Julian Hall once memorably described Sen. David Burch as a slow motion public relations train wreck and on Friday, Sen. Burch once again proved Mr. Hall right.

In a bad tempered debate with Opposition Sen. Gina Spence Farmer, the Housing and Public Safety Minister told her that her actions in connection with the Club Med squatters bordered on the criminal and that he would like to see her arrested.

He also claimed that the people living in the derelict hotel’s former dormitories are being controlled by some kind of mafia and that the “welfare culture” that he alleged Sen. Spence Farmer was encouraging created “monsters” whom Government is having to deal with today.

Aside from the eternal mystery of what a man as conservative as Sen. Burch is doing in a party that claims to represent labour and to be progressive, Sen. Burch managed to give the impression that the Government is actively opposed to the squatting and that Sen. Spence Farmer and others have created the situation.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Government owns the dormitory and has allowed the people living there to continue to stay there, in spite of the fact that they are living there illegally, paying nothing for the privilege and presenting Government with a serious liability risk, which was the point Sen. Spence Farmer was making in the Senate on Friday and in the Mid-Ocean News that same morning.

If there is a fire in the building, or some other kind of disaster, Government will be liable, both legally and morally, for any injuries that result. Instead of dealing with the problem, Government has turned a blind eye to it, because there is nowhere for the people to go.

Rather than acknowledge that fact, Sen. Burch, in the best Napoleonic tradition, went on the attack instead, with a vitriolic and unpleasant attack on Sen. Spence Farmer.

For what it’s worth, these are the facts. People are living illegally in the dormitory. Some, as Sen. Burch alleged, can almost certainly afford to pay something and probably would.

But Government will not turn over the property for housing because one day, it might actually find a tenant for the Club Med hotel.

In the meantime, Government lets them remain there, in unsanitary and possibly dangerous conditions. It is a tragedy waiting to happen and when it does, it is Government officials who should be arrested for their negligence, not Sen. Spence Farmer.