing education system.

Raising expectations, while simultaneously failing half of our people, is an explosive mix. It will take far more than the Government’s vacuous Social Agenda to remedy this situation.

Public education looms large as the potential downfall of Bermuda. Our international companies might be willing to absorb slightly higher taxes and operating costs, or tolerate a growing bureaucracy, but they won’t compromise on the quality of staff they can hire.

Throw our immigration policies into the mix and reality hits. Businesses in need of an educated workforce will look to import more foreign workers for the positions we haven’t prepared ourselves for, or leave. As locals become increasingly excluded from their own economy we’ll see more social unrest, crime and poverty to name just a few problems.

We’ve built it. Let’s make sure our people can come. It’s time for a public inquiry into public education.

RG Opinion (28 June, 2005)

One would think, or perhaps hope, in the post BHC and current Pay to Play era, that a Parliamentary debate on the need to strengthen Bermuda’s anti-corruption laws would usher in a rare afternoon of bi-partisanship.

One would also think the debate to be a no-brainer; the parties falling over themselves to demonstrate their commitment to impeccable ethics, high standards of conduct, and clear rules and remedies to address abuses of power or position by public servants.

Sadly, and predictably for the cynics, this wasn’t the case. Instead the integrity and credibility gap between Bermuda’s political parties deepened.

Representing the Government with their trademark “strong leadership” was the grand total of two Ministers. The Premier, who really had no choice but to speak, led off for his side, and was followed shortly after by Minister Michael Scott.

And that was it for our soon-to-be-higher paid Cabinet Ministers. No Deputy Premier Brown. No Finance Minister Cox. Nada. And it wasn’t only Cabinet that displayed a remarkable lack of interest in preventing corruption. Only one Government backbencher found the energy to contribute as well, and that was Alex Scott nemesis and ex-Minister Renee Webb.

The UBP’s speakers included the Opposition Leader, who brought the motion and led the debate, plus 6 more of his colleagues. For the non-math inclined, that’s seven – or 50% – of the UBP’s members, versus three – or 13% – of the PLP’s.

After the Government’s anemic presentation it was evident that Bermudians were being presented with a stark choice between two very different philosophies:

The PLP Government has adopted the “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” approach; not quite what the public look for in ‘progressive’ legislators. The UBP on the other hand, followed the philosophy of that great philosopher of the modern era, Google; “don’t be evil” is the mantra that the internet company’s employees live by.

It’s hard to argue with the latter approach to doing business, even harder when it’s the people’s business. But, in one of their more bizarre moments, the PLP Government did.

The Premier maintained that the mere mention of corruption, even efforts to prevent or eliminate it, can “taint outside countries views of us … It can do an injury to this country if someone launches on such a campaign.”

Huh? Let’s examine that for a second. The highest public office holder in the country doesn’t even want us to discuss ways to tackle corruption, because it will make people think we have a problem with corruption, and then they won’t think well of us?

What? If the Premier was even slightly informed he’d be aware that corruption is one of the things that is holding back aid to many developing nations, that it discourages private sector investment, and is the kiss of death to reputable jurisdictions.

So was the Premier’s head in the sand approach – and outright denial of public sector corruption – credible or was it just more of his incessant and increasingly desperate spin?

Well, let’s turn to the Premier himself to clear that one up. Now we know that Mr. Scott claims to distrust the press, so it’s probably best to refresh his memory with his own statements.

A little more than a year ago, in the wake of the Auditor’s BHC report and the Police’s “unethical but not illegal” investigation, “The Man” himself promised an update to our antiquated anti-corruption legislation?

More recently, less than two months ago – May 5th to be precise, the Premier gave the following commitment during his televised “Address to the Nation”:

“I have also directed my Ministers to ensure that in their conduct, at home and abroad, that they recommit themselves to the path of integrity, respect for others and good governance.”

Call me crazy, but ordinarily you don’t need to ask your Cabinet to individually “recommit” to the path of integrity and good governance unless the previous commitment has lapsed.

The only reasonable conclusion then is that the Accidental Premier has either had a change of heart, or decided to validate the old joke that “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt”.

It could be denial. Mr. Scott and his colleagues wouldn’t be the first Government to lose touch with reality.

Alternatively it could be a deliberate strategy. Aware that they are spent, devoid of energy and ideas, the PLP Government might have opted to manage perception rather than the problem.

Could it be that the PLP Government is implementing its very own version of a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?

If we don’t talk about corruption it won’t exist. If the press would just stop printing the details of our increasingly frequent and severe incidents of violent crime, then we won’t have one. If the public would stop complaining about the lack of affordable housing then it would all be affordable. Plunging air-arrivals? Don’t mention it, tourism’s great. Wave your flag, drink some ginger beer!

Why talk about anything at all in fact? We can just pretend that our problems don’t exist, and they won’t! Governing is much easier that way, for the Government at least.

Once this whole range of issues is removed from the public arena, important time can be spent debating the real issues: like how close GP1 can be parked to the Premier’s jet; or how much Cabinet can pay themselves; or how fashionably late one should arrive to a cocktail party.

That’ll help outsiders think of us in the right light. We’d hate them to think of us as a jurisdiction with zero tolerance for corruption.

RG Opinion (14 June 2005)

In politics it seems that the more things change the more they stay the same. So what’s changing? Nothing, except our MPs pay that is. And that’s the problem.

Two weeks ago, when the Premier moved a bill through Parliament creating an independent committee – no not an Independence committee, another ‘impartial’ one – to look into how much our MPs are paid, a glaring question arose: That’s it? That’s all they’re looking into?

Increasing the salaries of our Cabinet Ministers, MPs & Senators should be the last step of any Parliamentary reform. It’s definitely not the first, and absolutely not the first and last.

A good start would have been, oh let’s say just to pick one, the tabling of that promised but yet to materialise modernization of our anti-corruption laws. Remember those? The evidently antiquated laws that seemed to have been exploited so adeptly n the dead on arrival, “unethical but not illegal”, Cabinet Minister implicating, BHC scandal.

A good next step would then have been a Parliamentary Code of Conduct.

Where are those updates and why are they less important that what our MPs make?

If Bermuda’s MPs want to be paid like their peers in other jurisdictions, while operating with far less accountability and much less openness, then it’s time for a reality check.

Our MPs, and Cabinet in particular, might think that their salaries reflect a time gone by, but more importantly the way Parliament operates, and some of our laws, reflect a system suffering from serious neglect.

Bermuda’s Parliament is frozen in time, and until the Government shows an interest in ending the Ice Age, their salaries should suffer the same fate.

Pushing through significant pay hikes in the absence of long overdue reforms to our prehistoric legislature (and legislators in some cases) is pretty rich; notwithstanding the Premier’s declaration in Parliament that he’s "one of the poorest Premiers" in one of the richest countries in the world.

The Government’s priorities are telling, although it probably shouldn’t be surprising that the only reforms that interest them are the ones that benefit them directly and financially.

But what about us, the public? Remember us, the folks whose interests are supposed to come before those of our elected representatives?

Any increase in pay must be contingent on an increase in accountability, notwithstanding the Cabinet battle cry of “We’re full-time, and deserve to paid that way”.

Have you paid a visit to Parliament lately? If you did, you’d better have made it before 3PM, because our MPs are rarely there much later, and often not there when it’s in session.

The Alex Scott era has been notable for its lack of legislative action. Using Parliamentary activity as a measure would suggest that our MPs should be giving us a refund.

Currently, their one day work week begins at the crack of dawn – Pacific time that is, 10AM here – before breaking two and a half hours later for an hour and a half lunch. Then it’s back to work at 2PM, all to be hopefully wrapped up by shortly after.

As if that’s not bad enough, that’s been going on while the Opposition has been busy tabling almost as many of their own motions for debate – when they’re allowed to that is – as our ‘full-time Ministers’ are tabling legislation.

Legislation we’ll inevitably be told isn’t everything, you can’t forget the day-to-day administration of Government. That was clearly the case the Premier was struggling to make in Parliament and the press, and carries some weight.

But if you’re full-time and producing part-time results then you deserve to be paid that way. And that’s the case, with a notable lack of progress on the major social issues that the Government is supposed to be addressing, coupled with some outright disasters and a series of ongoing scandals.

Where are the results on affordable housing? What’s being done to tackle rising violent crime? Where’s the improvement in public education? And press releases and press conferences don’t count. That’s procrastination, not progress.

Why is it that the only time we get a bi-partisan committee to review something is when the Cabinet wants to put some distance between themselves and initiatives that are sure to go down as well as … well, Independence for one?

Where are the bi-partisan committees to tackle our issues, not the ones that benefit our politicians?

If our MPs, and Cabinet in particular, want to be compensated in line other Legislatures, then it’s high time to adopt the standards and procedures that are in place in those areas used to justify this money grab, to complement the Independence power grab.

When will the Government support UBP MP John Barritt’s efforts to update the rules of House, which haven’t been reviewed in decades, for example? Why won’t the existing Parliamentary committees meet in public, as the Opposition Leader proposed for the Public Accounts Committee for example?

Why isn’t Parliament televised? Where are the official transcripts of Parliamentary sessions? Where is the official Parliamentary website? Why is there no set Parliamentary question-time, as in other modern Westminster systems? The list is long and ignoble.

Bermuda’s MP’s might think their pay is outdated, but the manner in which they operate reflects a bygone era. Until Bermuda’s Parliamentarians decide to operate like a modern democracy, they don’t deserve to be paid like modern legislators.

If it’s time to "Show me the money", it’s also time to "Show us the accountability".

RG Opinion (June 1, 2005)

Needed: an alternative vision

Two weeks ago, I drew some parallels between Bermuda and America’s political parties, their shared tactical approaches and similar political fortunes. Recent political events have revealed some compelling similarities between the electoral strategies of the PLP and the Republicans, and the struggles of the UBP and the Democrats.

In short, today the PLP and the Republicans are largely ideological organizations, increasingly beholden to their fringe elements. Conversely the UBP and the Democrats exist as broader coalitions, but ones who’ve struggled to define themselves concisely as a compelling choice.

Will this pattern continue to play itself out? Will the diverse and less ideological nature of the UBP and the Democrats consign them to minority status for the foreseeable future?

Not necessarily.

The seven years that the UBP have now spent in Opposition, and the Democrat’s eleven (since the 1994 mid-term Congressional elections) should be seen as opportunities, not low points.

The UBP’s thirty-plus years of uninterrupted electoral success isn’t just enviable, it’s remarkable. It would also have been isolating. Look at today. We have a governing party in its seventh, not thirtieth year at the helm, which has rapidly isolated itself and is now catering to its extreme wing in an attempt to cling to power.

This self-professed but increasingly distant “People’s Government” has developed a dangerous addiction to polling and consultants as replacement therapy for that unpleasant task of mingling with the masses; an activity which would entail venturing from behind the rapidly expanding wall of taxpayer funded spin doctors, a.k.a. the Department of Communication and Information.

This self-imposed distance presents an invaluable opportunity for a challenger to reconnect with the public, return to and refine their core values, and most importantly communicate a sincere, inspiring and achievable vision for the future.

The recent elections in the UK, Australia and somewhat less so the US, are very important indicators. In all three cases the governing parties and their leaders were returned, despite meaningful public opposition to their major policy item – the Iraqi war.

In our case some might be inclined to site back and assume that the outrageously unpopular issue of Independence, or the ethical morass which the Government delights in, will automatically result in an electoral backlash.

