David Burch, now the former Government Senate Leader and Minister of Public Safety, will be missed.That may seem strange coming from this newspaper, since Mr Burch has always made plain his distaste for The Royal Gazette. But even that, in its own way, was good. You always knew where you stood with Mr Burch, which has not always been the case with other politicians. Mr Burch was good at getting things done. When scandal hit the Bermuda Housing Corporation, he stepped in and cleaned it up and embarked on a major homebuilding programme. When the Ministry of Works and Engineering was reeling from the muddle and scandal of the Berkeley project, he stepped in and steadied that ship.In his last Ministry, Home Affairs, which morphed into National Security, he did not inherit a problem Ministry, but he accomplished a great deal, clearing a backlog of work permit applications and generally working towards a more efficient Immigration Department. He also had a reputation for going by the book and, in the main, applying decisions on work permits and other complex problems judiciously and without bias.Curiously, he had the most difficulty with the Public Safety aspect of his portfolio, where he might have been expected to be most comfortable. But the division of responsibility for the Police between Government and the Governor has irked more patient people than the Colonel and it was only in the last year or so that a good working relationship developed. Prior to that, a good deal of time was wasted in turf fights while the bodies of the murder victims piled up.And it was in just such a turf fight that Mr Burch made his riskiest political gamble when Premier Ewart Brown embroiled him in the importation of the four Uighurs to Bermuda from Guantanamo Bay. In that case, of course, Dr Brown undermined then Deputy Premier Paula Cox and the rest of the Cabinet, which adds some irony to Mr Burch’s resignation.If ZBM reports are correct, the good working relations between the police and Mr Buch lasted until recently, when he failed to protect the Police’s budget at a time of spiralling crime. He seemed distinctly uncomfortable saying that the Police would be able to do more with less and that manning on the street would not be affected. This was followed by the notorious meeting between Commissioner of Police Michael DeSilva and Premier Paula Cox on Saturday which Mr Burch only learned about afterwards.Ms Cox has said she simply wanted a firsthand briefing in the wake of the latest murder. But this does not compute with her statements that she takes a hands-off approach to Ministers’ decisions and takes herself “out of things”. On that basis, and knowing Mr Burch’s somewhat prickly personality, she should have known that holding such a meeting without him would be taken as a slight and as undermining his position.Even so, it is hard to imagine that that alone would force him to resign unless it was preceded by other disagreements. To be sure, Mr Burch showed rare public discomfort in voting for the Tuckers Point Special Development Order, about which he said he had personal misgivings, and the possibility of liberalisation of home ownership rules may also have played a part. It is not impossible that Ms Cox was being Machiavellian in forcing a row with Mr Burch. His sharp tongue and lack of political finesse can be a liability, especially in a possible election year.Expressing pleasure that home prices are going down when people are at risk of losing their homes is bad politics and many of the former Senator’s other outbursts have been self-defeating as well, including his comment that he had the power to put the admittedly bumptious British MP Andrew Rosindell on the stop list.Then too his statements on term limits and other Immigration matters will not have helped Ms Cox’s efforts to improve relations with international companies, even if Ms Cox privately shares some of those views. So it is not impossible that Ms Cox, despite her avowals, is somewhat relieved to see Mr Burch go, especially if it enables her to showcase former Police Commissioner Jonathan Smith as a potential candidate in a General Election at the same time.To be sure, this seems a stretch. And if true, Ms Cox will miss the effective and practical management that Mr Burch has brought to government since 1998 more than she will be relieved not to have to quell the occasional eruption.