For almost a century it has been as much a herald of the Bermudian spring as returning Longtails kiting across clearing skies or the freesias which shyly begin poking their multicoloured heads through the long, rain-saturated winter grass.

The Agricultural Exhibition, the Ag Show, is one of the most keenly anticipated events on the Bermuda calendar.

A combination of county fair, cultural celebration and community jamboree, the exhibit has long-since evolved and transcended its original purpose — to serve as an annual showcase for a once-agrarian Bermuda’s livestock and farm produce.

Today the scope of its displays and competitions and entertainments is seemingly limitless. Blue rosettes are awarded for first place in categories encompassing everything from farm animals to floral arrangements to fish sandwiches.

Tug-of-war contests, gravity-defying acrobatic performances and the ever-present aroma of cotton candy add a carnival-type flavour to the proceedings.

It is estimated that every April, more than 20,000 locals and visitors make the trek to the Botanical Gardens over the course of the show’s traditional three-day run.

In point of fact, the Ag Show has long been one of the best supported and most loved institutions on an Island which is sometimes said to be lacking in such community-building traditions.

Foolhardy is the politician who, given the history and social sentiments associated with the venerable show, interferes with its operations. Whatever her other real or perceived failings as premier, poor Dame Jennifer Smith will always be remembered as the leader who arbitrarily changed the name of the show to “The Bermuda Annual Exhibition” in a misbegotten move to impose her own political brand on what is, for all practical purposes, a folk custom.

Now Premier Michael Dunkley risks joining her in popular opprobrium as the man who presided over the cancellation, brief resurrection and subsequent re-cancellation of the 2015 Ag Show.

Such seemingly small-scale missteps really do have the potential to make or unmake political reputations in Bermuda.

Certainly the litany of after-the-fact rationalisations being offered up to explain the fiasco of the on-again, off-again exhibit is doing precisely nothing to enhance either the credibility or the supposed competence of those responsible for creating this situation.

When the 2015 Ag Show was axed as a cost-cutting expedient by Government during crisis talks with the Bermuda Trade Union Congress, after widespread industrial action by public sector workers over furlough days, it should have remained axed.

To encourage a private group to try to stage even a scaled-down version of the event in just a few weeks was, at best, something of a triumph of optimism over experience. But to then place serial roadblocks in the organisers’ way in terms of everything from shortening the run of the show to cancelling the customary Friday holiday allowing public school students to attend, to limiting the number of buildings which could be used at the Botanical Gardens, can only be interpreted as political and bureaucratic foot-dragging at best, pure obstructionism at worst.

The all too predictable result was what British political commentators now refer to as an “omnishambles” — a recently coined word the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “a situation that has been comprehensively mismanaged, characterised by a string of blunders and miscalculations”.

Members of the community action group who poured their energy, time and enthusiasm into what was clearly a lost cause once Government misplaced its will to cooperate with them may want to commemorate the Ag Show that wasn’t by awarding a single, special blue rosette.

It should go to Government for overseeing what, by any conceivable yardstick, must be adjudged the hands-down winner in the “Most Incompetently Managed Public Event” category for 2015.