While it is indeed important for the UBP to remind the public of the PLP Government’s seven year campaign of un-ambitious but failed initiatives, widespread ethical abuses and arrogance, this alone isn’t enough.

This message is only one part of a multi-pronged strategy. It must be coupled with a vision of hope and inspiration, progress and accountability, openness and reform.

Unlike the PLP, whose recent electoral success has been built on the back of two race-based campaigns, the UBP cannot win through division. At the risk of stating the obvious: this is a good thing.

Acutely aware of this reality, the party is carefully cultivating an enduring electoral majority that embraces collaboration and partnership and rejects division and manufactured conflict.

What the PLP consider the UBP’s weakness – their diversity – is in fact the party’s greatest asset. Polarizing campaigns of division and the cynical exploitation of sensitive issues for short term political gain can’t and won’t succeed forever.

The UBP’s very existence is predicated on building partnerships, the pooling of ideas and experiences to achieve consensus and a way forward. A race-based approach of carving up the electorate into opposing factions won’t work for a coalition building organization.

We’re a diverse island, and not just racially. We’ve all come from a variety of countries, economic backgrounds, religious beliefs and political ideologies. The UBP, while not perfect, is representative of our community.

The vast majority of the population however is not ideological, but pragmatic, having rapidly tired of the old campaigns of distortion and division.

Whoever steps forward with a courageous and compelling message of hope and opportunity through shared experience and sacrifice will ultimately succeed, by building that elusive and enduring electoral majority, leading us into the future together.

There is only one political team currently positioned to, or remotely interested in, delivering that. All indications are that two years into this second potentially five year term the UBP understand and accept this responsibility. They can do more, and do it better, but they’ve clearly made it their priority.

Opposition parties that take a short term approach, never articulating an alternative vision, will never fully capture the electorate’s hearts and minds. While conventional wisdom might suggest that the Westminster system structure is limiting to challengers, this doesn’t have to be the case.

By aggressively detailing its own agenda, standing up for an ignored and rebuked electorate, tabling draft legislation and motions, and outlining its plans for housing, crime, education, tourism and economic empowerment among others, the UBP is charting its own Parliamentary course; differentiating themselves while responding to the PLP Government’s myriad of failures.

This is highlighting not only the PLP Government’s chronic failure to deliver anything other than glossy brochures and staged press events, but it methodically lays out the agenda of an alternative Government.

Success will not be built on political rhetoric – that’s for the Premier and his televised addresses – but through the development of a tangible and comprehensive alternative vision; one of hope and inspiration, progress and accountability and openness and reform.

RG Opinion (May 25, 2005)

A lesson in absolute power

There are times when even the most overused of overused clichés must be invoked, so here goes: Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

On Friday the PLP Government showed their true intentions and went simultaneously for absolute power and huge pay raises.

Only weeks ago, in his televised address, the Premier proudly proclaimed that although his Government could “arguably be justly accused of over-consulting with the public” that he had directed his Ministers “to ensure that consultation continues to be one of the hallmarks of our administration”.

I guess Mr. De Vent missed that meeting. Either that, or the 180 Prospect residents who signed a letter to the Minister protesting his lack of promised consultation are lying.

So not surprisingly, if you’ve been following the long-running dispute between the PLP Government and the Prospect residents, UBP MP John Barritt tabled – or at least attempted to – a motion deploring “the failure of Housing Minister Ashfield DeVent to consult with residents of Mary Victoria and Alexandra Road” – as guaranteed – over the expansion of housing units in the area.

The Premier and the Speaker then embarked on a direct assault on the several hundred residents, the United Bermuda Party and our democracy itself, by blocking – without explanation – the Opposition’s motion, all because it didn’t suit them.

No reason was offered, no rule was produced, just shouts from the Premier that “You’re getting a lesson how!” amid mocking cat calls from the Government backbenches. Then, in a shocking move, the Speaker decided to call a vote on whether the UBP should be permitted to give voice to the concerns of the Prospect residents.

When a governing party – who gained 51% of the vote – decides that the Opposition party – who gained 49% of the vote – doesn’t have the right to participate, our democracy ceases to function.

But just as disturbing as the Government’s attempt to deny a voice to the Prospect residents are the actions of the Speaker.

Speaker Lowe’s complete about face – after previously indicating that the motion was suitable – is simply stunning. Speakers swear to operate with impartiality. Yet Mr. Lowe went along with this anti-democratic move, the strings from his puppet masters clearly evident.

The Speaker, the Premier or anyone else for that matter, are yet to produce one shred of evidence to support their claim that this is within the rules and normal procedure.

This deplorable sequence of events brings to mind that other defining rallying cry of a former PLP Senator: “We don’t care what you think!” Evidently not, disagree “at your peril” it would seem.

There’s substantial precedent, both in Bermuda and other Westminster systems, for motions of censure or no-confidence; the latter designed to force an early election. In fact, just to our north the Canadian Parliament is going through this exact scenario.

But no, not in Bermuda. In the New Bermuda the Government alone decides what can be debated.

Friday’s events were a complete affront to established Westminster Parliamentary process. According to the foremost authority of Parliamentary procedure, Erskine May’s “Parliamentary Process”, there are few circumstances under which members can object to a motion.

These rare exceptions include motions that ‘anticipate’ another pending debate; opposition motions with financial implications; or motions which are mocking in nature. None apply in this case.

To the contrary, the Government is mocking the people of Propsect, deeming them irrelevant and unworthy of Parliamentary representation.

This all feels very, well, Cuban.

Unlike the PLP Government’s Cuban comrades however, we aren’t a one party state, no matter how much the Government might want to “Make it Happen”.

Premier Scott’s comment that “You're getting a lesson now!” is a new low, and that’s saying something. It reveals a willful and intentional disdain for our democratic process and renders insignificant the concerns of hundreds of Bermudians.

This latest escalation in the campaign to stifle any and all voices of reason or opposition – and 49% of the population’s right to Parliamentary representation – is an outrage. It’s also only the latest of many moves in a pattern of hostility for democracy and our democratic institutions.

The list of abuses is long and shameful: There’s the secretive “cultural” agreement with the brutal communist dictatorship in Cuba – which at this stage we can only believe means the importation of Cuba’s single party system; Mr. Scott’s failure, as Works and Engineering Minister, to adequately account for taxpayer funds in the form of the $700,000 bond payment to Pro-Active; the now-Premier’s subsequent call for the replacement of the Auditor, because he had the audacity to state the truth; a myriad of delayed or unreleased financial statements for Government departments or boards; a Deputy Premier and his cohorts who unapologetically misled because they “had to”; and of course the Premier’s stated desire to prevent the public voting directly on the unwanted issue of Independence.

Couple all this with the other move in Parliament on Friday, namely the intended desire of the Government to drastically hike their salaries, and it becomes abundantly clear that this PLP Government is most interested in absolute power, money, and little else.

RG Opinion (May 12, 2005)

Political parallels impossible to ignore

Bermuda and our American neighbours have a couple of odd political couples; the PLP are Bermuda’s Republicans and the UBP the Democrats.

This connection isn’t a philosophical one. In some cases the parties couldn’t be further apart, with significant ideological differences between the governing parties; opposite ends of the political spectrum to be precise.

The PLP remains bound to the 1960’s radical left, seeing themselves as an unfinished Black Nationalist movement. The Republicans on the other hand, are driven by their fiercely fiscal and socially conservative wing. Both however seem captive to their ideologues.

The out of power parties, the UBP and the Democrats, have a little more in common philosophically. Generally speaking, the UBP are more fiscally conservative than the Democrats but share the social focus. The UBP governed much in the vein of the centrist New Democrat wing or Clinton’s “Third Way” approach; a coupling of centre-right fiscal policy with a centre-left social focus.

But focusing on the current plights of the parties, as seen through their recent electoral experiences and tactical choices, reveals some striking parallels. In fact, they’re impossible to ignore. This shared history of recent electoral success and failure is compelling.

Like the Republicans, the PLP command a strong Parliamentary majority but are not without a weakness that their opponents are yet to fully exploit. Some of this is to do with tactics, some the benefits of incumbency, but mostly it’s due to the nature of the organizations.

The PLP’s core membership, like today’s Republicans, are ideologically driven and intensely focused on a couple of almost universally agreed on core issues.

Republicans are united around lower taxes and smaller government, recently complimented by “Guns, God and Gays” and the “War on Terror”. The PLP’s equivalent is even more simple, and obvious; black versus white.

Simple philosophies, simple messages.

The Democrats and the UBP however don’t enjoy this luxury, being compilations of broader less cohesive coalitions – alliances of diverse political philosophies and goals. Consequently these less ideological parties struggle to define themselves clearly and concisely, with a tendency to wander off into public policy minutiae; compelling stuff for policy wonks, but a turn off to voters.

These structural realities manifest themselves, both during and between elections, in vastly different ways that have largely determined the parties’ political fortunes.

Ideological organizations like the PLP and the GOP prefer a polarized electorate. In both Bermuda and America this is achieved through the masterful exploitation of specific issues.

This strategy rallies their base by driving discussion into their comfort zone, oftentimes turning an opponents seeming advantage into their biggest liability. These current governing parties are also extremely adept at demonizing their opponents, with an often devastating impact.

The shared values between the PLP and the Republican Party are undeniable. Recent events alone provide a number of compelling examples.

America’s 2004 campaign saw the rise of “moral issues” in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The electorate became polarized, the focus shifted and the religious right energized.

These moral issues were coupled with a devastating attack on the war record and patriotism of Democratic candidate John Kerry, arguably his greatest – some would say sole – asset. The Democratic challenger spent the rest of the campaign defending his war record, fighting accusations of flip-flopping and being against “people of faith”.

Shortly after Bush’s November victory, the proposed amendment’s purpose achieved, the constitutional change – which would never have succeeded – was quietly and not surprisingly dropped.

Across the pond, in the waning days of the 2003 Bermuda election campaign, the PLP Government dropped a bomb, suddenly introducing mandatory term limits for all work permit holders. This proposal, also quietly revoked after the election, took the UBP off guard and positioned the PLP as the defenders of Bermudians and the UBP as pro-foreigner (despite the growing ratio of foreign to Bermudian workers during the PLP’s tenure).

Alongside this was a campaign of racial demagoguery in the form of incendiary radio ads and PLP rallies, where Bermudians were advised that the UBP’s black candidates were in fact just “sun-tanned” and not to vote themselves “back on the plantation”. The old battle lines were redrawn, turning the UBP’s asset of racial diversity into a liability.

While not particularly subtle strategies, these could easily have delivered the 70 or so votes across the island, preventing our election resulting in an 18-18 stalemate, and in George Bush’s case, the critical swing state of Ohio.

The parallels continue to this day. Both countries leaders have been unable to advance an agenda, lacking political capital, albeit for different reasons.

George Bush, unable to run for re-election, is fighting early lame-duck status, while Alex Scott’s installation after the Great Deception of 2003 has left him with a fractured Cabinet and no mandate.

Both leaders, perhaps unwisely, tied their political fates to hugely unpopular initiatives; Social Security privatization and Independence. Neither issue has found traction. So George Bush went on a 60 day road show, Alex Scott sent out the BIC to sell independence.

The more people hear the less interested they are, as evidenced by plunging poll numbers both here and in the US. In similar attempts to stop the slide and leverage the bully pulpit of their offices, George Bush held only his fourth prime time press conference, one week later Premier Scott delivered his own prime time “Address to the Nation”.

So when faced with governing parties who appear to have over-reached, what must the UBP and the Democrats do?

