Charles Dickens was a 19th-century English author who wrote books that focused on the massive rise in poverty and misery visited upon the urban working poor in Britain.

The title of one of Dickens’s books is A Tale of Two Cities. He was paid by the word and the book is 300 pages long. This far more modest piece is called “A tale of two Bermudas”. One Bermuda is the Oasis while the other is the Desert.

Who lives on Bermuda’s Desert?

We all know that it’s most of us. We are the many who bear the brunt of rising food prices, the likes of which many have never seen. We are the ones desperately trying to find a way to pay next month’s rent. We are the ones who despair of finding quality public education for our children. We are the ones who worry about access to decent healthcare.

Ci’re Bean was an independent candidate in the recent by-election up in Sandys North. He told me that he met with 14 and 15-year-old Berkeley Institute students only a few weeks ago. They revealed that their overriding concern was the daily struggle that their parents are enduring to provide for their daily bread.

Winning the lottery

Of course, the Oasis is where you find Jason Hayward and David Burt and their new-found friends in international business, along with assorted developers. The Oasis is also where you find the top-level civil servants. I hasten to add that I have the greatest of respect for the hard work that they do. At least where it applies to most of them. I don’t begrudge their good fortune at finding themselves on the Oasis. Senior executives at the banks and the bosses/owners of the major businesses in Bermuda such as Belco are also on that Oasis, along with those who have won the lottery and find themselves in Mr Burt’s Cabinet or the backbencher with a lucrative government contract.

The members of this relatively small, and shrinking, group don’t bear the burdens of those on the Desert. They don’t blink when they see the price of a bag of groceries at Miles or Lindo’s. Their health insurance covers their grandmother when she has another serious emergency. For those on the Desert, my bet is that their grocery bills have risen by at least 30 per cent over the past four years, along with the ruinous cost of living.

At one time, you were on the Oasis if you were earning six figures and had one or two children. I am told that even they are finding it difficult. They are headed to that Desert, too, if they are not already there.

Bermuda has a gigantic problem. It pains me to admit that our political leaders, who are overwhelmingly Black, have failed us miserably. What was characterised as upward mobility, as it once did for so many, has turned into downward mobility for too many as their purchasing power declines.

I was once proud to be a member of the Progressive Labour Party — the party of Lois Browne-Evans, Freddie Wade, Walter Roberts, Barbara Ball and Ottie Simmons. Let’s not leave out Stanley Morton, the unofficial heart and soul of the PLP, who is sorely missed as are so many others.

Remember, anytime you vote, you’re making a choice. If you don’t vote, you’re still making a choice.

If you are thinking of voting PLP in the next election, you will be taking a chance. You will be telling yourself that David Burt and those on his patronage plantation will this time make good on the promises they have failed to keep. Over and over. Do not believe what they say. Also remember what they have done. For themselves. And to you and your families.

They promised and failed:

• To give you a living wage

• To make sure you can buy groceries and pay your rent

• To get good healthcare for your grandma

• To get a good education for your children

Fair for whom?

You’ve gambled on the PLP time and time again.

It has not delivered. When it had a chance, neither did the OBA, which is the United Bermuda Party in disguise. And make no mistake, if you vote for the Free Democratic Movement, it won’t deliver, either. All three of them are identical triplets playing by the same status-quo playbook. Too many are out for themselves. Not out for you. And not out for Bermuda. When they say fair, ask fair for whom?

The independent candidates are not committed to a party or a party leader. They are committed to Bermuda and its renewal of its constitutional, political and economic model. They will make sure your children are not living in poverty and that you have no need to get on a flight and flee to Britain for the rest of your days. That you and your family can afford to live here in the place you call home. The weather, after all, is terrible in England, as is the mood of most of the people. It has not escaped notice that many of them are now flocking to our shores.

Vote for your independent candidate. You keep losing with the other guys. Take a real chance at winning. For yourself. For your family. For Bermuda.

• Rolfe Commissiong was the Progressive Labour Party MP for Pembroke South East (Constituency 21) between December 2012 and August 2020, and the former chairman of the joint select committee considering the establishment of a living wage