Here is my take, Mr Editor.

Politics is very much broad strokes. First impressions tend to stick. Detail is important, sure, and woe betide should you get caught out for failing to pay attention to detail. Those chickens, my friends, have a way of coming home to roost — eventually, and usually sooner rather than later.

Those e-mails: It isn’t how much they number. It is what they tell you. Aecon appeared pretty damn keen, outright bullish even, on securing the Bermuda contract for a new airport. That much, I think, is very, very clear. They were obviously hungry for the business and prepared to go to great lengths to, ahem, position themselves for the work.

They are a business in business for business.

What was also clear is that the airport project is coveted work. In my books, and for my money, that is reason enough to want to put the job out to tender to see just who else is out there and what they are prepared to do and at what price. Nothing fuzzy about that.

Nothing fuzzy about what happened in the Caymans either. They gave in to UK pressure to introduce competitive bidding and ultimately settled on major renovations for which they received nine bids; and, oh yes, they also ditched the idea of turning their airport over to, reportedly, the very same developer for 30 to 40 years.

But not here, not yet. We are told instead, by way of justification, that the traditional tendering process has not worked well in Bermuda. Nothing new there, folks. There is this terrible history of cost overruns and busted budgets, most of them the subject of scathing reports from the Auditor General, and almost all of them after the financial damage has been sustained, and when nothing can be done. So it seems. Time travel is still not an option.

So a Public Private Partnership (PPP) like the one proposed for the airport commends itself. Or so we are told, and that, frankly, is a startling indictment not just on what we have but on what our government is willing and prepared to do about it.

Now the One Bermuda Alliance came to power on the promise that they were prepared and committed to changing things for the better. They had been unmerciful and unrelenting in their criticism of the way the PLP had handled the public purse.

There was mention of boosting the Office of the Auditor General, establishing a Contractor General to oversee Government contracts, and strengthening parliamentary oversight by committees which, presumably, would include firing up a much more robust, active and, surely, a far more current Public Accounts Committee.

They even gave us the SAGE Commission which in turn gave us countless, insightful recommendations on how government can and should be overhauled to provide for greater efficiency and accountability.

One might reasonably and fairly infer such reform is not happening under the OBA or, if it is happening it is not happening fast enough. Sure, the OBA promised to run a tighter ship of state and to shrink the public debt (or at least not add to it) and they are almost halfway through their term.

I expect that they are also very much aware of one of their other bold promises: to create 2000 jobs, and they believe that a new airport will account for 400 of them.

But look, let’s agree (as nicely as we can) that reasonable people can disagree on whether we even need a new airport, at this time. There was that recent poll which reported that a substantial majority is dead set against turning the airport over to a foreign company. It would be interesting to know how many actually think we need a completely new facility? We are a destination, not a transit point.

As for the proposed PPP, on that too, reasonable people can disagree. We know of the experiences elsewhere, although we don’t fully know all there is to know about the experience here with the new acute care wing, specifically its full financial impact and the extra costs it will mean for health care, not just this year, or next, but in years to come.

That is the thing about PPPs. They can defer until another day, another term, another Government, or another generation, the problems that can and invariably do arise. They are often mostly financial too — and ultimately, no matter how well the deal is structured, or crafted, an airport like a hospital is vital to the Bermudian community and the Government of Bermuda will always be on the hook.

For sure, there is no free lunch, Mr Editor. But on the other hand, as people also appreciate: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.