To be continued next week…

RG Opinion (May 06, 2005)

Brown's razor just doesn't cut it

Occam’s Razor states that when faced with multiple explanations for an event, the simplest one, or the one which requires the fewest assumptions, is preferred. Evidently the “pay-to-play” apologists aren’t aware of that principle.

In their desperation to conjure up innocent sounding explanations for these events – as many as possible in the hope that one might just stick – these lone rangers have concocted some rather complicated and unbelievable efforts. They get an ‘A’ for creativity but an ‘F’ for credibility.

The account which satisfies Occam’s Razor is in this case not only the simplest, but also the most obvious; that Tina Poitevien, the Bermuda Government’s US pensions consultant, targeted individuals for political “donations” based on their need to curry favour with herself and a Cabinet Minister.

Ms. Poitevien and Dr. Brown presented the invitees with an all too common dilemma in the investment industry; either comply, hopefully securing or increasing your position in Bermuda’s pension funds – a practice known as ‘pay-to-play’ – or decline and risk being shut out. That’s simple and believable. Occam would be proud.

Conversely, the apologists have relied on some absurd scenarios, including that Dr. Brown was close friends with all the invitees; that this couldn’t be “pay-to-play” because a sitting Cabinet Minister has no influence over the Bermuda pension funds; that those who attended didn’t gain any advantage; and that these non-Bermudians – whose sole interest in Bermuda is to profit from our pension funds – harboured a deep concern for our transportation issues. Oh, and we can’t forget the reliable great white conspiracy angle.

Let’s refer to the apologists’ strategy as Brown’s Razor.

Brown’s Razor, named after a politician who likes to live on the edge but constantly cuts it too close, states that when the obvious explanation isn’t convenient you fabricate new ones, however preposterous.

Give Dr. Brown his credit though. Aware that the cover-up is usually worse than the crime – just ask Bill Clinton – he’s clammed up, allowing lackeys to do his work. Rather than admit his indiscretion, he simply refuses to comment publicly, in the hope that it all just goes away.

But back to those other explanations.

The claim that Dr. Brown, a physician, has a vast network of American investment professional friends didn’t hold up for long, being swiftly debunked by The Mid Ocean News who had the crazy idea to call some of the invitees. “Who’s Brown?” was the response. Fancy that. Scratch that one off the list.

Next in line is the excuse which they’re perhaps the most optimistic about; that Dr. Brown does not control Bermuda’s pension funds. There are at least three immediate and obvious problems with that valiant effort.

When high-ranking politicians call, people take notice. Exhibit A: with one phone call Health Minister Patrice Minors was able to secure alternative Government accommodation for her father above other likewise displaced and desperate Anchorage Road residents. Sure, she wasn’t the Housing Minister, but she placed a call and the machinery kicked into high gear.

The idea that a “fundraising” request – for people financially dependent on remaining in the good graces of the Bermuda Government – to a powerful Government MP positioning himself to become the next Premier, wouldn’t bring pressure to bear, is either naïve or insincere.

Secondly, Cabinet Ministers operate under a system of collective responsibility where they sit as equals and take decisions collectively. If a Minister wanted to make his feelings about an investment manager known, he could simply raise the issue with one or all of his colleagues, who could in turn direct the Public Funds Investment Committee (PFIC) to rectify the situation.

Thirdly, the honouree of the luncheon alone, a Cabinet Minister, would have been intimidating. This invite contained a double whammy though; the host of this luncheon was Tina Poitevien, advisor to the PFIC and maybe not coincidentally a friend (this time for real) of Dr. Brown.

Rejecting the invitation, or accepting but failing to write the $2,500 cheque – an amount larger than the maximum contribution Americans can make to their own candidates – clearly ran the risk of negatively impacting the individual’s firm.

Next excuse? Those who “played” didn’t get “paid”.

Maybe. Or more probably, not yet. We just don’t know, because the payoff doesn’t have to be immediate. The one thing that we do know however is that Bermuda’s pension funds are now linked to “pay to play”.

Then there’s the claim that these American investment professionals – with no other connection to Bermuda – secretly harboured an interest in Dr. Brown because of his role as Transport Minister.

That statement is so implausible it’s hardly worthy of a response. What interest would American investment firms have in Dr. Brown’s fast ferries, or GPS for example? They wouldn’t. It’s an absurd suggestion, and one doesn’t come remotely close to passing the smell test.

Finally, and most predictably, the age old argument of last but often first resort; the great white conspiracy angle.

The only colour in this scandal is green, the colour of money. It’s not that complicated.

There’s no innocent explanation for this event. Either you “paid and played”, gaining a preferred position with a Cabinet Minister and his influential consultant buddy; “paid and got played”, by ponying up the cash but failing to see your firm benefit; or rejected the invitation and expected retribution.

Brown’s Razor just doesn’t cut it.

RG Opinion (27 Apr. 2005)

This isn't about race, it's about integrity

In the wake of the pay for play scandal, Dr. Brown has been conspicuously and uncharacteristically absent in the press; quite a departure from his track-record of almost daily press conferences. That the Transport Minister has an affinity for air travel – with his shoes on please – is well known, making his journey underground all the more notable.

Despite this attempt to stay out of the spotlight – in the hope that silence will starve the scandal to death – new details continue to emerge. The ethical and legal questions persist for both Dr. Brown and his pension fund consultant buddy Tina Poitevien.

Other than the usual suspects, no-one has been brave enough to publicly defend the ‘fundraising’ luncheon held in Washington DC. The lone voices who dared venture out have – setting aside the predictably desperate insertion of race – professed Dr. Brown’s innocence on the basis of his lack of direct involvement in Bermuda’s pension fund administration, coupled with the suggestion that those who “played” didn’t get “paid” – other than the Transport Minister that is.

Those issues however amount to only a fraction of the problem. Favourable responses to them all wouldn’t put to bed some of the more disturbing aspects of this still young scandal.

Setting aside the specifics of ‘pay for play’ for the moment, there are some other disturbing aspects to the DC event which haven’t received much attention, but are particularly troubling.

For a Cabinet Minister to use a Government consultant, and a foreign one at that, to organize a political fundraiser is highly inappropriate and compromising for both parties. Consultants working for the Bermuda Government, like civil servants, serve the people of Bermuda not a political party. Under no circumstances should they offer, be invited, or be allowed, to become involved in local politics.

The moment Dr. Brown used Ms. Poitevein as his overseas fundraiser, whether paid or not, he brought himself, her, and the integrity of the Bermuda pension funds into question. Furthermore, the disclosure that Ms. Poitevein is a close friend of Dr. Brown only raises more questions about her appointment as a consultant in the first place.

Unless you support taxpayer funding of political parties and electoral campaigns, donations are a necessary evil in politics. The parties and their candidates incur expenses during and between elections, and should be able to cover these costs through legitimate and ethical fundraising. A political party unable to find financial support for their candidacy is unlikely to be able to attract voters to the polls.

But this scandal shouldn’t be confused with normal political fundraising. The idea of Bermudian MPs fundraising and accepting money from foreigners, in a foreign country, is unsettling.

Many countries expressly prohibit political fundraising from foreign sources as it tends to corrupt the electoral process by raising a litany of murky issues around the motivations and allegiances of both the donors and the recipients.

In Dr. Brown’s case, his Washington DC fundraising efforts were aimed at the employees of foreign corporations with no physical presence in Bermuda, but a vested economic interest in our pension funds. Not much good can be read into that.

Next in the list of worrying non-“pay for play” aspects to this saga, is the solicitation for “cheques payable to Dr. Ewart Brown (PLP)”. Any MP, let alone a Cabinet Minister, who accepted cheques made out to them personally – bracketed “PLP” notwithstanding – is reckless at best or misusing their public office for personal financial gain at worst; a “shakedown” as they say.

Despite the claim that this was an innocent political fund-raising event, those cheques present as much evidence to support that conclusion as the following alternative one: that Dr. Brown was using his Cabinet position to raise funds from the Bermuda Government’s overseas money-managers for his personal use.

Bermuda’s political parties and their branches should and do maintain their own bank accounts. Donations should never, ever, be payable to an individual MP, but their branch, “PLP Warwick South Central Branch” for example; not “Dr. Ewart Brown (PLP)”. There’s absolutely nothing preventing those cheques from being deposited in Dr. Brown’s private bank account, never to be used for any political purpose whatsoever.

Finally, everyone knows that in Bermuda you’ve got to “Pay and Display”. The exemption granted by the Transport Minister to his Cabinet colleagues and their oversized cars at the airport doesn’t apply in Parliament.

According to MP Trevor Moniz, the monitor of the Parliamentary Register of Interests, Dr. Brown failed to declare the Washington DC transactions as required; the second known failure by the Deputy Premier to comply with financial disclosure requirements. The Minister also failed to disclose the controversial and lucrative sale of a property to the Bermuda Housing Corporation.

This cavalier attitude towards the Parliamentary Register of Interests, an important tool to protect the electorate from abuses of power and conflicts of interests by our elected officials, is worrying in the extreme.

Public disclosure of financial information for Bermuda’s MPs isn’t particularly onerous; in fact it’s completely inadequate. The Register of Interests is not a minor nuisance to be ignored at will, but even its minimal requirements appear to be too much for Dr. Brown.

The repeated failure to comply with Parliamentary rules is disturbing, before even considering the ‘pay for play’ aspects of the fundraiser. Additionally, the circumstances surrounding the Washington DC luncheon indicate either a terrible lack of judgment by Dr. Brown (and Ms. Poitevein), or an MP with appalling ethical standards rendering him unsuitable for public office.

Any of these issues individually, let alone combined, warrant an immediate expulsion from Cabinet. A Premier who valued ethical conduct, and a Cabinet who weren’t willing to have their own reputations permanently tarnished, would draw a line in our pink sand and declare this conduct intolerable.

Bermuda is on a slippery slope where ethical standards are being rolled back, accountability measures for public officials are ignored, and modern disclosure requirements are dismissed as worthless.

The integrity of our political system is suffering terribly from the actions of a few.

RG Opinion (21 April 2005)

Pension funds are the new BHC

All modern political democracies are built on a system of checks and balances, Bermuda is no exception.

But while the principle of "checks and balances" usually refers to the separation of powers between branches of government, the PLP Cabinet seems to have a different take – cut me a cheque and increase my balance, principal not principle.

If you thought that the dead-on-arrival BHC investigation would put an end to the ‘unethical but not illegal’ campaigns, you’d be sadly mistaken. The revelations just keep on coming.

The Bermuda Government’s pension funds are the new BHC.

In the past few months alone we've learned that two Cabinet Ministers were involved in highly inappropriate activity.

First we saw a sitting Government Minister receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions for broking Government pensions into a company she was a major shareholder in.

Now, just weeks later, it has been revealed that a dozen or so current and prospective pension fund managers, who we were told just coincidentally happen to be Dr. Brown’s friends, each paid the then Transport Minister $2,500 for the pleasure of his company. If they weren’t his friends before the lunch – which now seems to be the case – I’m sure they were afterwards. Wasn’t that the whole point?

So what has been the official response to this latest scandal? We’re being asked to believe that this gathering of investment professionals – all with a current of prospective interest in the Bermuda Government’s pension portfolio – had nothing whatsoever to do with influence peddling with a Cabinet Minister and his pension fund consultant friend.

The voters in Warwick South Central must feel very reassured knowing that their local MP is financed by foreign corporations – a collection of investment professionals with an odd concern for Bermuda’s transportation issues.

