Last week, the Premier made a major announcement. It's a shame he didn't tell us first, preferring instead to deliver the news to his evidently more important friends at the Overseas Territories Consultative Council.

Why is it that this Government prefers to inform their newly acquired non-Bermudian head of state friends about what's going on in Bermuda while keeping us ? the ones who will be affected by these policies ? in the dark?

Could the motivation for this overseas PR blitz at the expense of us be that the Government is well aware of their lack of credibility locally? That their grand plans would be rightly laughed off the Island if delivered here, seen as more empty promises or future failures? Or could it be that it just makes them feel like international players?

What the Premier's high ranking buddies don't know, but we do, is that in six years the members of this Cabinet aren't even players on the local stage. They haven't succeded in building one affordable house at an affordable price, or completing the construction of a school remotely close to its budgeted cost and date for example.

Yet somehow we're expected to have faith in them to manage an "all-encompassing cross-ministry initiative" over the next ten years? This initiative, we're told from thousands of miles away, is to be called the "Action Plan of Social Engineering for Sustainable Development" or, rather unimaginatively for short ? drum roll please ? "The Social Agenda".

Well you can't fool us. We all know that this isn't that different from the first six years of PLP rule, known as "The Social Calendar and Personal Agendas", or for short the "Sociable Agenda". We also know that the only part of the Progressive Labour Party name that seems relevant anymore is "Party". In reality, the Government has performed more like the Regressive Incompetent Party, or "RIP" for short.

It's a harsh condemnation of our current leadership that a group of politicians who had gone 30 years without winning an election spent their first six years in power uninterested in a "Social Agenda".

After finally winning an election in 1998, the self-described "People's Government" immediately embarked on an ambitious housing plan?for their two Premiers. This comprehensive strategy involved lavishly renovating two 'unofficial' residences in five years and redecorating the official one at Camden ? that's Government efficiency unparalleled pre-1998.

Not to be accused of ignoring the greater housing plight, they also built affordable houses in Warwick ? at twice the normal cost per square foot. Then, in order to provide affordable rental units they quietly purchased a house from the current Deputy Premier ? at twice its market value according to one real estate agent ? and managed the rental portfolio of at least one other Cabinet Minister.

As if that wasn't enough the Government tackled the traffic and tourism problems by purchasing really big, really shiny GPS unequipped cars for themselves, and attempted to turn declining air arrivals around by re-entering the Island frequently after their important and extensive travels outside of Bermuda.

Crime was also high on the priority list. Government presided over the theft of vital funds for housing at the BHC and failed to hold anyone accountable.

Committed to improving education, Government is now conducting a case study in how not to run a construction project by building a new school ? at what will be by some estimates almost twice the normal cost (and twice the annual education budget).

That's an impressive track record of wealth redistribution already! It's little surprise then that the Premier would prefer to profile as far away from Bermudians as possible. Why? Well, today's Bermuda looks a lot better if you're viewing it from the outside in rather than the inside out.

The Premier and his colleagues might find a better reception to their speeches here if they had registered a couple of achievements and not scandals during their tenure. What we need are politicians who are interested in what they can do for us, not what we can do for them.

The expectation early in the PLP's first term was that their first priority was to those they were elected to serve. Instead we quickly discovered that they were mostly concerned with taking care of their own by selling their own properties to the Government ? at undisclosed high prices ? for example.

One of the hidden advantages of governing Bermuda is that our elected leaders can't entertain too many distracting international vanity projects and preen on the world stage. We don't need much of a foreign policy, that's largely taken care of. Instead they should focus intensely on what's going on here at home.

Bermuda could be a shining example of the benefits of the saying "Think Global, Act Local" if our leaders would just focus on our own pressing issues here, than impersonating statesmen abroad.

Unfortunately this Government seems more interested in wowing their important foreign friends with their words, than wowing the ignored locals with their accomplishments.

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