No more trash talk -- well, not exactly By Neil Roberts Alex Scott was rubbished in all quarters when he said the United Bermuda Party was too close to the drugs trade to clean up crime.

He promised the Progressive Labour Party would organise the sweep-up "from Front Street to Court Street''.

Then the PLP won the Government -- and the new Premier made Mr. Scott an offer he couldn't refuse.

"You want to clean up Bermuda so much?'' she asked him. "Then clean up the trash from our streets. Go and be Works and Engineering Minister.'' Mr. Scott tells the tongue-in-cheek story, laughing. He is a changed man.

"Good morning minister,'' a civil servant greets him as he walks into his new office above the General Post Office. "How are you this morning,'' Mr. Scott replies to the man with a British accent, the kind who may not have felt his job was safe given some of Mr. Scott's comments in his previous role as the PLP's Immigration spokesman.

But that is a matter for others now and Mr. Scott is tackling the job in hand.

There is no revolving door to the huge ministry's offices, once the kingdom of veteran UBP minister C.V. (Jim) Woolridge.

But there has been a complete revolution there within a few days. Out with the old and in with the new. And the change has affected Mr. Scott more than anybody.

"I think the Premier took my point to heart,'' he says. "She told me to look at the trash schedule and gather all the tools I needed to make Bermuda a cleaner place.

"It wasn't quite what I had in mind. But there's no way I look on it as a side step or a demotion. We had the right team in place to win the Country for the PLP.

"Now we have put the team in place to hold the ground. Paula Cox is ideally suited for the role of Home Affairs Minister.

"It's been said that I'm a good manager. Well, that remains to be seen as we have a big job ahead.'' In many respects, Mr. Scott is right not to treat the job as a slap in the face.

Now, at the age of 58 and after 30 years of his party's struggle for power, he is in charge of 600 staff, a $40 million budget and Bermuda's roads and street lights.

He has also made it his responsibility to clean up Bermuda for real and is now hoping to double the number of trash collections.

"I have to see how we can continue to provide services to Bermudians,'' he says, surveying the scene in his grand new office. "We also want to complement those services.

"But we need to do that at the most effective and efficient cost. We have an expenditure column. But we also have an income column.

"We earn dollars for Government coffers by selling power to Belco. We make more dollars with our recycling efforts, we lease property and so on.

"It will be for me to see where we can increase the income and reduce the cost.'' That's where the change comes in. No more the outspoken, controversial spokesman from the Opposition benches.

Listen, now, to the business-like manager, with an eye for balancing the books while improving services at the same time.

"The Alex Scott of yesterday will probably disappear somewhat,'' he says.

"Hopefully a very capable manager will appear somewhere, although he's not here yet.

"For instance, I cannot comment on how I find this ministry ...what state Mr. Woolridge left it in.

"The old Alex Scott would have said something. But that would be most unministerial. I'm changing. Good heavens, I may even end up becoming gracious.

"If it ain't broke, we won't fix it. But nevertheless, there are campaign promises.'' He chuckles as he makes the point about becoming gracious, looking around his spacious office and talking about how he will have to move his home computer in.

But then he adopts a more serious tone. "I have to be more careful being a minister,'' he says.

"You have to watch out for ministerialitis , I think, where you become preoccupied with your own sense of self-importance.

"Then there is something else called departmentalitis where you see your own responsibilities as the be-all-and-end-all.'' One of the most welcome changes is information at his fingertips. There's to be no more struggling for the facts from the Opposition benches.

"To speak to the Minister or see the Minister used to take quite a bit of doing for us,'' he remembers.

"You would have to await his pleasure. But now, the information you used to push for is being fed to you because you are required to know. It is given to you on a plate.

"Then, of course, because you are the Minister you are sworn to secrecy and you can't speak as freely.'' That will take some getting used to. So has the fact that he no longer needs to ask for anything.

On his first day in office, Mr. Scott stepped out of the elevator to ask permission to see the Permanent Secretary, Stan Oliver.

He would ask permission to see his office, ask permission to find some files.

That's no longer necessary.

But the man who was never lost for words will now have to remember that ministerial responsibility.

He will still remember his words, just keep them to himself. But he was genuinely tongue-tied at the A1 Grocery in Paget last Saturday.

"I walked in looking for a copy of The Royal Gazette ,'' he says. "There were three or four young stackers there, schoolchildren, and they just applauded when they saw me. Then they said PLP, PLP.

"I honestly didn't know what to do or say. I should have got their names but I didn't even think. All I said was PLP, PLP.'' The change happened. It's for Mr. Scott to prove that the PLP revolution should not be rubbished.