The upside however is that we at least have a new PLP campaign slogan for the next election. “Pay for play” easily sums up the 7 year track record of the New Bermuda. Unfortunately though, while our "leadership" plays, we’re the ones who will ultimately pay, with both our tax dollars and our good name.

But while we’re on the topic of paying and playing, who paid for Dr. Brown’s travel expenses to these "fundraisers" anyway? What else don’t we know about? Who keeps spilling the beans?

Is Cabinet turning on each other yet again? It seems that way.

Thus far, not one of Ms. Webb or Dr. Brown’s Cabinet colleagues have come to their defense, indicating all the outward signs of a continuing internal power struggle. Dr. Brown is probably receiving a little pay for play himself, with his colleagues engaging in a little payback for his surgical separation of Jennifer Smith and the Premiership.

And speaking of Premiers, why is the current one chronically AWOL when it comes to speaking up on financial dealings and ethical failures, of which there have been many? We have a Premier who is yet to flex any muscles, preferring instead to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to Cabinet level abuses of power; inaction that amounts to a tacit endorsement. So much for Mr. Scott’s self-professed strong leadership.

Not surprisingly, in the wake of this most recent revelation (remember the undeclared, double market value, twice rejected, Flatts real estate deal) the Premier is again conspicuously out of sight, his primary concern being self-preservation, not good governance. More than likely, the Accidental Premier’s position is so tenuous, so compromised, that he can only sit back and watch this apparent free for all unfold?

The Premier is acutely aware that his second in command would like to be in command. It’s abundantly clear that Dr. Brown comes not only with a big car and a big travel budget, but big ambition after already taking down one Premier - and evidently a big campaign fund.

As the saying goes, you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. So inside Cabinet he’ll no doubt stay, a man on his own mission of self-interest and self-promotion.

But if Mr. Scott won’t act, then who will? It certainly won’t be the as yet to be appointed Ombudsman. Not-so-casual observers will recall that Cabinet quietly and conveniently excluded themselves from the investigative reach of this official, and aren’t rushing to fill the post either.

US regulators might have the ability hold the parties involved on their side accountable, but ours will get off Scott free (pun intended).

Yet again, Bermudians are getting no answers and no satisfaction. Will this ever end?

RG Opinion (21 Mar. 2005)

When Parliamentary Debate Becomes a Pain in the Three Rs

Upon the merciful conclusion of this year’s installment of the budget debate the Speaker should have made the following announcement: “The 2005/2006 Budget Debate has been brought to you by the letter ‘R’ and the number ‘0’”.

If you’d been paying attention, which wasn’t easy, you’d have witnessed the Parliamentary version of the Three R’s: “Reading, Regurgitating and Running out the clock”. That’s not exactly what they teach on Sesame Street when they talk about the Three R’s – and I apologize for comparing Bermuda’s Parliament to Sesame Street, that does a great disservice to the fine institution that is Sesame Street.

The annual spectacle that is officially known as a debate has, in recent years, deteriorated into a monologue. If you were looking for MP’s to go mono a mono, as in most Parliamentary democracies, you’d have been out of luck. Instead it was just mono, the endless drone of Ministers reading mind-numbing briefs dutifully prepared by the worlds most long-winded civil servants.

At least we now know why the civil service has exploded in size. Those 1,000 or so new bureaucrats that have been added to the people’s payroll since 1998 have been furiously writing those ironically named and ever lengthening ‘budget briefs’.

But in case you thought there was a limit on the size of a budget brief, fear not. A new elevator for the House has been approved and will no doubt be put to good use hauling next year’s even longer printed installments of the Budget Monologue up to the Chamber.

So hour after hour, day after day, we were treated to Cabinet Ministers reading their briefs, regurgitating useless information and running out the clock. All this makes you wonder if the Ministers actually have a clue about the Ministries they supposedly run or are scared of the Opposition?

Do they really have this much to hide? Well, in fact they did.

The only time a real debate broke out, and we learned something new in the midst of the Three Rs, was during the Parliamentary question period and on the Motions to Adjourn.

Housing Minister Ashfield De Vent provided some of the few entertaining moments of the past 3 weeks, creatively testing new ways to avoid answering John Barritt’s morning parliamentary questions on the Bermuda Housing Trust.

And then there was of course Maxwell Burgess, who decided to go big game fishing on the Motion to Adjourn. Sporting some light tackle but tasty bait, Mr. Burgess didn’t have to troll for long before he landed himself a Premier and a Housing Minister, two plump liar-fish – specimens not nearly as rare in our New Bermuda waters as those Lion Fish that keep showing up in the pond.

But apart from those brief and enlightening distractions, reading, regurgitating and running out the clock was the order of the day, or the 3 weeks to be accurate. And once the clock chimed it was time again for our sponsor, the letter ‘R’. This time it came in the form of some much needed Rest and Relaxation, Parliamentary R & R – the centre-piece initiative of the Sociable Agenda.

Judging by the schedule MPs are keeping, we should be grateful that the Premier bothers to convene Parliament at all. The House is so infrequently in session nowadays that it’s easier to find a worker at the Berkeley site than a Parliamentarian on the Hill. Evidently a few hectic weeks in, ten weeks out, followed by an 8 session marathon run for the mandatory budget debate, and back out for ten is taxing work for the taxing people.

You see, real debates are unpredictable and lend themselves to accountability and transparency, two more words you heard a lot about in those budget no-so briefs, but didn’t see much of in practice.

On that front, it fell to Finance Minister Paula Cox to invoke the Budget Debate’s other title sponsor, the number ‘0’. When discussing the newly published IMF report, Ms. Cox declared that “Mr. Speaker, if this Government is not transparent then we are nothing”. Well, Ms. Minister, you said it.

It is however, transparently obvious why the Government is spending so much time out of Parliament and filibustering when in. Stage managed press conferences, courtesy of those fine folks at the Ministry of Disinformation, are much more pleasant than an actual debate, where insolvent housing schemes and rent hikes for seniors are revealed. Democratic institutions are highly inconvenient for those who prefer to hide behind the growing defensive line that is the civil service and Government Information Services.

But is there a glimmer of hope? Sadly it doesn’t seem so, as the prospects for another R to come to fruition seem bleak: Reform.

Many, many months ago the UBP’s John Barritt submitted a proposal outlining steps to achieve comprehensive reform in our antiquated Parliamentary processes. The proposal included a number of easily implemented initiatives that would promote true accountability and perhaps the occasional informative debate.

So where does this stand today? It doesn’t. It sits, and sits, and sits in the black-hole of parliamentary reform known as the House Rules and Privileges Committee, chaired by the Speaker of the House and with a majority of Government MPs, certain to meet an unfriendly fate.

Perhaps the only way we’ll achieve this much needed reform is through another ‘R’: Removal.

RG Opinion (Mar. 16, 2005)

Bermuda: The Isles of Hypocrisy

If the Bermuda Independence Commission has been tasked with coming up with potential names for an independent Bermuda they might want to consider “The Isles of Hypocrisy”.

At times it’s difficult to find the words to adequately illustrate the duplicity and double-speak of this Government. Thankfully though, with respects to the recent land policy change and the Trimingham’s real estate sale… well, it’s not necessary. The words of our esteemed Cabinet Ministers more than suffice.

The recent land policy change, we were told loudly and proudly by Labour Minister Randy Horton, was designed “to preserve undeveloped land, commercial property and the majority of the housing stock for Bermudian ownership”, and that “over the years, more and more land has gradually been sold away to non-Bermudians. It is time to turn off the tap”.

At the time, Mr. Horton’s typically high-decibel levels were presumably intended to convey a passion for, and unwavering commitment to, protecting Bermudian real estate from foreign ownership. Today, it seems more like a shallow pre-emptive strike against the coming criticism following the Government’s immediate violation of their very own brand spanking new policy. That tap wasn’t off for long was it?

The Government now finds itself desperately trying to explain away their astounding hypocrisy in handing over the landmark Bermudian Trimingham’s property – the most prestigious of the commercial properties Mr. Horton had just vowed to protect, and the heart of our retail and tourist shopping experience – to a huge non-Bermudian corporation, after berating us all for selling out Bermudian real estate.

So back in Parliament, only seven days later, we were hearing that “the Bank of Bermuda is a local company”, that “an alliance exists between the bank and global banking giant HSBC” and that “one reason permission was given for the move was because economic control would be retained in the hands of Bermudians”, (not direct quotes) as reported in The Royal Gazette.

It’s much easier to find those words now: incompetent, manipulative, misleading, hypocritical and dishonest, seem appropriate.

Government could argue, maybe successfully, that the recent real estate policy change was the right decision. They could also argue, again maybe successfully, that the decision to allow a special exemption for HSBC to acquire the Trimingham’s properties was the right decision. But you can’t argue both at the same time.

Evidently the Finance Minister and the Premier are aware of that impossibility, so they didn’t try. Instead they presented us with a simple choice?

Either both Mr. Scott and Ms. Cox, who authorized HSBC’s acquisition of Bermudian property, suffer from severe short term memory loss, are horribly misinformed, or they “misled you because we had to”, to borrow a convenient turn of phrase.

To describe HSBC’s Bank of Bermuda subsidiary as a “local company” would be a legally correct statement. It would also be a completely dishonest attempt to obscure the practical reality.

HSBC’s slogan might be “the world’s local bank”, but the Bank of Bermuda is by no means Bermudian owned and controlled. And that is okay. But let’s not pretend it is still a ‘local’ firm.

Ms. Cox’s most egregious statement however would be her description of the relationship between HSBC and the Bank of Bermuda as an “alliance”. An alliance is what happens on reality shows like Survivor at Tribal Council, not corporate boardrooms. In the real world – no, not MTV’s The Real World, I mean the one where we non-Cabinet Ministers operate – the relationship is referred to as “ownership and control”.

Because of a decision the PLP took several years ago – one that both Ms. Cox and Mr. Scott participated in – The Bank of Bermuda is now a wholly owned subsidiary of one of the largest multi-national banking corporations in the world, headed by an entirely non-Bermudian board and almost entirely non-Bermudian shareholders.

Perhaps it was that obvious and undeniable truth that encouraged Government members to avoid using the name “HSBC” in Parliament, preferring instead the more familiar and Bermudian sounding “Bank of Bermuda”, notwithstanding the fact that HSBC has made it clear that the old name will disappear after 5 years – it’s already disappeared from your “Bank of Bermuda” credit cards.

It might also seem comforting on the surface, to know that the CEO of The Bank of Bermuda is a well-respected Bermudian businessman, Mr. Phillip Butterfield. Presumably this is what Ms. Cox was grasping at when she said that approval was given because the property “would remain in the hands of Bermudians”.

But that claim displays either a profound ignorance or a colossal dishonesty on her part? If Ms. Cox returned to reality, at least briefly, she’d discover that Mr. Butterfield is simply the manager of one of the hundred-plus HSBC branches worldwide, who answers entirely to a non-Bermudian management, and could be replaced with a non-Bermudian or re-assigned elsewhere at any time. Mr. Butterfield may be a major player in Bermuda, but he’s just one CEO of many in the vast HSBC Empire.

The Premier and his Finance Minister’s duplicitous statements are worthy of at least a retraction, an apology and potentially resignations if they were genuinely unaware that they’d just handed the heart of our local retail district to a foreign corporation.

Pick your poison: hypocrisy, ignorance, incompetence, negligence or dishonesty. Maybe even all of the above.

