of the first anniversary of its November 9 General Election victory.

But Mr. Cox, who is acting in Premier Jennifer Smith's place while she is at the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, England, has refused to confirm or deny whether Government will pay for the celebration.

It has been alleged by the Opposition that the "day'' will be designated as a celebration of the "birth of democracy'', which may come as a surprise to voters who took part in free elections in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1989 and 1993 before the 1998 election -- which saw the Progressive Labour Party first win an election victory.

It could be argued that a democracy is not fully functioning until power is peacefully exchanged between one party and another. No-one disputes that the PLP victory represented an important event in Bermuda's political development.

But it is hard to justify public money being spent on the event -- either for invited guests or for celebrations. Using Government money to mark the election victory of one party amounts to an endorsement by the Government, and by extension the Civil Service, of one party's point of view.

Because the "permanent government'' must be impartial under the Westminster system, this strikes at the heart of democracy.

To some extent, through the People's Holiday last January, it has already done so, at some expense to the Government and the rest of the Island. The election of the PLP, after 30 years of trying, gave heart to people who felt they had little stake in the governance of the Island and in that sense, the holiday was justified.

The PLP has every right to celebrate the anniversary of its victory with its own money. But to try and turn a single electoral success into something more is dangerous, especially for a Government which is still having difficulty proving that it can look after the public's money.

If people reach the conclusion that this is where the $7 million in extra revenue raised through land tax increases is going, then the Government will face some very hard questions about its ability to manage the people's money.

TIME TO TRENCH EDT Time to trench Last month, the Bermuda Electric Light Company received well-deserved credit for the hard work of its staff who battled dreadful conditions to get the 12,000 homes which lost power in Hurricane Gert back on line.

And people who failed to keep trees and vegetation away from power lines received equally well-deserved criticism for adding to the problem of power outages in storms.

But the fact roughly one-third of the Island's households lost power in what was a relatively gentle hurricane begs the question of what might have happened had the storm been worse.

Belco has a reputation for being a progressive and well-run company which treats its employees well. It has also invested heavily in modernising its power plant and in ensuring the company is ready for "Y2K'' while, at the same time, it has given its shareholders a decent return on their investment.

With all of that in its favour, and in spite of the expense it entails, Belco (and the Bermuda Telephone Company and Cablevision) should do more in the future to accelerate the trenching of its main overhead lines which are unreliable in high winds.