her Opposition counterpart of "scaremongering'' over changes to the Boundaries Commission's powers.

"They have made the whole thing look deceitful. I am just sick of them,'' Dame Lois said of the United Bermuda Party after Shadow Legislative Affairs Minister John Barritt raised the red flag over more proposed Constitutional changes.

Last week, Dame Lois told a public meeting in St. George's that clauses governing the role of the Boundaries Commission would have to be changed to enable it to determine how many seats and what size constituencies Bermuda would have under its new election system.

But Mr. Barritt was exactly right.

The changes which Dame Lois was discussing had never been aired before; indeed, there is nothing in the message the House will shortly be asked to approve to start changing the Constitution about changes to the Boundaries Commission's powers.

Further, Premier Jennifer Smith went to some trouble to embarrass a questioner at the first public forum who raised this very issue -- the fact that the Boundaries Commission is not empowered to propose these kinds of changes.

Then the Premier went through the number and letter of each section and sub-section of the Constitution dealing with the Boundaries Commission. Look, she said, this questioner has no idea what he is talking about. There are lots of sections in the Constitution dealing with the Boundaries Commission.

It was marvellous theatre. The questioner was put in his place and the meeting continued.

Except for one thing: The questioner was right as Dame Lois admitted at last week's meeting. The Constitution will have to be changed to enable the Commission to make the changes Government wishes it to make.

That need not be done in Bermuda, according to Dame Lois. It can be done by "a battery of FCO lawyers'' who sit in "a room in London and they address it''.

So now, Bermuda's Constitution is going to be changed in London without consultation; how reassuring.

When the US sends troops overseas to deal with a problem like averting starvation in Somalia and the soldiers end up doing something completely different, like taking sides in a civil war, the US defence establishment has a term for it: Mission creep.

What Bermuda seems to be seeing now is Constitution Creep in which more and more changes are made to the Constitution in order to achieve the goal of single seat constituencies without regard to parish boundaries.

When Premier Smith first tabled her Green Paper, we bemoaned the lack of detail and the lack of consideration of other possibilities.

That lack of detail is now coming home to roost. How many more changes will be made before Bermuda has a Constitution which is widely respected and accepted by the whole community? Will the public be told about the changes, or will it be expected to accept the changes as the Government realises it has to make them? Finally, the Government must by now have some notion of what size constituency it thinks is ideal and/or how many MPs it thinks would best represent the voters. Why then is it so hesitant to tell the public?