Welcome to The Isles of Hypocrisy.

RG Opinion (Mar. 09, 2005)

Could we have a perfectly balanced equation?

Friday’s Motion to Adjourn was a particularly unpleasant display, even as Bermuda’s Parliamentary ‘debate’ goes. The embarrassing scene began when the United Bermuda Party’s Louise Jackson rose to turn up the pressure cooker that is the Bermuda Housing Trust (BHT), and the treatment of our seniors by the PLP Government.

Somewhere among the insults, the vitriol and the raised voices, was a peek into the current state of both political parties

Former Premier Jennifer Smith, responding to Ms. Jackson, delivered probably the most insightful speech. The rebuttal was short, shrill (the House and Grounds committee might want to check for hairline cracks in the windows), and dwelled entirely on the past.

The Deputy Speaker reminded Parliamentarians of the causes which the PLP had effectively championed during their 30 plus years in Opposition. She went on to point out how this pressure resulted in successive UBP Governments adopting these ideas as their own.

Ms. Smith’s point is well taken, although not unique to Bermuda or the past. Governments worldwide tend to act as much as a result of pressure tactics, as they do because of a great vision or foresight. Visionary Government’s don’t come along often, although that is what many had hoped for after the 1998 election.

What Ms. Smith and her colleagues don’t realize – or choose to ignore – is that this same dynamic is at work today, only in reverse. The PLP Government is frequently forced to act because of pressure and advocacy by the Opposition, community groups and individuals.

In other cases however, where you’d expect to see a little compassion from a progressive party, they refuse to budge, or worse still act in contravention of the party’s supposed core values, the BHT serving as the latest example.

The recent taxpayer funded focus groups would suggest that the PLP is aware that they’ve lost the connection with those they purport to represent from the grass-roots up, they’re out of touch and have squandered the support of a generous public.

Ms. Smith’s history lesson highlighted a tragic irony: the PLP are resorting to the trumpeting of their past successes as an opposition as a replacement for their current performance.

The UBP members have been quick studies and are using these tactics well, bringing substantial pressure to bear on critical issues. The tables have been turned, but the PLP haven’t likewise raised their game when on the receiving end of their own tactics.

The PLP’s effectiveness as an Opposition – a pressure group – might also be their Achilles heel? Could the very traits that made them a successful Opposition party be retarding them as an effective Government?

This opposition style is so ingrained that they’re unable to transcend confrontation with entirely avoidable crises over crime, housing, seniors, education and healthcare for example?

Indeed, if you listen regularly to Parliamentary debate and follow the speeches of the PLP closely, you’ll note an inability to move out of the past. After 7 years you’d expect to be hearing about the advancement of a progressive social policy in their time as Government, not credit-taking for the UBP years and a last ditch effort at patching together a social agenda.

It is evident that the PLP are effective at advocacy but ineffective at implementation. But could the UBP be the counter balance to this equation?

After all, UBP Governments have, by the PLP’s own admission, successfully implemented PLP identified issues alongside their own. This argument implicitly acknowledges that the PLP haven’t achieved the same level of success as a government, as they did as an opposition. If that was the case surely they’d be touting those.

History – and Jennifer Smith’s own words – suggests that the UBP has been more effective at following through on PLP ideas than the PLP themselves. Couple that with the UBP’s current seven year experience as an Opposition, where they’ve refocused and re-connected with the public, and you might just have a UBP Government-in-waiting that is less in need of that historical PLP pressure.

In fact, if you’ve been paying attention to the UBP’s critiques, throne and budget replies, you’ll notice that they don’t just criticize, they follow-up that criticism with their own plan.

Could we have a perfectly balanced equation? Could Bermuda be best served with a PLP pressure group (Opposition) prodding the UBP (Government) towards public policy implementation?

Have the supposed adversaries been bringing out the best in each other for the betterment of the community all along? Is it time to reset the equation?

RG Opinion (15 Feb. 2005)

Politicking by class warfare

If you’re going to pull the pin and roll out a grenade, the correct etiquette is to at least shout “Fire in the hole”.

Instead, the PLP Government whispered “Policy Statement and Notes for the Acquisition of Residential Property by Non-Bermudians”, hoping to distract us from the coming explosion with boredom. Then, in an act of supremely strong leadership, Cabinet thrust a civil servant out on point to absorb the shrapnel, while the politicians ran for cover.

And while the majority of ink over the coming weeks, months and potentially years, will most likely be devoted to the relative wisdom of the PLP’s attempt at market manipulation, it’s worth setting the policy itself aside briefly and focusing on the potential fallout from the way this major policy change was implemented.

The old adage that if you say something often enough people will start to believe it, is very appropriate in the New Bermuda. And what are we told the most often? We’re told that this is a Government that listens and consults.

Reasonable people would then expect that a move such as this, that stands to be hugely controversial with widespread and far-reaching social and economic implications, would be more than deserving of this much-heralded but rarely witnessed consultation. Nope.

How’s about gambling? Of course we’d receive widespread consultation on this most contentious of issues, particularly when all the polls suggest that we’re split right down the middle. Nope. Just a press conference to say Government has decided on our behalf.

But it’s not always this way. We are being ‘consulted’ on independence for example, the issue almost all of us don’t want. Evidently, because the overwhelming majority of the population don’t want something that the Government are salivating for, we’re in need of some consultation (translation: re-programming) on the subject.

An issue however, like drastically altering the dynamics of the real-estate market and the value of thousands of people’s most significant investment however, is worthy of only a press conference to announce the done deal.

Government by press conference. How quaint.

So what’s up with this consistently inconsistent approach to consultation from the PLP? The answer lies in the excuse we inevitably hear after poor consultation or unpopular initiatives. The word is ‘leadership’.

After the votes are counted and the victor crowned, the PLP Government feel entitled to make unilateral declarations on any issue, whether part of the campaign or not, or whether the administration exists as a result of a swiftly executed coup only minutes after the election.

When a Government without a mandate undertakes this type of social engineering and wealth redistribution, something you might recall the Premier recently vehemently denying he was about to engage in, the consequences can’t be predicted.

Mandate-less Governments that don’t consult are by no means providing leadership, they’re a destabilizing threat. This is why the events which culminated in the formation of the Alex Scott administration should necessitate an even greater – not reduced – level of consultation. But we’re seeing nothing of the sort.

Most reasonable people are aware that you can’t just rock the foundation of the Bermuda real estate market and walk away unconcerned.

But there’s a pattern here. We’ve been through this politically motivated meddling before. Last week’s events are strikingly similar to another act of non-consultative heavy-handedness.

In July of 2003, shortly before the election, the Government rolled out the work permit term limits grenade – yet another politically motivated policy initiative with potentially destabilizing effects.

In that case, then Labour Minister Terry Lister proudly declared that all non-Bermudians would be sent packing after 6 years (with the nice ones allowed to stay for an additional 3). And it might just have worked, judging by the 70 or so votes which decided the election island-wide.

But what occurred shortly after the election results were in – and Jennifer Smith’s colleagues demonstrated that they had her back, by stabbing her in it – is more revealing. The new Minister discreetly put the pin back in the grenade, and gutted the term limits policy of any real teeth. The election was over and the policy had served its purpose. Now there’s leadership.

So with the Premier’s poll numbers rapidly plunging to Jennifer Smith-like levels, we’re witnessing more dangerous politicking through class warfare. Because this isn’t about housing, it’s about politics (and taxes).

But unlike the term limit turn-around, which was easily revoked, this latest unilateral action isn’t. We’ll be feeling these shockwaves for a long time, and not just in the real estate market.

Governments can’t, without preparing the stake-holders, fundamentally affect capital markets overnight without undermining the confidence and stability of every sector of our economy. Serious doubts will have been created in our continued desirability as a business jurisdiction. No longer can investors be assured that their money can be put to work free from undue political interference.

While any one move alone might not be enough to tip the boat, the cumulative effect of term-limits, an unpopular independence initiative and now this real estate policy could be severe.

Our economy exists solely because of a well-deserved reputation as an attractive and stable destination for capital investments. The moment the PLP Government decided to devalue real-estate prices overnight – without advance warning or consultation – it generated significant doubt and instability.

That’s not leadership.

RG Opinion (08 Feb. 2005)

Set Bermuda's schools free

Last week I discussed the significant role that education, in particular public education, must play in any successful policy of economic empowerment – without education we cannot achieve empowerment. I proposed that competition and accountability within the public system are the two missing but vital elements.

We can all name the standout schools in the Bermuda public system – they’re the ones which have experienced the least political interference and bureaucratic meddling. St. George’s Prep., Warwick Academy (before going private) and Berkeley are the examples which spring to mind.

These schools are however, the exception and not the rule. And with the Ministry continuing to exert too much control over too many facets of the day-to-day running of education the future seems bleak.

Ideally we should be positioning the schools to compete with each other for students and allocate resources as trends of increased or reduced demand develop. The Ministry’s role would then be reduced to managing the budget; maintaining a consistent internationally recognized curriculum; administering a performance based compensation system; and rewarding the staff of the highest performing schools for achieving superior results.

If there was one event which highlighted the fundamental problem with the current approach to public education it was the St. George’s Prep. dispute. Due to its deserved reputation for providing a first class public education, the school received a higher number of applications for enrollment than spots allocated by the Ministry.

The Minister and his Ministry’s reaction was not to respond to this public vote of confidence by making additional spots and funding available, but to dig their heels in, ignore the wishes of the community and attempt to send the students to another school - because evidently bureaucrats, not parents, know best.

As well-intentioned as the folks at the Ministry might be, they must be the only ones who can’t see that this top-down approach to education is failing. The bureaucracy exerts far too much control over the administration of the individual schools, and as at St. George’s Prep., they don’t listen to the parents.

Just as power in our democracy is temporarily conferred from the people to the politicians, decision-making power in public education is conferred from parents to the Ministry. And in both cases, this power is to be used in accordance with our interests, not their own.

Unfortunately we’re not seeing that today. The St. George’s community spoke with one voice, and was ignored – although they eventually prevailed after a protracted legal and public relations campaign.

If we are to stop the bleeding in public education and provide a chance of success for future generations, the Ministry needs to get out of the way and let the parents choose, the teachers teach and the principals manage.

The Ministry as we know it should cease to exist. Its current role would be replaced with individually elected school boards consisting of parents, alumni and other members of the community. These boards would then be free to hire the principal of their choice, who would administer the school in accordance with the wishes of the board. The appointed leadership of each school would be able to recruit their own teaching staff, without the worry of having them arbitrarily reassigned.

At any point, if the school wasn’t performing adequately, the dissatisfaction would flow from the bottom up through a clear chain of accountability. If standards were not maintained, or teachers were not performing up to par, the parents would express their displeasure directly to the board members or principal. If the principal failed to address these, the board would step in and direct him or her to act, or ultimately they would be removed. If the board themselves failed to act they would be replaced, or the parents would simply enroll their child elsewhere.

It’s a simple formula and one that has worked well in the private system. These schools compete fiercely for students, and their students and our community is better for it. And while this certainly isn’t the whole answer, or the only answer, it would be a step in the right direction.

Ultimately, we only have two options at our disposal in reforming public education: we can either overhaul the current system or start cutting cheques to parents for use in paying the tuition at a school of their choice, whether public or private.

Only then can students of any means have equal access to a quality education. And only then does a policy of empowerment stand any chance of succeeding.

