July 19, 2015

Dear Sir:

I read Friday’s article about the OBA Government by your columnist Mr Chris Famous and must say I’ve read it all before.

It seems to me that the details from one column to the next don’t really matter because Mr Famous will always be against the Government no matter what.

I say that because his opposition comes before all else; before any analysis that gives fair consideration to the attributes or merits of any policy.

He will twist and exaggerate.

So we read repeatedly about OBA “broken promises”, though the only one that stands out definitively is the referendum on gaming – a policy now supported by a strong majority of Bermudians.

So we read repeatedly that an idea briefly floated in 2013 to allow the children of work permit holders the right to summer work becomes the basis for a refrain that the Government is taking from Bermudians to give to non-Bermudians.

Friday’s column is a continuation of Mr Famous’s permanent opposition to the Government. He casts judgment on its performance — unsurprisingly, it’s “non-existent” — and burnishes this conclusion by telling readers how Bermudians are feeling, sector by sector. Apparently we are, to a man, "disillusioned" and "violated". Curiously, those "feelings" reflect PLP talking points that the OBA Government is working for expats and big business.

A couple of thoughts on that: Mr Famous, like his PLP cohorts, is guilty of a self-induced amnesia that frees them to criticise the Government for not doing enough for the unemployed or spending enough for those in need. That amnesia allows for no mention of the disaster the PLP left behind after they were voted out of office — an economy at an absolute standstill, in depression by any measure, with thousands of once-employed Bermudians without a job and no prospects of one; all as though the economic pit Bermuda was left in had nothing to do with them.

People may be tired of hearing about the PLP’s record in office, but it remains the overriding fact of the life for the OBA Government — limiting its ability to spend on people, requiring them to win back trust in Bermuda as a place to do business, not an easy thing to do. These are big challenges that take time to overcome, but I think everyone today can at least sense that things are turning around.

From my perspective, the OBA is doing a remarkable job rebuilding trust in the marketplace.

It appears that all those so-called "anti-Bermudian" policies are creating conditions that give Bermudians the very thing they voted for in 2012, which is jobs and national security.

Signs of the economy finally tilting towards growth are clear for anyone who wants to see them, and now the OBA has 2½ years to lock in the gains and bring about the results they were elected to produce. If they pull it off, the first OBA Government may well go down as one of the most effective in our history. To reverse an economy that was in a depression will be no mean feat.

So here’s hoping.

Unfortunately, there are lots of people out there who don’t wish the Government well, with some salivating at the prospect of it all blowing up in the OBA’s face. It’s about partisan interest before national interest.

That’s just the landscape we occupy today.

So, just for the record, I suggest, Mr Editor, that you help readers’ understanding by making it clear who they’re reading when it comes to Mr Famous. I wouldn’t go so far as to label him “Our PLP columnist”. That’s too easy to deny. How about, instead, “Our anti-OBA Government columnist”?

JAKE,

Paget