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You've got to hand it to them.

If there is one area in which the PLP Government excels, it is spin.

You can't say they excel in housing. You certainly can't say they excel in education, or public safety or project management.

But when it comes to the business of spin, PLP ministers and their hirelings have no peer.

When I see them glibly talk their way around and through yet another disaster or failure to act, I have to admire them for their skill.

Always, I am reminded of Spin City's Michael J. Fox, whose character's sole purpose was to spin the truth so that his boss the mayor would not look so bad.

Unfortunately, the humour of Spin City is not so funny here in real life Bermuda.

The sad reality is that Bermuda has been fed such a steady diet of spin by the current government that I fear we are on the verge of an overdose.

The Pembroke dump fire is just the latest example of a government spinning itself out of responsibility for a mess it helped make.

It begins with Public Safety Minister David Burch telling us that people should not complain because the fire was a fire that "nobody made happen." Spin!

The fact is that Government negligence contributed directly to conditions that led to the blaze. Machinery breakdowns, no spare parts, no effort to get spare parts, a mountain of waste allowed to grow to the height of an eight-storey building, a history of dump fires, tons of horticultural waste, heat, methane gasses... It was a recipe for disaster, which came to pass.

Works Minister Dennis Lister said that he and his ministry were very concerned about the conditions that led to the fire, and that they were moving with speed to get the spare parts here, possibly this week. Spin!

This is putting a gloss of ministerial action over the failure of government action.

It is nothing but spin to hide government inattention, lethargy and, ultimately, negligence.

Dizzy yet? If not, there's more.

In a press conference, Sen. Burch made the mind-boggling statement that people who raised the question of compensation for fire-related damages were un-Bermudian.

When Shadow Minister for Public Safety Michael Dunkley called him out on this obvious faux pas, the Senator said he was misquoted.

What he really said was that it would be un-Bermudian if Bermudians did not pull together through the crisis. Spin! Thank God ZBM records their press conferences. They played back Burch's words on the news and the record was un-spun.

ZBM actually has a history of helping us un-spin the spin.

Remember Education Minister Randy Horton insisting that he'd called for an "independent" inquiry into the CedarBridge mould crisis? Michael Dunkley triggered the outburst by noting the minister had called for an "internal" inquiry.

ZBM stepped in and played the tape, proving Dunkley right and the minister to be spinning.

So people beware! Because when this Government speaks, it spins. Listen closely and, whenever possible, play the tape.

Shawn Crockwell is the Chairman of the UBP.[[In-content Ad]]

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