RG Opinion 01 Feb. 2005

Education: The other 'E' word

Empowerment, specifically economic empowerment, emerged in 2004 as the dominant political issue. There’s little doubt that this will continue into 2005, after the United Bermuda Party tabled the Economic Empowerment Act 2004 – a sample bill to be debated when Parliament resumes in February.

But while there has been plenty of talk about empowerment, there’s been far less about the other ‘E’ word, one that must be an integral component of any empowerment initiative.

The missing ‘E’ is education.

The importance and current state of public education hasn’t gone entirely without mention. A number of people have touched on the issue including most memorably Principal Melvyn Bassett’s speech to the Hamilton Rotary and Robert Stewart in an excellent Opinion in The Royal Gazette of Oct. 16, 2004.

Education’s role in the empowerment of our economic minority is undeniable, but the topic just doesn’t seem to consume the community – or spark a much-needed debate – as the mere invocation of the term ‘empowerment’ does.

Undoubtedly, education is the most critical component in advancing any long-term initiative, whether sponsored by the UBP or PLP, meaning that these issues must be addressed hand in hand. Empowerment can’t truly occur without a first class public education system, and education alone can’t overcome the legacy of racism, sexism, age discrimination and other institutionalized hurdles.

Ultimately, the goal of empowerment must be to reach a point when a formal policy is no longer necessary, but a superior education system will always be vital. Before we can even begin to discuss education however, there are some difficult truths that we must come to grips with.

Bermuda’s public education system is in disarray, and has been in a steady decline for as long as most people can remember. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but we are where we are, and we’re all in this together. So if we want to correct the situation we must focus our energies on learning from the past and present, and not become consumed with assigning blame.

And where are we? With somewhere over thirty-five percent of our children enrolled in the private system – and rising – the verdict seems to be in: the parents of one-third of our students have given up on public education. With tuitions around thirteen thousand dollars a year, this is not a decision parents will take lightly, in effect paying twice for education. And how many more of us would follow suit if the cost wasn’t so prohibitive? If that isn’t enough to indicate that we need to make a change then what is?

It’s also important not to condemn everything and everyone within the public school system. We can all point to success stories – incredibly dedicated and effective teachers, successful schools, or students who have succeeded in spite of the system – but somewhere, something is terribly broken. And when something is terribly broken the answer is not to play on the fringes as we’ve been content to do.

The facilities aren’t the problem. Successive governments of both parties continue to sink millions of dollars into brick and mortar improvements. Money isn’t the issue. The Ministry of Education is more than adequately funded, particularly when you consider that the per student cost is lower in the private schools than the public system.

And while there are many factors that have led to where we are today, the most significant must be a tolerance for low standards, poor discipline, an inadequate curriculum, social promotion and a bureaucracy that seems to answer to no-one.

If private schools produced the abysmal graduation levels that we are seeing out of the public system they’d be out of business in no time. Parents would pull up stakes and go elsewhere. In response, the school trustees would fire the principals, under-performing teachers would be removed, and the curriculum would be improved for example. But we’ve seen none of this in the public system, and the Department of Education’s budget and staffing continue to grow and grow.

The missing ingredients must be the simple principles of competition and accountability. Entrenching these basic concepts in such a broken system can only be achieved through a fundamental and comprehensive overhaul of public education in Bermuda. No more short-term tweaking for short-term political gain.

These principles, the driving forces behind Bermuda’s economic success, are by no means incompatible with the administration of education – that’s exactly the environment that the schools are preparing our students to participate in. So why does the system itself not reflect that reality?

Competition is healthy and is already in place within the schools. Our students are competitive with each other already, both academically and athletically, and will go on to compete for scholarships, university placements and eventually employment.

Why then, should we not have competition between public schools?

Next week: some proposals for comprehensive reform through competition and accountability.

I've linked to this letter responding to my RG column of last week (never published on RG's website).

We (as Premier Scott would say) will have some fun with this later, but the Editor (rather belatedly) gave me the right of reply at time of publication, which is included at the end of the letter.

But the response was typical in that it used the standard PLP/BIU format of:

- misrepresent the original argument
- attack the individual
- play the race card

Anyone who read my original column would know that Ms. Furbert fails to come remotely close to addressing the crux of my complaint, namely Derrick Burgess's comments about managing the Bermudian worker.

But my favourite line in her letter was that I should be 'grateful that the PLP allows freedom of expression'.

Whoah! So that's where the chill in the air the past few days came from.

RG Opinion (19 Jan. 2005)

Answering the Premier's Dare

“.. in actual fact Bermuda is governed very nicely, thank you very much and I dare anyone to challenge that."

The above invitation was issued by Premier Alex Scott in The Royal Gazette during his charm offensive – emphasis on the offensive – of last week. I’ve never been known to turn down a free lunch, particularly one with such an abundance of enticingly juicy low-hanging fruit, so I’ll take that dare. But to be honest, the only challenge is where to start, and keeping within my word limit.

Corruption

In the beginning, there was … corruption and mismanagement. After 30 years on the opposition benches, the first term of a PLP administration was notable by the absence of a plan to improve the lives of Bermudians but an ambitious one to improve the lives of the new Government and their cronies.

Most notably there was the BHC, and then the BHC again. Initially we discovered that hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were missing, while even more had been directed to contractors at vastly inflated prices. Then, to add insult to injury during a housing crisis, we discovered that at least two Cabinet Ministers used the BHC as their own personal real estate agency, covertly transacting business without declaring their interests.

Investigation

After corruption there was investigation. But we now know that in the New Bermuda investigations stop at the door of the Cabinet Office. These extended inquiries produced little of substance, with the buck stopping well short of the implicated elected officials who were never questioned about their dubious behaviour.

Thus began the decline of accountability in our ‘nicely’ governed island, where the Premier crows about the creation of an Ombudsman’s post as a watershed moment in good governance, except of course that the Ombudsman is forbidden from investigating those who govern.

Deception

And of course there was deception. We know the story all too well. A tale of how Alex Scott found himself crowned the Accidental Premier; installed solely as a compromise candidate to end a standoff between two PLP camps. The wisdom and desperation of this move is apparent today, with directionless and deliberately deceptive politics practiced with pride.

The outrage of this compromise wasn’t that the party replaced its leader, but that it occurred only hours after the final votes had been counted and the electorate had spoken. This incident was not, as we are told, a triumph of democracy. It was the lowest point in our electoral history, an electoral result subverted. ‘We misled you because we had to’, is the notorious value statement of this Government.

Arbitration

Moving right along, the taxpayers find our hard-earned-but-easily-collected dollars at risk in an entirely avoidable arbitration, one arising from the Premier’s signature accomplishment – the yet to be accomplished Berkeley school project.

Ostensibly a school, but more closely resembling an incinerator project for taxpayer dollars, is years late, with $700,000 missing, likely to be at least twice over budget, embroiled in a costly legal battle and with our highest elected official unable to decide whether the contract was awarded on the merits of the bid or as a stab at empowerment.

It’s ironic then that the most notable outcome is an out of work ‘economically empowered’ contractor, and a cynical public. But at least the lawyers will get paid.

Resignation

And then there was the resignation of Renee Webb, the Minister who looks a little bit like all of us. Ms. Webb’s surprise resignation triggered an unintentionally entertaining and revealing look at what most people assumed was occurring in Cabinet.

It was during this dispute that Alex Scott became a man – or ‘The Man’, and Renee Webb predicted the impending fraud that is the Social Agenda, a “ten year all-encompassing cross Ministry initiative” to do exactly what Government hasn’t, but should have, been doing all along.

Only in Alex Scott’s world do a computer recycling program, road signs and traffic calming receive such hype and take ten years.

More Deception

And now, we find ourselves right back where it all started for this Premier, with deception.

In an implicit admission that his Government has not, cannot, and will not deliver on the things that everyone wants, we find ourselves in the midst of a campaign that almost no-one wants.

Independence we are told will bring us together, and in this belief the Premier may for the first time be correct. The deceptive and disingenuous campaign to manufacture phony constitutional crisis after phony constitutional crisis as justification for this unwanted excursion is succeeding. The community is uniting in opposition to Alex Scott with a 37% approval rating.

And we can’t forget Cuba, chronic labour unrest, Coco Reef, GPS, inaction on housing, rising crime, declining education standards, and on and on and on. Unfortunately I’m out of space, but dare accepted nonetheless.

Now can we get on with delivering on what the people want, not an obsession with the one issue they don’t?

RG Opinion (11 Jan. 2005)

We mustn't let the BIU's work ethic sink us all

If you thought it was hard for a Bermudian with career aspirations to move up the corporate ladder, as of Friday January 7th 2005, it just got much, much harder. You can thank BIU President Derrick Burgess for that.

In an interview in the Jan. 7 edition of the Bermuda Sun, officially about the latest chapter in the Coco Reef saga, Mr. Burgess managed to validate every stereotype and every criticism of the Bermudian work ethic. He was even kind enough to create a couple of new lines of attack, erecting more obstacles in the career path of every Bermudian.

Responding to criticisms of the performance of the Coco Reef hotel staff by its outgoing director, Mr. Burgess ‘defended’ the Bermudian worker with a novel angle. Instead of focusing on the allegations themselves, he took a higher level approach, managing to disparage us all and accomplish what Coco Reef itself has been unable to do – he made them seem just a little bit sympathetic. Ok, that feeling didn’t last for long, but it was there.

So what did he say? The BIU President proudly proclaimed that the employer-employee relationship is different in Bermuda than other places, like the Caribbean. We have over-employment here and foreign managers need to adapt he said.

“In Bermuda, what we’ve adopted is not master servant relations where the master says, ‘Do this, do that.’ It is one of cooperation where the management will get your views and because it works better that way.”

“It’s a different style you need. Those that understand that and adapt to it and change their management style, they do great jobs. Those that come here and don’t adapt to what they see in the country as far as the economy won’t do as well.”

Translation: Performing the tasks a worker was hired for is demeaning. A manager must negotiate on a daily basis to see what an employee is agreeable to. If someone doesn’t feel like working, then so be it. Of course you can try and find someone else to do the job - but don’t forget they don’t exist (and we have an Immigration Department). Oh, and by the way, make sure you’ve got the payroll completed on time.

Can I get an Amen? I didn’t think so. Just how this approach has ‘worked better’ in tourism is anyone’s guess, as the thousands of beds and millions of dollars that have exited the anemic industry attest to. But it does clear up any lingering questions about why tourism is in such appalling shape.

Thanks to the Derrick Burgesses of our island, Bermudians are immediately at a disadvantage when seeking employment in our own country. We have to overcome a stigma that we’re lazy and averse to hard work, that foreign workers are more desirable. It’s a stigma inflicted on us by a vocal minority of the population, but inflicted on all Bermudians nonetheless.

The vast majority of us perform at a high level, higher than expected. Not because we’re servants but because we take pride in our work and understand that strong performance is rewarded. The last thing we need is someone labeling us all as unapologetic chronic under-performers – an island of workers who think that putting in an honest day’s work is akin to a master servant relationship.

Mr. Burgess might want to consider having a chat with his Tourism Minister. Dr. Brown recently identified poor service as one of the critical issues crippling tourism in Bermuda. Quite eloquently, he characterized our unacceptably low service standards as resulting from a belief in some quarters that equates ‘service with servitude’. Sound familiar? Maybe the two MPs can have a chat at their next caucus?

Our whole economy is service based. There’s nothing demeaning or undignified about performing the job you were hired for well, whether it’s serving drinks to our visitors or serving the insurance interests of a multi-million dollar client.

