UBP disbanding makes sense - so why all the trouble?

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18: PLP. NLP. UBP. BDP. BDA. OBA. The only acronym that really matters is TIRMU — this is really messed up.

Or an older acronym, FUBAR — but I find that too vulgar. 

TIRMU is accurate, honest and polite, and as a Bermudian I have to be nice, not vulgar.

Being nice is built into every Bermudian's DNA. It is an unstated genetic requirement for being granted Bermuda status.

But the demands of politics and the requirements for managing a country do not always allow for niceness.

Nice

We have just seen that with President Obama. Nice Mr Barack Obama authorized and then watched the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

He then got on the phone and called not-nice former President ‘Dubya’ Bush to say: “We got him.”

President Obama then turned nice again and, nice husband and daddy that he is, went to have a White House breakfast with Michelle, Malia, and Sasha — and probably pet the dog.

For those Osama-killing moments, Barack Obama was not nice.

This is how it is in politics and running a country.

It makes sense for the UBP to disappear. It makes sense for a new political party to form.

So why so much bother with the old when starting fresh and new makes so much sense?

When a person on the national political stage has to make a change, that person should simply do it and take the flak that may or may not come.

That takes courage. It also takes decisiveness.

Both qualities are necessary if one is to be a good and useful national politician whose actions can benefit the public good.

Dilly-dallying, wishy-washying and agonizing over decisions does not work — and is highly undesirable — at the national level, regardless of whether it is tiny Bermuda or the mighty US.

Twice Winston Churchill crossed the floor of the House of Commons. PLP to UBP, Dr Paul de la Chevotiere crossed once. UBP to PLP, Grace Bell and Wayne Furbert each crossed once.

UBP to BDA, Pettingill, Crockwell and Hunt have crossed. Independent Darius Tucker left the UBP. All eight acted decisively.

Over the past 10 days, the group of UBPers who say that they are going to leave the UBP and help form a new party have not acted decisively.

They have allowed themselves to be publicly shackled to an old wheezing, dying horse and they seem unable or even unwilling to break those shackles.

Of course, there is no edict they must follow, nor any precise rules and regulations. And there never will be.

But what there must be is thought (that has obviously happened); decision (that, too, has obviously happened); and then action. The latter has not happened.

Action

Bermuda’s national economy has been bedeviled and harmed by a now obvious lack of clear thinking, followed by decisive action taken in our best interests.

Bermuda’s need for more and more positive change is bedeviled by a lack of decisive action.

If Bermuda is to get out of the bind that it is in — shootings, slowing economy, rising debt, growing social issues — then the island must be led and managed by people who will get their facts right and straight.

It must be led by people who will think hard before taking decisive and positive action that will produce the best national results.

PLP. UBP. BDA. OBA. Where in heck are those people?