United Bermuda Party (UBP) leader Dr. Grant Gibbons yesterday called on the Premier to withdraw comments made about Shadow Tourism Minister David Dodwell in her television address to the country on Thursday night.

And Dr. Gibbons said his party will be asking the Broadcast Commission to look into whether the address - which called for national solidarity - was a political broadcast.

The cost for the broadcast should not be borne by the taxpayers if it was a political broadcast, he said.

Because it was made on the eve of the Opposition's reply to the Budget, the Premier's address raised suspicions that the ruling party was trying to invalidate criticism ahead of the debate, he added.

But he pledged that his party will continue to criticise Government where it saw fit.

Premier Jennifer Smith made a 12 minute speech to the country which was broadcast on both television stations on Thursday evening, calling for the country to pull together in facing "the turbulent waters of the challenging global economic environment" and in helping to rebuild the ailing tourism sector.

But she prefaced her call for national solidarity by saying that given the global impact of the September 11 attacks on the United States, "it is astonishing that a former Minister of Tourism in this country and the operator of a premium resort property in Bermuda and in Nevis should publicly declare that September 11 did not contribute to the drop in Bermuda's visitor count and in tourism revenue".

Dr. Gibbons said the comments were a "personal attack" on Mr. Dodwell.

"Not only was it blatant but it was entirely inappropriate because the Shadow Minister certainly did not say there was no impact by the events of 9/11. What he did say was that tourism had been in trouble long before that particular time and that the mess had started and the lack of fulfilment of tourism promises had started long before that," he said. "We would call on the Premier to withdraw those remarks."

He said: "I think what we're seeing now is a Government that now recognises it is in trouble. If you remember going back a couple of years, first of all they didn't care what we had to say, then if somebody had a different perspective they were called racists. More recently, we've heard that if one raises valid concerns that we're scaremongering. And now we're hearing a call for unity."

He said the UBP would support a call for unity, but coming from the Progressive Government "with its lack of openness, with its secrecy and its track record in terms of not caring what people think and also being very defensive in terms of any criticism they receive, I'm afraid certainly has to be taken with some scepticism".

He questioned why Ms Smith did not call for unity in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

And Dr. Gibbons reminded the media that his party had offered to work with the Government and meetings took place between key Ministers and their Shadow counterparts.

"Part of the problem of course, in the aftermath of September 11 was that the Premier wasn't even in the country at the time - she was travelling abroad," he said.

Government declined to work with the Opposition, he said, as was their right.

"If the Premier somehow expects through her call for unity for the UBP to roll over and play dead, she's certainly not going to have it. We feel that our role as Opposition to speak out on issues that we feel are important for the people of this country. In fact we have a constitutional obligation to do so."

He added : "Unity and patriotism must not be confused with silence. A vibrant democracy thrives on different voices, different people having different perspectives. I think it is inappropriate for the Premier to somehow suggest that it is inappropriate for people not to criticise, not to have different perspectives because there are a lot of opinions out there and quite frankly most of them are legitimate.

"If the Progressive Labour Party can't stand the heat, it should get out of the Cabinet Office because the United Bermuda Party is ready and willing to provide the kind of leadership that we think is required right now in this country."