The anti-Michael Dunkley campaign had just stepped up a notch, with huge Progressive Labour Party adverts plastered across newspapers claiming the then Opposition Leader was championing the start of a brutal regime of hanging and flogging.

The PLP's game was clear: the creation of a super evil character who was planning to take over Bermuda and drag it back to the dark days of the past if only he could sneak victory in the General Election in two weeks' time.

The United Bermuda Party's rebuttal was so meek it only managed to make a small news article on page 12 of the next day's Royal Gazette.

In one of the biggest regrets of his political life, Mr. Dunkley had accepted the advice of his UBP colleagues, taken the moral high ground and let the sensational adverts go almost totally unchallenged.

He now realises that in doing so he allowed the message, no matter how ridiculous many thought it was, to stick. In the eyes of some, Mr. Dunkley's failure to stand up for himself meant the allegations must be true.

Looking back on the scenario two years later, the Opposition Senate Leader says it's the perfect example of how the UBP has allowed itself to be defined by a governing party determined to see it disintegrate completely.

He reflected: "It really got to my inner core because it was so wrong what they said. I don't have a bad bone in my body. When people said I want to hang people it really turned me off.

"I was very disappointed and hurt by that because I remember clearly we had meetings every morning and the first thing on the agenda was to look at the papers.

"I remember listening to what people said. I said I need to attack this straight away, get in front of the press, show them who I am. Everybody in the room but one person (Shawn Crockwell) said let it go.

"The mistake I made was that I didn't listen to one person."

The advert had been loosely based on the fact Mr. Dunkley voted against abolishing capital and corporal punishment in 1999, but was presented as though the UBP's election platform was to be built around the reintroduction of such methods.

"DUNKLEY VERSUS BERMUDA; Bermuda is in grave danger when the leader of the UBP calls for a regime of extreme right wing measures such as HANGING, FLOGGING," it stated in massive letters.

In the next day's paper Mr. Dunkley was merely quoted as responding: "We have nothing about hanging or flogging in our platform. Those policies are not even coming up in the party or when we go to constituents."

Not a word in his own defence against the slur on his character, and this from a man who was well-known for speaking his mind.

"That told the community," he said. "Because people know Michael Dunkley speaks out, my silence sent them a message that perhaps there was truth in what was said. Still to this day it bothers me.

"Even my wife, who is the kindest person in the world, said to me when they come at you nasty, you have got to go back at them.

"When we made that pledge to run a clean campaign it was the right thing to do, but as soon as the PLP started to attack our character we needed to go back."

If the talk which has accompanied recent resignations is anything to go by, the UBP is losing its battle to change its image.

"It's frustrating me immensely because I don't agree with a lot of perceptions," said Sen. Dunkley.

"One of the things the PLP has done under Premier Brown is be very negative about the UBP. We have done a poor job of dealing with it. Our colleagues have been afraid of standing up and working on that.

"We have to go back to basics. We have to show people who we really are. Anyone involved in politics has to get out there and stand on their own two feet and show people who they are. We haven't done that.

"After the last election, we have been embroiled with arguing among ourselves in committee. We haven't made the change to be successful."

He said improvements can be made by showing more "unity in the community".

"How is a community going to support your party if you don't have unity?" he said.

"We need to come to an understanding. This is a political party. It's not a birthday party and at times your feelings are going to get hurt. You still have to move forward in a correct fashion.

"You can't go fighting outside the group, say I wasn't treated right, because the community will look at you and say how can I support those guys, they can't even get their act together."

He admits the party had employed tokenism in the past, and the UBP has long faced allegations of fielding black candidates and hiding the fact the string-pullers behind the scenes are white.

This label refuses to go away, and a review by consultants carried out after the election defeat was published this week on ZBM, in which advisers told the party they needed more "black surrogates".

Asked if the UBP had taken that advice, Sen. Dunkley replied: "No. It didn't happen. That report was an embarrassment to me and an embarrassment to the members of my party. They said Michael Dunkley was too much out in front. Well, duh, I was the leader of the party.

"Give me a break. I don't need to surround myself with anybody other than the people who I trust and the people who can accomplish the goals that we need to accomplish.

On tokenism, he said: "It's been there in the past. I have always thought it's been wrong. You can ask anybody. I think it's unfortunate that it's happened. I have always tried to change that. I think we have made great strides on that. It happened a lot more 30 years ago.

"While as leader of the party and deputy under Wayne Furbert I always fought against that.

"The sooner Bermuda politics starts to resemble what Obama did in the States the better, because you vote for the person and the message, not the colour of their skin."