ALL politicians, to one degree or another, suffer from a tendency to see the world as they would like it to be rather than as it is. That said, in Bermuda such wilful self-deception seems to be so exceedingly common it should probably now be classified as an occupational hazard of politics.

What was billed in advance as a barnstorming pre-election address to the Progressive Labour Party banquet by the Premier this past weekend is a case in point. If this was indeed a curtain-raiser for her General Election campaign, then it was sadly inadequate one.

Rather than finally seize a high-profile opportunity to make a common cause with common sense in the months leading up to the ballot, the leadership of this Government simply reaffirmed its unparalleled ability to project a skewed private worldview into the public forum.

Remaining sedulously and humourlessly true to form, the Premier marked the fourth anniversary of the PLP accession with a protracted exercise in wishful thinking rather than a sober and realistic self-inventory.

Marked as her administration has been from the outset by mistrust, aloofness and a veil of impenetrability, perhaps this diatribe, equal parts bombastic self-exaltation and blame-dodging self-exculpation, was only to be expected.

That her seemingly inexhaustible arsenal of rousing clich?s and slogans helped to secure the PLP's election in 1998 cannot be gainsaid. But even the most inspirational rhetoric will likely prove far less effective to the Government's re-election prospects than its deeds during the first PLP term on the Government benches.

The reality is that the next election will be as much a referendum on the leadership that planned and implemented those deeds as it will be a popular vote of confidence in the Government as a whole. This, perhaps, explains the Premier's otherwise inexplicable irritation at her administration being identified as the "Smith Government" by the Opposition. She can read the polls as well as anyone.

The fact is that the Premier's own once-removed style of leadership is emerging as the greatest liability PLP Parliamentarians will take with them to polling stations on election day.

Her Parliamentarians continue to be divided almost equally among themselves about her continuing viability and only a secret rewrite of the party constitution immunised her from yet another challenge at the recently concluded PLP conference. While the by-acclamation vote of confidence in her leadership at Alaska Hall obviously reflected the sentiments of delegates hand-picked for loyalty rather than their critical accuity, such sentiments are clearly not shared by the broader community.

Straw polls, it has been said, only show you which way the hot air is blowing; but it is clear from opinion polls commissioned by both political parties as well as the media and Independent lobby groups that the Premier is suffering from a credibility crisis the likes of which have never before been seen in Bermudian politics. The results of various surveys have been circulating unofficially for months now and Jamahl Pearman touched on them in his recent critique of the Premier's literal-minded understanding of the term "champagne socialism".

The Premier's personal unpopularity has not necessarily translated into failing marks for her entire Government.

Citizen politician Dale Butler, for instance, remains at gravity-defying heights in the polls with an appeal that crosses all economic, racial and cultural boundaries. And Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown, widely considered the leading stalking horse for the Premier's position, appears to have survived both the taxi controversy and collateral damage to his reputation from the Bermuda Housing Corporation fiasco with his credibility relatively unscathed (although, curiously, he appears to be far more popular on an islandwide basis than in his own Warwick constituency). Perhaps the very fact these two MPs have been exiled to the Premier's personal Siberia has actually served to enhance their public standing.

But there are fears among even those Government MPs who refuse to pay unstinting homage to the Premier that a perception of guilt by association among voters could prove to be their undoing on election day. They recognise that accepting responsibility for mis-steps will be as critical to securing a second term as taking credit for successes and that no amount of instant revisionism on the Premier's part will erase those sometimes epicly-scaled errors from the electorate's collective memory.

Yet her boilerplate speech on Saturday resounded only with the truest of PLP believers. And it is not their votes she needs to court in the coming months.

There was no attempt to begin repairing rifts with her own semi-detached backbenches and, by extension, with an increasingly detached and demoralised electorate.

There was no attempt to deal frankly with pyramids of asbestos warehoused in the open air at Southside; a protracted and destabilising constitutional crisis; the BHC imbroglio; or an embarrassing and disruptive teachers' strike that underscored the ongoing crisis in public education, a crisis which was meant to be among the very top priorities for the incoming Government in 1998.

A realistic assessment of the PLP's successes and failures coupled with a raft of concrete programmes for addressing problems both of its own making and those the Government inherited would have enhanced the leadership's credibility and her party's electability.

Instead the Premier resorted to the standard recycling of shop-worn appeals for racial nationalism ("dancing on Court Steet"), a litany of non-existent achievements ("tourism has been turned around") and credulity-defying claims of conspiracy ("beware false prophecies"), all loosely held together by cobwebs and stamp hinges.

Even genuine achievements went unremarked on if they could not be credited directly to the Premier.

The Transport Minister's labours, for instance, in the wake of September 11 rated nary a mention.

While the court of public opinion has returned "not proven" verdicts on his fast ferry and taxi initiatives, the Minister's unalloyed triumph in keeping the airlines flying to Bermuda during that dangerous period stands in marked contrast to the delusional thinking manifest in the claim that tourism has been resuscitated under a PLP Government.

But then it should be remembered that the Premier's only public comment in the post-September 11 period - both very belated and apparently straight-faced - amounted to an off-hand appeal for Bermudians to dig Victory Gardens.

Such curious detachment from the events of the day can only reinforce the perception that she is far happier seeing the world as she would like it to be rather than as it undoubtedly is.