What do you want for Christmas? “Peace on Earth” isn’t going too well at the moment. “Goodwill to Men (and Women)” sadly seems on the decline.

The One Bermuda Alliance asked for a General Election (yes please!). Yet that Christmas gift was tightly bagged on the Grinch’s wooden sled — rather than wrapped in a bright red box on Santa’s sleigh.

It’s the Premier’s gift to decide when to call the next election. Elections must be every five years and, once the writ is “dropped”, must happen within three months. Although the Premier can shorten this period, it takes about five weeks to prepare. Given it is already mid-December, Mr Burt will not be giving Bermudians an election this Christmas.

Last Friday was the final sitting of the House of Assembly for 2024. The Senate sat on Wednesday. Although the Premier could call an election after the Senate’s last session, that would mean an election in late January at the earliest. And does the Progressive Labour Party really want voters deciding its fate the same month that Christmas credit card bills arrive? Probably not …

Last House sitting: Politics

Because Parliament must be dissolved no later than November 2025, this last sitting of Parliament saw the Premier announce numerous financial “giveaways”. Such political promises may look generous — until you remember three things.

First, promised giveaways tend to come just before an election. Why is that? Are they after something? Your vote, perhaps?

Second, never forget that governments are giving you back your own money. Governments create no money themselves. Governments take money from the taxpayers. So when politicians make grand spending promises, you should stop and think whose money government is actually spending — it’s yours! And when spending promises come suspiciously before an election, voter beware.

Third, promises made before elections can fail to materialise after votes have been counted and ballot boxes put away. Think about some of the PLP’s previous election promises, including the Ottiwell Simmons Arbitration Centre in 2017. And, in 2020, the Education Authority. Perhaps some diligent bloggers may add other broken PLP promises in the comments section.

Yet the key question is this: will Bermudian voters continue to buy what the present PLP government is selling?

This time round, David Burt is no fresh-faced newcomer, but a career politician. The Premier has the heavy burden of his own political record. And that record is a liability that candidates in his party must also face. Bermudians can easily see for themselves the state of our island. Voters have felt David Burt’s PLP. Like the youngster in the fairytale, the one who cried “wolf” too many times, how many Bermudians still believe the Premier’s hollow promises?

The Premier concluded the House with what sounded suspiciously like an election speech. He also, perhaps inadvertently, shared this little gem. He announced that when he is out canvassing, voters most often tell him, “thank you”.

Really?

So when a voter meets our island’s premier, it’s not concerns that are shared? Not the economy? Potholes? Crime? Not even the state of education? Instead, it’s praise?

That’s a bit of a stretch, even for our premier.

Last House sitting: Christmas wishes

It is a tradition of sorts that the last House sitting before Christmas sees a flurry of well wishes. This occurs during the motion to adjourn, which allows for freestyle speeches after House business has concluded. On this last sitting, peace and goodwill featured even more prominently than usual.

The new MP for Constituency 36, the Reverend Emily Gail Dill, made her maiden speech on Friday, offering colleagues an advent quartet: hope, peace, joy and love. It was seasonally apt — the message of unity kind enough to make hardened partisan hearts soften (or at least mine did). There then followed retirement announcements by two Warwick MPs Lieutenant-Colonel David Burch and Ianthia Simmons-Wade, the latter concluded by generously thanking her colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

We are Bermudians first — politicians second. If those of us elected to serve place that core belief above partisan differences, we would have a better chance of finding solutions to our island’s very real problems.

• Scott Pearman is the One Bermuda Alliance MP for Paget East (Constituency 22) and the Shadow Minister of Home Affairs and Legal Affairs. He can be reached at spearman@oba.bm. This opinion was written on Saturday, December 14, 2024