Premier Paula Cox promised bold moves when she delivered her speech to Progressive Labour Party delegates last month, and now, on the eve of the Throne Speech debate, it’s a good time to see if she has followed through.Among other things, Ms Cox has moved to loosen immigration restrictions in a bid to retain international business and to encourage new direct investment.She has not scrapped term limits, but making permanent residents’ certificates easier to get and introducing ten-year work permits waters down the requirements for senior managers and investors. This can be seen as part of Ms Cox’s move to the middle ground, itself in part a response to the challenge of the One Bermuda Alliance.At the same time, it signals an attempt to get the economy going again through more business-friendly policies, a tacit recognition that the Progressive Labour’s Party’s previous methods were not working. But the moves, although many still give the appearance of being too little, too late, are welcome and seem to show that Ms Cox is at last getting to grips with the recession. This should make for a vigorous and interesting parliamentary session, since the PLP now looks like it is taking some of the OBA’s ground away even to the extent of stealing some catchphrases like “replacing red tape with a red carpet”.The jury is still out on the Cabinet shuffle, although it has had one unintended consequence with the revelation of Environment Minister Walter Roban’s shuffle-eve planning approvals for his once and future colleagues.In fact Ms Cox’s greatest problem now is the seemingly continuous stream of scandals. Last month, the Global House lighting scandal overshadowed her party’s conference. Now, the planning approvals for Zane DeSilva and Wayne Furbert are overshadowing Ms Cox’s recent candidate rollouts. That must be frustrating, because the appointments of Belco chief Vince Ingham as a Senator and former Chamber of Commerce President Stephen Todd as a candidate are major coups for Ms Cox.Along with yesterday’s announcement that former Police Commissioner and Senator Jonathan Smith will run in Warwick West, these appointments strengthen the PLP’s credentials on crime and the economy, two areas of vulnerability.Since the pair are running against OBA MPs and Mr Todd is running in Mr DeSilva’s very marginal PLP seat, Ms Cox seems to be making it clear she will take the fight to the OBA in a general election and will not simply fight a defensive campaign aimed at holding the party’s current seats. Indeed, the OBA now faces pressure to bring forward some new candidates, as many people will say that people like Mr Ingham and Mr Todd really should be in the pro-business OBA.It can be argued that the fact they are not damages the OBA almost as much as it helps the PLP, especially when Mr Todd said he did not see much difference between the OBA and the former United Bermuda Party.However Mr Todd and Mr Ingham have questions to answer too, as business leaders, they would have to have been blind not to have seen the PLP’s contribution to the current economic mess. So what is it that persuaded them that the PLP is now different? Was Ms Cox able to outline a plan that made sense to them, or promise them a seat at the policy-making table? Or was it simply that they could not see themselves in the OBA?Either way, the announcements give Ms Cox some new momentum and will give the OBA pause, unless, of course, another skeleton falls out of the PLP’s closet.