Dear Sir.

I’ve just finished reading Christopher Famous’s latest column in The Royal Gazette (headlined “Jekyll and Hyde behaviour of OBA laid bare” published on July 10) and I’m pretty disgusted.

His aim is to make us think that while everything in the Government is going to hell in a handbasket, Premier Michael Dunkley is interested only in getting his picture taken.

That’s untrue on both counts. The Government is working tirelessly on many challenges and making progress.

Furthermore, Michael Dunkley, a hard-working man who deeply cares about the people of Bermuda, spends just about all day every day trying to undo the damage the last government did to the economy and the social fabric of the Island. He and his colleagues succeed a little bit more every day. I resent Mr Famous’s attempt to smear them, although by now I know he thinks that is one way he can help his Progressive Labour Party friends regain power. He doesn’t care what damage he causes or who he hurts, as long as he can associate them with the One Bermuda Alliance.

There’s a page on the web called A List of Fallacious Arguments. It starts with a quote from Richard Nixon — “The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson’s time.”

As the name implies, the page describes just about every trick there is to persuade people to believe things that are not the truth. Mr Famous’s argument this time is a non sequitur: a conclusion that doesn’t follow from the facts he cites. But there are dozens of other tricks that people will recognise as the stock-in-trade of Mr Famous and other apologists for the Opposition. There’s Argument by Half Truth, Argument by Question, Argument by Repetition, Argument by Vehemence, Argument by Appeals to the People — and dozens of others.

Are there any the PLP hasn’t used? Have a look and see if you can find one. The page is to be found at www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#similarity. I suspect the Opposition must hand it out with its membership cards.

ST BRENDAN