Bermuda Tourism Board meetings consist of little more than drinking tea and eating cakes, according to axed member Tony Brannon.The entertainer says tourism has become “a game of political nit-picking” with Government refusing to adopt innovate ideas to boost the struggling industry.Mr Brannon says the “movers and shakers” on the Tourism Board were being ignored as Government just wanted to plough ahead with what it wanted.He has spoken of his frustration after Tourism Minister Patrice Minors fired him from the Tourism Board for not being as “constructive” as she’d envisioned.Mr Brannon said after six months of meetings, not one line of the National Plan had been written. An overseas consultant now looks set to be brought it to write the blueprint for the future of the industry at a cost of about $1 million.Mr Brannon offered to help put the National Plan together himself, but he was told his services would “not be pursued at this time.”Mr Brannon said he had “watched the industry disintegrate” over a 30-year period, saying tourism was being operated under “a broken and flawed structure.”He said: “If getting the chop is the price I have to pay for progress, then so be it, that’s a fair price to pay.“But I don’t think things are going anywhere. There’s been lots of talk about this and that, but nothing has happened, absolutely nothing.“We need to shake things up. Government has to have the courage to make a huge leap of faith.“The Minister announces the Tourism Board is doing great things behind closed doors, but all members are doing is drinking tea and coffee and eating cakes.”Mr Brannon said the solution would be to privatise the industry with a Tourism Authority “leading everything from the top down.”He said: “To move forward we have to take politics out of it.“There has just been no consistency, tourism is like a political football.“Every four or five years there’s an election and everything changes; there’s a new Minister, a new Permanent Secretary and a new ad agency coming up with a new slogan.“Quite frankly, enough is enough, this can’t carry on.”But it is Mr Brannon’s fear that it will be business as normal as he says Ms Minors is “dead against” gambling saying it won’t be happening under her.He said Government was also now in election mode, so they are “refusing to make progress because they are saving themselves for the polls.”Mr Brannon said: “I can see what the Plan is going to look like, it’s going to be cherry-picked to what the Minister wants or what Government wants, rather than what Bermuda needs.“We need to do something bold, new and different. This is politics ruling what could be a brilliant thing for Bermuda.”The conflict between Mr Brannon and Ms Minors, which came to a head with his firing on Tuesday, had been bubbling away for several months. Mr Brannon said: “She took a personal attitude and beat me up,” and “If you don’t like the message, shoot the messenger.”Mr Brannon sent an e-mail to Premier Paula Cox and Ms Minors on Tuesday at about 10.40am saying that: “We are nowhere near where we should be.”Just 50 minutes later Mr Brannon was fired in an e-mailed letter signed by Ms Minors. The letter read: “Your passion for the Bermuda Tourism product has not gone unnoticed, however after much reflection it has been determined that your participation as a Tourism Board member has not been as constructive as I had envisaged.”Board members are paid $25 for each attended meeting and Mr Brannon will be donating his pay to the Coalition for the Protection of Children.Since he was fired, he has sent two e-mails to the Minister saying he would continue to do what was right for the country, through his work as an entertainer and organiser of Bermuda Beach Tennis. Ms Minors has not responded.He told the Minister: “This is not the progress that is required to revive Bermuda Tourism. I hope and pray that Bermuda will one day see greatness again in tourism. Being fired for giving great ideas is indeed crazy.”Mr Brannon believes the conflict with the Minister began in April when he got a phone call from her after The Royal Gazette printed stories about ferry cuts. He said Ms Minors told him: “You are on the Tourism Board, you can’t make things difficult for me.”About a month later Mr Brannon was in New York when Ms Minors called him regarding a Royal Gazette story about the Tourism Retreat. Mr Brannon says she said: “Brannon, you speak to TheRoyal Gazette? This is Minister Minors,” Mr Brannon said he had not and Ms Minors allegedly hung up.Within an hour Mr Brannon got an e-mail from Ms Minors saying: “I will ask you one more time, did you speak to The Royal Gazette?” as she said she found it “very curious” that the words in the Gazette’s story were similar to those used in Mr Brannon’s e-mail to Board members.There was another disagreement between Mr Brannon and Ms Minors over a John Lennon tribute being planned for next year. Mr Brannon hopes to bring Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono to Bermuda and suggested Government could extend a formal invite to her.Ms Minors is alleged to have told Mr Brannon: “You have no right to suggest Government will be inviting her … John Lennon is not high on my priority list.”Mr Brannon, who has a hotel administration degree from Cornell University, ran the 40 Thieves for 12 years and has worked in the entertainment industry for 35 years.He said he thought Ms Minors had been “an odd choice” for Tourism Minister as either Randy Horton or Dale Butler would have been “a more logical option.”He also believes Tourism should still be paired with Transport rather than Business which “runs itself without Government’s help.”Ms Minors asked Mr Brannon to be part of the Bermuda Tourism Board in December, 2010 and she held a one-on-one meeting with each board member prior to the public announcement in early January.Mr Brannon said he met Ms Minors for the first time and he told her “exactly what he thought about tourism.” He said she “listened but didn’t say much.”The first meeting of the Tourism Board took place in early January. Ms Minors welcomed everyone saying they “had a lot of work to do.” Mr Brannon said Ms Minors told Board members that she knew little about tourism so she was relying on them to come up with the Tourism Plan.Mr Brannon said the Minister was “hardly ever at any future meetings” which on one occasion prompted members to comment: “We are here to advise the Minister, but where is the Minister?”Ms Minors did not respond to our requests for comment yesterday.