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How much is a GP car worth?

One of the strange and unsettling things about the controversies and scandals this Government has faced is that the Cabinet Members have remained so silent.

I'm not just talking about the Bermuda Housing Corporation scandal and cover-up, though that's the big one.

I'm talking about a whole list of things - from the new imperial style of leadership, Special Development Orders and high-rise hotels and offices, to the harsh clamp-down on people who criticize the Government. All these things are significant, and very disturbing to a lot of Bermudians.

But none of these things, apparently, is especially disturbing to even one single member of the Cabinet.

Nobody has resigned, with the exception of Nelson Bascome, who held out until he was formally charged with theft and corruption. Nobody has been sacked.

Worse yet, nobody has resigned in protest.

They plod along like it's business as usual, which it most assuredly is not.

It's collective responsibility at its worst - a group of people marching together towards the precipice because none of them is prepared to cry out: "Stop! I'm not going along with this!"

It is bizarre, almost inconceivable, that not one Cabinet Minister has shown the gumption to stand up and say: "No! This is not the kind of Government that Bermuda needs. This is not the kind of Government that I want to be part of."

Yet it is up to them. They are far more important than the media, the Court of Appeal, the Privy Council or anybody else in getting this country back on the right track.

Who would they rather bring this mess to some kind of end? The Mid-Ocean News? The United Bermuda Party? The Governor?

What would be better for the stability and dignity of this country, our citizens, or the Progressive Labour Party itself?

To have the party and the country divided by scandal and suspicion, as the myth of good government unravels in a series of newspaper leaks and court cases?

To have an administration scrambling to preserve itself with gag orders, manipulating candidate selection, and trying to portray all criticism as a white UBP conspiracy?

When it hits the fan

Or to have these problems dealt with by their own elected leaders, in a firm and forthright way?

The measure of a Cabinet Minister, surely, is not how he revels in his triumphs but how he handles himself when things go wrong. Right now, our Cabinet Ministers seem to be handling themselves by standing still, neither supporting nor condemning the way their leader is running their country.

Doing nothing, though, is actually taking a stand for all the things they are refusing to condemn. It is hard not to be cynical - to think that they are just hanging in there for their personal benefit - so comfortable with the prestige and perks of being a Cabinet Minister that they just don't want to give it up.

It can be rationalized a thousand different ways, of course, and no doubt about it this is happening. There are probably Cabinet Ministers who are thinking: "Let's just get through the next election, and then we can change leaders like we did the last time."

Some are probably thinking, with a wishful kind of naivete: "Let's just hang in there, all this will blow over."

I'm certain that some are thinking: "Nothing's been proven. We don't need to change if there's been no conviction." (I'm certain, because that's the way they have responded to the BHC scandal: What's right or wrong for the country doesn't matter, if it hasn't been proven illegal.)

And some are surely telling themselves: "Okay, there may be some people sitting around this Cabinet table who have made big mistakes - who have been looking after themselves instead of the people. But I'm not one of them. They need me here."

Yet as long as they stay there, sharing in their collective rewards and responsibilities, they are part of it. As long as they refuse to stand up and object, they are aiding and abetting all that their Government is doing, for good or for ill.

And as they sit there on their hands, the citizens of Bermuda - all the citizens, but especially people who have supported the PLP for so long - are left kind of stunned.

Who is standing up for them? Who is standing up for all the good things this Government was supposed to accomplish - all the decency and fairness and honesty and openness that was supposed to be part of a new 21st century Bermuda?

Isn't there anybody there on the inside of this Government saying "This has wrong! This has got to change!"[[In-content Ad]]

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