MY THOUGHT DU JOUR: "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on" — Arab proverb.

You could call it the theatre of the absurd. A cast of characters caught in a hapless situation, forced to engage in repetitive and meaningless actions, featuring a cyclical, predictable pattern of dialogue, which comes across as either parody or denial of reality, or both.

On the Hill, Mr. Editor, they call it the Annual Budget Debate. Dialogue? My mistake. Monologues are more like it. I kid you not. Check out the box score, aka the Minutes of the House when they're published. They keep a record of how long each MP speaks.

Under the House Rules, the Opposition gets to divvy up 42 assigned hours of debate for the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure. There are some 75-plus heads of expenditure which qualify. Straightaway you can see how challenging it is to try and put them all down: it would amount to half an hour per each, which would hardly do justice to the major Ministries like Education, Home Affairs, Health and Tourism.

So we don't try to do them all. The Opposition has to be selective instead: this year 45 heads for the 42 hours in the House. But even that doesn't work. Let me share with you four of the worst this year:

¦ Two hours were set aside for the Cabinet Office. The Premier showed us how big he can be. He spoke for all but 30 seconds. He's been 'splaining ever since how he taught the Opposition a lesson, although maybe not the one he intended.

¦ The Ministry of Health was given five hours. The Minister Walter Roban took three hours, everyone else shared two, which you may think is an improvement. I suppose it was. But on the other hand, the problem here was that members only got to debate the Health Department and the budget for the two and Hospitals, not Health Insurance and the Ministry of Health headquarters.

¦ Tourism and Transport: The Acting Minister Derrick Burgess picked up where the Premier left off. He read for all but 49 minutes out of five hours.

¦ Education: Not much better, really. Minister El James spoke from his prepared script for just over three of four hours. His shadow Dr. Grant Gibbons took the remaining 50 minutes and all others were shut out, including five former Ministers of Education who sit on the Government benches. But there again, maybe that too was part of the plan.

I thought things started to look up on Home Affairs on Wednesday. Members other than the Minister and his Shadow got an opportunity to speak on the proposed budgets for the Police and Corrections. It started to look and sound like debate. But hopes for improvement were soon dashed when Environment Minister Glenn Blakeney one-upped the Premier and read for the entire two hours that had been allocated for three of his departments. No one else even got a look-in.

This is pretty well the pattern year after year after year after year. Ministers read from these interminable briefs which are anything but brief. There is a somnambulistic pace about the place as they go on, and on, and on. Time doesn't stand still, thankfully. It just seems like it. Progress gets measured by a sundial and ironies abound.

The Speaker's gallery is often filled with swivel servants who presumably had a hand in drafting the briefs and who can number up to as many as nine at any one time, but to what end? To evaluate their Minister's reading skills? To provide answers to questions? That makes sense, I suppose, but only if there was time set aside for answers. There isn't; and let's be honest, there is only so much anyone can do with thirty seconds. Or less. As far as I am aware, Ministerial briefs are not shared with Opposition members either before or during presentation; or even after, for that matter.

Pity that. It's also petty. Members are denied the opportunity to follow closely and to come back with informed comment, and with questions that are sharp and precise. But there again, that too is probably the plan. Debate? If only. It rarely happens. Invariably few MPs other than the Minister and his or her shadow get to speak. Others are shut out. It is difficult if not impossible for independents and third party members to even get a look in. No offence, but in the Budget Debate this year I think they have learned that by and large they are pretty well (B)DOA. Stultify. Suffocate. Stifle. Stymie. The tactic is not new.

One of your readers dug up a story from just about twenty years ago in which MPs described the 1991 Budget Debate as one of the worst in living memory. MPs complained that they did not get a chance to speak in the allocated time because too many other MPs spoke for too long and repetitively. UBP Government MPs were calling for a time limit on individual speeches and the Opposition PLP wanted to extend the time allocated for the debate. Some things never change.

Is more time the answer? Possibly, but not necessarily. It is certainly warranted. The Budget has grown to over a billion dollars and, if you have been following the reports of the Auditor General, demands the closest possible scrutiny the Legislature can give. The time allotted back in the days of the UBP was increased to 42 hours from 35 as the Budget increased in size, and one of the changes in the proposed new Rules is to increase the hours to 56. There is no agreement yet on time limits either. The motion to debate changes to the Rules stands on the order paper in the name of Deputy Speaker Dame Jennifer Smith, but has not yet been taken up in yet another irony: the Budget Debate has taken precedence.

There's also hope in the promised parliamentary conference to help modernise the Bermuda Legislature. Government made the promise in the 2009 Throne Speech, but nothing has so far materialised; although I was recently and reliably informed that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association has been approached to assist in getting this off the ground. The hope is that the CPA may be able to help us engineer the change we all know is needed, but on which we cannot apparently agree.

In the meantime, Mr. Editor, it's more of the same old, same old.

Got any comments? Write jbarritt@ibl.bm. Or not.