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In 2007, I wrote - and not for the first time - that the UBP needed to die and be replaced by a new entity.  In that last column, I recalled the image of the old time movie cowboy who, when shot, would clutch his chest, expend a great deal of energy staggering about, then fall down, and with his last dying breath make some theatrical statement. I described the UBP's actions as being much the same.  This new jumble of resignations is just another part of a too long - now almost comic - death stagger.   

  I have always believed that the UBP needs to disappear - and that means disappear completely. To many - if not most - people, me included, the people who are in the UBP are nice people. But to many - me included - the initials UBP might as well be KKK.

     Given the recent and continuing performance of the Brown-led PLP as it tries, with steadily dwindling results, to make and implement the kinds of decisions that need to be made and then successfully implemented;  I have lost a great deal of faith in the Brown PLP's ability to govern Bermuda because I see Bermuda slipping and sliding. I have stated and explained my inability to trust this leader that the PLP seems to so desperately hang on to - as if he and he alone can lead.

Any clearheaded person would look at the performance of the Brown PLP and see what I see. A totally bungled tourism policy now bringing in half the dollar value that it was bringing in twenty years ago;  a deliberate but concealed switch from encouraging dollar spending air arrivals to sucking in nickel+dime spending cruise arrivals, and then boasting about 'total arrivals'.

A failed Education initiative that saw the American 'axpert', Dr. Henry Johnson, fly away with half-a-million dollars and little of any value left behind to show to us following his 22-month stay.  A music festival that bombed instead of boomed. A just happened climb-down by the Ministry of Education which freshly re-demonstrated that there are no standards whatsoever.

     A clearheaded person sees a Brown PLP that does not have the good corporate sense to sort out its own leadership and management problem in a timely and forthright manner.  It is clear from all that is said and from all that happens, that today's PLP Parliamentarians will willingly hang on to a leader who has decieved them and all the rest of us - not once, but TWICE! That they'll seemingly hang on to him forever - and justify it!

    This PLP willingness to use the PLP constitutional processes to enable and justify the retention of a leader who has behaved so badly and who performs so poorly suggests, and suggests very strongly, that the PLP has lost the will to govern. The PLP that hangs on to a leader in this manner is a PLP that will not take the hard decisions that need to be taken if education is to be reformed. That will not take the hard decisions that must be taken if the now acknowledged rise in crime is to be stemmed and then turned back. That will not be capable of doing the honest analyses required if Bermuda is to successfully work its way through the combined economic and social problems that swirl and grow around us.

      With every setting sun, I see the passing of another day in the life of a PLP that is full of confusion, that has lost its sense of direction, that has certainly lost its core values of honesty and integrity, and that is now lolling about while its untrustworthy leader cavorts about the national stage trying to convince us that he is a man to be trusted and believed.

      I had great faith in the PLP. I worked hard and long to help bring it to power. In the past year, but particularly the past half-year, I have lost much of that faith. Without a change in the leadership of the PLP, I cannot restore my faith.

      I know that at this time, the near-dead UBP is not an option. But I also know that, at this time, the level of national dis-satisfaction is such that any coalition of non-PLP'ers, ex-UBP'ers, or crossed-floor PLP'ers will easily satisfy me and thousands of others. A fresh new political party will go a long way to giving us all a better chance of once more moving ahead.

     It's time for change.

     Either change within the PLP, or change outside the PLP. But change. Change![[In-content Ad]]

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