May 20, 2011Dear Sir,As a Bermudian currently residing overseas, I do try to keep a pulse on what is going on in my country of birth through the medium of your newspaper.I have read with interest over the past many months of the series of events regarding the changing of affiliations in the UBP with some elected members joining the Bermuda Democratic Alliance. As time progressed there were the “rumours” if you will, of there possibly being a merging of parties (ie the BDA and the UBP) which I dismissed from my mind, the thinking being that surely, if there were members who left the UBP to join the newly formed party, why on earth would they even consider joining forces with the party they left?Mr Editor, you will forgive my stunned surprise when the rumours became reality and the two parties merged; add to my confusion, the recent poll conducted in The Royal Gazette, asking, if an election were to take place, which party would one vote for, and the response was almost overwhelmingly in favour of the “new” party.Sir, if one went hunting, caught a leopard, tranquillised it (of course), and took said animal to a paint shop, placed two buckets of paint in front of it – one black and one white – then set about painting diagonal stripes on the animal in the hopes of passing it off as a zebra, when the animal is placed back in the jungle, it will still stealthily hunt at night for that juicy antelope or succulent warthog because that's all it knows. No matter how many stripes are painted on the thing it will never kick its hind legs like a zebra and bray. Why? Because it's a leopard! It's the nature of the animal, it's how it was born, it's how it has always been and will be, and no amount of new stripes will alter what is.You have a group of individuals in the BDA, some of whom were dissidents of the UBP, who have now politically kissed and made up with the UBP and have now formed this “new” party, but guess what – same people, same money, same ideals, same methods, same nature – the same proverbial leopard trying to pass itself off as the proverbial zebra, by changing it's colours in the form of a new party name, the OBA. A new name will not change anything! It's still the UBP, after all, isn't it comprised of more of them than the original BDA members, minus the dissidents?Mr Editor, I have not been able to see many previous “letters to the editor” concerning this issue, but I have to wonder if there are others who see it the way I do. Am I missing something here? What is the change, because I am really befuddled by this political party dancing which occurred.BEATS THE HECK OUT OF MELondon, UK