It would be easy to dismiss former Premier Alex Scott’s recent statements as sour grapes.

Having been rejected by his own party after a little more than three years, he may well be embittered.

And certainly he could be accused of desperately trying to establish his legacy, having been roundly criticised for failing to move more quickly by his own deputy, Dr. Ewart Brown, who took his job and is now seemingly moving quickly away from Mr. Scott’s policies.

All of those things would be fair criticisms, except that what Mr. Scott said in Wednesday’s newspaper made a good deal of sense.

Sometimes it is better to make haste slowly, especially when you are dealing with an always skittish international business sector on which the economy depends. Businesses can and will move when circumstances dictate, as two recent developments show. One is the decision of several London reinsurers to move their domiciles to Bermuda, both because Bermuda is now the reinsurance market to be in, and because it has a friendlier tax and regulatory approach.

The second is ironic, because just as those businesses are moving to Bermuda, several international companies and Butterfield Bank have announced plans to establish operations in Halifax, Nova Scotia, partly because of tax incentives, but more because it has lower costs and a larger labour pool than Bermuda.

Those two moves, one into Bermuda and one which could be seen as being a move out of the Island, show how mobile capital and business is. So Mr. Scott’s point is well taken.

Perhaps more importantly, Mr. Scott rightly warned of the risks of taking campaign finance donations from overseas and local donors who may expect something in return.

Dr. Brown promised in his leadership campaign that he would raise a lot of money for the Progressive Labour Party, and he is following through on that promise anyway, with the January Premier’s Party where people will get to spend personal time with him and his wife in return for heavy donations to the party.

Political parties need money, but, as Mr. Scott said, they must guard against corruption and the expectation from donors that they will get something in return for their donations.

Mr. Scott now says that he put a stop to the kind of fundraising that Dr. Brown was engaged in with foreign pension fund managers before the last election, with the full agreement of Finance Minister Paula Cox, who is now Dr. Brown’s deputy.

But that rule has now apparently been thrown out the window, and Mr. Scott is right to raise the concerns.

Finally, Mr. Scott defended his sustainable development initiative, not least because he felt with some justice that it was one of the few issues that could bring people from all walks of life together.

To some extent it is a shame that Mr. Scott did not express himself so well before he was ousted. He might well still be in the job.

Nonetheless, it is unusual for former Premiers to be so vocal, so soon, about their successors, especially when the statements are largely unflattering.

Mr. Scott may well be bitter, especially having seen his legacy trashed and his Throne Speech rewritten.

But his statements also demonstrate that the wounds in the PLP as a whole remains divided, and Dr. Brown should consider spending more time healing the wounds he helped to create. The risk for him is that he will face criticism and obstacles not only from the Official Opposition but from the unofficial one within his own party.