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In any group, there's always someone who wants the top spot. Well almost always. There's no big competition for the top or any spot in the UBP; certainly not a competition of the intensity that's happening with Obama/McCain. But neither is there any great fervour for replacing Dr Brown as leader of the PLP.

    There's certainly unhappiness with parts of his performance. But, so far, not sufficient unhappiness to cause the kind of shift that unseated Dame Jennifer. Nor is there any apparent campaign of the kind that enabled Dr Brown to unseat Premier Scott. So, for the moment Premier Ten looks as safe as any politician can look.

      But just shy of ten years on - it'll be ten years exactly on November 9, 2008 - what has happened?

     Some Bermudians are better off than they were ten years ago. Under PLP rule, Bermuda's general economy grew, but changed. The changed economy is highlighting the increased importance of the underlying problems that could drag us down - much like the sub-prime mortgage matter eventually helped yuck down the global economy. As with the sub-prime matter, it's Bermuda's unseens that can yuck us down. One of our unseens is that Bermuda's economy has undergone radical change while some key Bermudian attitudes, values, and performances have not changed at all. One unchanged attitude is that many Bermudians still think that tourism can be made to return and re-occupy the place that it once had, and that Bermudians can go back to centre stage as the most important element in Bermuda. This is entirely understandable. However, it is like believing in fairy godmothers turning $700 pay cheques into $7,000 pay cheques. It won't happen, but it's nice to believe.

      So here's a reality check. The current global economic meltdown means that hotel development funds have either disappeared with the companies that were putting them up - as has happened with the Sonesta project. Or funds which might have been made available have diminished as investment holdings melted away - as has happened with every other investor, including the asset-rich Arabs. Finally, in the near-term, global tourism will be reduced by the knock-on effects from the job-losses still rising in western economies. Result? Curtailed investment, and far fewer tourists travelling on holiday.

     Reality: Bermuda tourism peaked in 1987 with 631,308 tourists spending $468m in 1987 dollars. For 2007, Bermuda tourism is reported as having had 635,300 tourists spending $454m in 2007 dollars. In real terms, in 2007 Bermuda received less than half as much Tourist income as in 1987.

Cheap foreign labour

Reality: In 1987, about 3,900 Bermudians were working in the 10,400 bed tourist industry. In 2007, about 1,500 Bermudians are left working in a much smaller 5,600 bed industry. Bermudians have been replaced by cheaper foreign labour. Now, and going forward, Bermuda's hospitality industry is completely dependent on a supply of foreign labour that can work cheaper than any Bermudian can afford.

      Reality: Any re-vitalizing or enhancement of Bermuda's tourist industry will rely on, and can only be built on, the backs of cheaper imported labour. Effectively, Bermudians are shut out of much of this secondary Industry. This shut-out process began in the 1980s. It accelerated in the 1990s. But in 20 years, no Bermuda Government, UBP or PLP, has realized, acknowledged, or responded effectively to this.

     Reality: Bermudians are already in second place in Bermuda's national economy - and now underpin but do not drive Bermuda's economy. Since 1994, all economic growth in Bermuda has occurred only because of the addition of high-skillset non-Bermudian labour. Since the PLP takeover in 1998, the percentage of non-Bermudians in Bermuda's total workforce has grown from the 23 per cent of 1998 to the 31 per cent of 2007. In plain numbers, since 1998 about 4,700 additional non-Bermudian workers. A connected but disturbing unseen is that the number of Bermudian males recorded as filling jobs is actually declining and has been declining for seven years.

Reality: Bermuda's public education system is still under-performing - as it has for over 20 years. But ten of those years have been under the PLP.  Bermudians are finding it increasingly difficult to succeed in an economy in which their earning ability is hampered by their inability to get into the higher-paid, higher skill-set jobs in international business - a direct consequence of decades of poor educational preparation. Bermudians are also being squeezed out of jobs at the lower end of the pay scale - a consequence of Bermuda's already globalized pay structure. It's in not dealing with all these areas of unseens that I see the PLP's greatest and continuing weaknesses.

On the cusp of the tenth anniversary of the PLP's takeover, Bermuda's tenth Premier is Dr. Ewart Brown. With great financial houses tumbling into ruins, with the world's biggest banks and with big financial houses in the U.K and U.S. grabbing big beggar's buckets and running to their national governments for handouts; with big CEO 'masters of the universe' losing their jobs; in Bermuda we seem to be fussing about race and the past.

What's my grading on the overall performance of the PLP and Premier Ten? Out of ten, my grading is five sliding towards four. As this current global meltdown proceeds, it could drop to three - unless somebody finally starts dealing with reality.[[In-content Ad]]

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