Everyone from the CEOs of our largest financial companies to the pot-washers in our restaurants serve their clients, customers and ultimately shareholders. More significantly perhaps, most Bermudians are working hard to get ahead, determined to rise to the top of a worldwide talent pool and make their mark professionally in our tiny island with a global presence.

Let’s hope that Mr. Burgess isn’t successful in extending his work ethic to our sole remaining economic pillar, international business. The over-employment aspect of his thesis will quickly fall apart if he is.

Our people are our only natural resource, and we’re competing against the world. We’ve already killed tourism; let’s not do the same to our financial services industry.

The worker of today is the manager of tomorrow. The manager of yesterday is the CEO of today. And lest we forget that owners and managers work too.

We all work, we all serve. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that.

RG Opinion (02 Dec. 2004)

New programme a step backwards

Ever get that feeling of déjà vu, not all over again, just déjà vu. Déjà vu all over again would be redundant? But speaking of redundant, what’s up with the Government’s new "Community Areas Programme"?

According to the Throne Speech and a recent print advertisement, the goals of this initiative are to "prepare, design and implement environmental improvement plans for Bermuda’s well-established neighbourhoods in cooperation with local residents and community leaders", or – minus the political pandering and verbal diarrhea – "sprucing up de island". Some of the areas for improvement would be road, sidewalk and lighting improvements; traffic calming; the upgrading of housing and derelict buildings; and general clean up, among others.

It all sounds quite reasonable, although it’s exactly what many taxpayers assumed we’ve been funding with our tax dollars all along. But let’s concede that point for now and play along. The announcement of that specific plan left a nagging sense of familiarity about this supposedly revolutionary new initiative?

Aren’t we supposed to already have 36 Community Area Programmes in place, staffed with capable on the ground representatives, anxious to tend to the needs of the areas they are so attuned with? Don’t we have new people auditioning for the role approximately every 5 years on your doorstep? Didn’t we used to refer to Community Area Programmes as Members of Parliament?

Thinking about it from that perspective, this plan sounds suspiciously like a work-release program for MPs - and not one where we allow MPs, under supervision of course, out amongst the unwashed masses to perform a little community service? This sounds like a plan to release them from work, the ever-so-annoying aspect of their jobs that involves walking their constituencies – a.k.a. Community Areas – speaking with their constituents, finding out what their needs are and addressing them. The most significant change from this will be the significant reduction of your MP’s workload, giving them a lot less to do for the $36,000 a year we pay them, more if you're in Cabinet.

Now that we’ve removed constituency work from our MPs' job descriptions we’re paying them quite handsomely for the only thing left to do, those onerous Friday’s on the hill, all 35 to 40 of them. The math becomes very easy, that’s about $1,000 per day to compensate for the grueling work of dozing in the back rooms of the House, waking only for meals and to say 'aye' a couple of times a day.

To be fair, there are some MPs, on both sides, who still get out there and work their areas, but they seem to be a dying breed. In fact, it seems like each party has a small handful of its members who carry a disproportionate share of the load. We constantly see the same faces out front and centre, speaking on almost every issue, while others disappear only to be resurrected at the next election.

The Community Areas Programme is proposing to reduce the real work of an MP – improving their constituencies - to something that one of those friendly civil servants can take care of. All that is involved now for our elected officials to do is sit back, wait for their constituents to call, hand them a Community Areas application form, show up for the ribbon cutting, smile for the camera and enjoy the fancy sandwiches. That’s tough work if you can get it. We’re adding another layer of bureaucracy between the people and their representatives, further distancing our underperforming MPs from the parochial work that keeps their feet on the ground?

It’s long past time for a little realignment in Bermudian politics, or maybe a seismic power shift. But first, in order to achieve that, the dirty little secret that governments prefer you don’t know must be revealed:

MPs work for you. Each of our 36 MPs has about 1,000 bosses and all of us have an employee. An elected official is your worker, hired on a 5 year contract, extendable at your discretion, to tend to your needs. Yes, I know, it seems strange doesn’t it?

We seem to have moved away from that concept, you know that quaint and outdated idea that candidates, both incumbent and aspiring, have to hit the pavement, work for your vote and service the constituency between elections. Somewhere along the line some of our employees, our MPs, have come to see themselves as figureheads who can defer their responsibilities to someone else, a whole government department in this case.

For too many of our politicians there is an attitude that once they are elected their work is done and we the electorate suddenly exist to serve them. The Community Areas Programme will become a buffer between an MP and their constituents, a repository for voter concerns, and the election time excuse of every under-performing MP.

It’s a step backwards, not progress, and reveals an attitude that once elected, politicians are above doing the things that got them elected. That attitude is all wrong.

RG Opinion (Nov. 24, 2004)

(Note: I apologize for the two typos in today's RG article, both entirely my fault. The first is that '2005' should read '2004' and 'partying Progressive Labour Partying' should have read 'Progressive Labour Partying'. The changes have been made in this version.)

(Another Note: Monday night was a bad one for my proof-reading. I've found two more errors which have also been corrected. No prizes for spotting them yourself.)

Of power & perks or people, policy & principle?

What is it about joining the PLP Cabinet that causes MPs to become ineffective and uncreative? Maybe Works & Engineering should check the water, or the air quality. Perhaps the Governor is casting a debilitating spell over Ministers when he swears them in. Or maybe Dr. Brown has taken those ‘PLP Surgeries’ a little too far and is performing lobotomies on his colleagues.

There can be little doubt that entering the PLP Cabinet coincides with a sudden halt in critical thinking and productivity, look no further than Cuban convert Dale Butler if you’re not convinced. The water, the Guv’s spell, or something, evidently triggers a unique disease – a Cabinet induced dementia that interrupts MPs brainwaves and causes them to cease intelligent thought and become mindless parrots of the Premier’s talking points: “Social Agenda, good. UBP, bad.”

But don’t despair. Whatever the cause, there’s hope. Once you walk out the door of the Cabinet Office, and don’t look back, the condition miraculously reverses itself, critical thought – and dignity – returns. Just ask Renee Webb.

The Government’s spin-doctors have attempted to mask this dementia as collective responsibility, the system under which Westminster style Cabinets operate. Collective responsibility proposes that the creation of policy through consensus achieves a more optimal and workable result; dumb ideas are discarded while the good ones are adopted and supported unanimously, regardless of any individual Minister’s original position. Bermuda’s Cabinet seems to prefer the inverse.

Renee Webb’s PR offensive this past week confirmed the sneaking suspicion that collective responsibility has been replaced by a combination of collective irresponsibility, stupidity and dishonesty. Ms. Webb’s critique of the Social Agenda, which complimented the Opposition’s, came complete with a list of initiatives that presumably failed to find favour among her fellow Ministers.

The former Minister confirmed the obvious: that little in the Social Agenda was new. In fact, it was just plain old G-O-V-E-R-N-M-E-N-T, notable for its lack of creative policy initiatives and abundance of public relations hype. One thing that Cabinet quickly and collectively agreed on is that it’s much easier to create an advertising campaign than effective public policy, so why bother with the latter.

So, undeterred by Ms. Webb and that pesky Opposition, the Government’s MPs persisted with their talking points: “Social Agenda, good. UBP, bad.” But the question remains: why is Cabinet so dysfunctional that it produces no quality policy initiatives and ensures that the few that do emerge end up as disasters?

The answer is quite simple. It’s easier than checking the water, patting down the Governor for a magic wand or even looking for that secret surgical ward under the Cabinet Office.

This generation of PLP MPs are interested in power and perks. Not people, not policy and definitely not principle.

So while seniors struggle to survive on measly pensions, housing is neglected, crime escalates, and Berkeley looks more and more like a companion tourist attraction to the Unfinished Church, the Government continues to find time and plenty of money to implement their real agenda: improving the quality of their own lives.

Collective irresponsibility is practiced with Ministers and MPs tending to their own housing needs – or real estate portfolios – first, before thinking about ways to assist in housing the people who elected them; collective stupidity is evident when a Minister tells a group of angry seniors who’ve marched on Parliament to attend House proceedings on a Thursday – when Parliament is not in session; and collective dishonesty was seen at the BHC, the Berkeley project and in attempts to implement Independence by stealth and discuss it only with foreigners on foreign soil.

Perhaps the most enduring image of all that is wrong with this Government was on display at the partially washed out 2004 Bermuda Music Festival. This year’s event included a new feature, a VIP section, and not just your regular garden variety VIP tent. This was an exclusive ‘PLP Lounge’, an elevated platform for Progressive Labour Partying, where MPs relaxed comfortably on ivory leather couches, sipped bottomless champagne and looked down on the rest of us.

It’s tragic not funny, that the only initiatives which see successful implementation are of the self-serving kind, while housing, seniors, economic empowerment and education go by the wayside.

But that’s all part of the dementia that had taken hold in the Cabinet Office.

Attached are the House Minutes for Nov. 12, 2004.

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House convened: 10:01AM
House adjourned: 12:50AM
Ministerial Statements: 4 delivered, duration - 51 minutes
Attendance: 33/36
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RG Opinion (Nov. 09, 2004)

The remaking of the UBP

Throne Speech debates aren’t normally particularly insightful events, they’re annual rituals where Government touts their agenda and the Opposition points out its inadequacies. This year it was reasonable to expect that scenario to play itself out more acutely in light of the hype that was the Social Agenda.

That’s why Friday’s Throne Speech debate seemed so odd. Parliament had an unfamiliarly familiar feel; as if the UBP was again the Government and the PLP were back in Opposition.

After over-promising and under-delivering, Government had little to say about their agenda, their hearts just weren’t in it. Instead their speakers seemed rattled by the Opposition’s reply, devoting their time mostly to attacking the UBP. But they weren’t attacking the 14 members sitting opposite them; they were attacking the combination of a distant memory and a figment of their imaginations.

The PLP thrive on an image of the UBP that no longer applies. Those days are gone, long gone. The “new UBP” refuses to play along with the PLP’s song and won’t be forced into the mold that the Government desperately needs them in. The UBP of 2004 is renewed, reinvigorated, confident and creative. Perhaps most significantly, they’re unfazed by the age-old PLP intimidation tactics. The Government’s frustration with this scenario is starkly evident.

The UBP’s Throne Speech Reply was much more interesting than the Throne Speech itself, on a number of levels. It contained more interesting policy ideas and a broad vision – unlike the Social Agenda – but also represented the re-emergence of the UBP as a real political force, one comfortable with its history but not afraid to go its own way.

The seeds of current and future UBP successes were sown in the electoral defeats of 1998 and 2003. Thirty successive years in democratically elected Government is a long time – it’s a very long time – and probably won’t be seen again anywhere any time soon. Parties lose elections, it happens, but three decades of success can be isolating and creates distance between politicians and the electorate.

Every party and politician should be prescribed a dose of the Opposition medicine. The UBP took theirs and have responded well. Friday provided a real insight into the revolution that is occurring inside today’s United Bermuda Party, and what type of future Government they will be.

Building an enduring electoral majority occurs in incremental steps over time, it doesn’t happen overnight, and Friday was the first real flowering of those seeds planted in 1998. The Throne Speech Reply was a potent mixture of criticism balanced with vision and issues balanced with solutions, thrusting the Government into a defensive stance. Ironically the UBP seemed to set the agenda for the debate and the Government MPs went into attack mode – Opposition mode.

Unlike today’s UBP, the 90’s UBP seemed timid and unsure of itself. Timidity turns off an electorate, if you won’t fight for yourself why should voters expect you to fight for them? Today’s batch of UBP MPs has rediscovered the art of political guerilla warfare, in the trenches fighting, both inside and outside Parliament. That’s lesson number one of the 1998 and 2003 election losses.

The party has applied these skills effectively towards housing, seniors and now race, 3 signature issues of the new UBP. They’ve combined their greatest asset of effective management and execution with a laser-like social focus and aggressive public advocacy. The UBP aren’t just verbally jousting in Parliament, they’re adopting individuals, neighbourhoods, whole segments of the population, and are fighting for and with them to achieve results. That’s lesson number two.

Surprisingly to some, the current UBP is seeking out a leadership role around race, the third rail of Bermuda politics. Race perpetually simmers, bubbling over when the PLP feel backed into a corner or always at election time.

The parties approach race from two very different perspectives: the UBP see it as an issue, the PLP a weapon. No longer is the UBP discussing race solely on the PLP’s turf, they’ve shifted the discussion to a place where they can lead and provide solutions, not respond and be defensive. That’s lesson number three.

The 2004 Reply to the Throne Speech explicitly tackled race from two perspectives: dialogue and policy. By seeking to unite Bermudians through dialogue and shared experience, the UBP hope to bridge the divide and harness our collective greatness. The party also acknowledged that “talk is cheap”, that historical inequities persist and that our racial majority remains an economic minority. Accordingly, the Opposition proposed specific initiatives to address this inequity, something that was notably absent from the Throne Speech, and outlined a series of steps they would implement with a dedicated Ministry of Race Relations and Economic Empowerment.

After two defeats in six years the UBP has emerged as a stronger, focused, passionate, solution-based Government in waiting. Most importantly, they are cultivating an enduring electoral majority of voters interested in results not rhetoric.

Housing and Works & Engineering Minister Ashfield De Vent has kicked off the Throne Speech debate and the PLP strategy seems pretty clear: resurrect the ghost of UBP's past and argue against that, not promote their own agenda or debate the vision that the UBP laid out today.

This is a fundamental miscalculation by the PLP, but a habit that they just can't kick. People are interested in today's PLP and today's UBP, not the PLP of the 1960s and not the UBP of the 1960s.

The dependency of the PLP on attacking past UBP members no longer serving is exactly why they can't put forward their own agenda. They remain consumed by the past and aren't living in today and looking to tomorrow.

RG Opinion (Nov. 02 2004)

Social Agenda a big yawn

The Social Agenda has arrived. No really, it’s here. That noise you heard on Friday was it, the great sucking sound of the whole island yawning together.

So what was in the Social Agenda then? What had the Premier and his Cabinet so excited – other than the recently departed Renee Webb that is – that they couldn’t stop repeating those two words? What was in this colossal and unprecedented revamp of Bermuda’s political landscape?

Street-lights, speed bumps and scholarships. Yep, that’s it, no kidding. The Social Agenda is just more of the same old same old. What was new was the packaging and PR, courtesy of our very own king of the political infomercial, our very own celebrity pitch man who’s convinced that he can sell anything.

Friday saw the Governor – with the characteristic enthusiasm all Governors inject into their annual Throne Speech cameos – unveil the PLP’s highly anticipated “watershed event”, the “awesome” plan, the 10 year all-encompassing cross ministry initiative, the Social Agenda. What is it out to tackle? Try computers for a start. That’s another initiative we’re ambitiously throwing the full resources of the Civil Service at – the island-wide computer ownership crisis.

Someone, anyone, just throw in a towel, put Premier Scott and his Band of Merry Ministers out of their misery. Is anyone still in doubt about why Renee Webb walked away in disgust? Love her or not, she can spot a fake a mile away.

The Social Agenda, we were told, was going to remake the political landscape; Phase II of the journey to a New Bermuda. Phase I, in case you’ve forgotten, involved satiating the new political elite’s 30-year hunger for taxpayer funded perks: cars, houses, travel, parties and bottomless credit cards. Phase II we now know, is as that wily and perceptive Hester commented in Saturday’s Royal Gazette, “a plan to have a plan”. You can’t sum it up better than that. The subtext of Phase II is of course the desperate attempt to turnaround the declining political fortunes of a floundering, visionless, compromise Government.

In hindsight the biggest tip-off that the Social Agenda wouldn’t live up to the hype was the Premier’s announcement that ‘even the cover is different’. Evidently the content was so compelling that the artwork needed a plug. What did we discover behind that glossy cover? We found more of the same in a different wrapper, classic empty vessel syndrome.

The PLP Government, suffering from a chronic case of mental constipation, can’t seem to stop popping the marketing pill – maybe that’s why they won’t be drug tested. If they put half as much energy into developing and executing policy as they do promoting themselves we might get somewhere.

Nonetheless, last Friday we dutifully suspended our disbelief and awaited something earth shattering from a Government that claims to “deliver”. What a let down it was to discover that what was delivered was sorely lacking. In fact, if this Government were delivering pizza – now there’s an idea, and something they might be better suited for – we’d be getting a stale, half-baked, hastily assembled, light on toppings but heavy on the advertising pie, delivered in a fancy box, in a really big car, driven by a slick driver spewing non-stop hyperbole.

Unsurprisingly, this Social Agenda is simply a compilation of pre-existing Government services rolled up in a fancy new wrapper, delivered by an out of touch traveling salesman.

Consider the announced new Community Areas Programme. This exciting new initiative will focus on traffic calming, day care, community education and the upgrading of derelict buildings for instance. Sound familiar? It should, these are all services provided by Works & Engineering, Cultural Affairs or Health and Family Services for example – standard things that every government worldwide offers.

Undoubtedly the most notable aspect of this agenda is its absolute dearth of details, action points or broad vision. Instead, exhilarating words like “develop”, “research”, “identify”, “formulation”, “potential”, “summits”, “conferences”, “forums” littered the document. Those aren’t action words of a Social Agenda, that’s more talk. This isn’t paralysis by analysis, it’s paralysis disguised as analysis.

The few decent new ideas can mostly be accomplished with the stroke of a pen. The Mature Student Further Education Award provides a useful example. There’s nothing wrong with that idea, and scholarships are something the Government provides aplenty, but it will take nothing more than setting aside $10,000 in the next budget. Done, what’s next? Is it useful? Yes. Will it reshape Bermuda? No. Is it a new idea? Not really.

This speech confirmed that the squandering of the past 6 years looks set to continue, and that only after taking care of themselves and amid signs of a return to the backbench, has Government decided to think about researching, identifying and information gathering. Time, we need more time, is the plea. There appears to be no end in sight to our directionless drift under this visionless, clueless Government.

The Premier might think that he can obscure a lack of substance with bravado, table thumping, and loud proclamations of the undisputable greatness of this Agenda. Predictably we’ve heard it all before. The Government constantly adopts the strong offense as a good defense approach to combat reality; need we revisit the unresolved Berkeley saga?

The Social Agenda has been exposed as nothing more than another request for another chance, a ten-year (two election cycle) all-encompassing public relations sham intended to defer judgment on chronic PLP inaction.

RG Opinion (Oct. 27, 2004)

PLP's last chance for legitimacy

Throne Speeches are always significant. This Friday however is make or break time. The viability of the PLP as a future Government, and their credibility as the current one, is at stake.

Premier Scott and his colleagues, after six years of inaction on the people’s issues but plenty of action on their own, have put all their eggs in the Social Agenda basket. That’s all they’ve talked about – in suspiciously vague terms – for the past few months.

We’re about to witness one of the greatest rescue attempts in Bermuda history, only one year after an election. This year’s speech will be an attempt to pump some life into a directionless Government and prevent them from becoming a footnote in history. This Social Agenda had better be good. It had better be really good.

Why the big deal? The PLP are six long years away from their first election victory, without tackling any of the serious issues facing Bermudians. That’s six years of a growing housing crisis, rising crime, struggles for our seniors, declining education standards, and on and on.

The Government’s record on these issues can only be summed up as neglect. The Premier admitted as much by declaring that his Government will now embark on a Social Agenda. Well, hallelujah!

It’s staggering that a party, which had thirty years to develop a social policy as an Opposition, took six more as a Government before realizing that social issues might need some attention. That’s thirty-six years for the self-described “People’s Government” to develop a “People’s Plan”.

Compounding that, we’ve been told that this agenda will take ten years to implement. Evidently social engineering takes two election cycles – how very convenient. Using the Berkeley structural engineering project as a precedent, we can therefore expect this ominous social engineering project to actually take twice as long planned – that’s twenty, not ten years.

Basic math suggests then that the incubation period for a PLP Social Agenda is fifty-six years: thirty-six years of planning (thirty as Opposition and six as Government) plus realistically another twenty years (double the announced timeframe) to reach fruition. A fifty-six year project had better be good. It had better be damn good. Anything less is failure, and the problems facing us all – either directly or indirectly – can’t tolerate more of that.

After an extended teaser campaign hyping the “Social Agenda” it’s reasonable to expect a whopper of a plan, or the PLP are done. The public, who very kindly delivered a second chance in 2003, have seen their goodwill stretched to the limit. The time to deliver results is now. No more promises, no more excuses, no more blaming the UBP for PLP failures. It’s time to take responsibility and deliver results. The Government will have to stand and deliver – in a big, big way – the biggest of all of their lives.

To set up their last stand, the PLP branded their Annual Conference as: “The Party that Delivers … A Stable Economy, Solid Education and Affordable Housing”. Surely that’s an attempt at humour? A more appropriate theme would be: “The Party that … Inherited A Strong Economy, Ignored Education, and Delivered Affordable Housing for Two Premiers.”

Humour aside, it does suggest that Cabinet knows that Friday is their last chance for legitimacy. So now that the Government has recognized that they can no longer govern by neglect, what should we look for in Friday’s main event? How will we know if they’ve changed their ways, come up with a real plan and will follow through?

Four critical questions must be resoundingly answered: What is going to be delivered, exactly how will it be accomplished, when will it be done by and why we should believe that they’ll actually get it done. With a six years track record of failure, the final and most critical point will take some work.

This speech can’t be another tired attempt to obscure a lack of ideas and chronic neglect with pomp, circumstance and grandiose language. A laundry list of the normal, mundane, day-to-day legislative items all Governments deal with dressed up as a plan is unacceptable. It can’t be the same old vague promises and long-winded self-congratulation we’ve come to expect. The people deserve detailed tangible policies and explicit solutions. The 2004 agenda has to be everything its predecessors were not.

The plan must be visionary but practical, ambitious but achievable, deliverable in a realistic timeframe and aggressively address the people’s issues. The 2004 speech has to be long on details and short on spin. It must be comprehensive, devoid of the meaningless platitudes and feel good sound bites of a Government hoping to buy more time, before trying to buy more time. Now is the time to deliver specifics.

It won’t be hard to tell if this Social Agenda is the genuine article, and not simply a grand distraction to get through the next election. Look for realistic, achievable proposals written in simple language with short declarative action statements and deadlines - solutions, not spin.

The most important thing to look for is a realistic timeframe for accomplishing the majority of the proposals, one within sight and in this term. A delivery date long past the next expected election date will indicate a plan designed to serve the interests of PLP politicians, not you. Alarm bells should go off island-wide warning that the Government delivered a “Survival Guide for the Politically Doomed” instead of a “Social Agenda”.

Ten years, as we’ve been warned this will take, is two more election cycles – on top of the first two. That’s three too many. A decade to deliver might work well for advancing the careers of ineffective politicians, but it’s unacceptable for the