If you preach inclusion, you ought to practise it. If you believe there ought to be a new and better way, you should demonstrate it.

This, Mr. Editor, will be the challenge of the House on the Hill when it re-commences sitting tomorrow. I do not expect that it will be easy.

The Opposition returns fractured and fragmented. The United Bermuda Party has through resignations seen its number reduced from 14 to nine. At the time of writing, the five who quit are no longer subject to any party whip. They are free to speak and vote as they wish.

The Government has its problems too. You will recall that when we last left off, two senior members of the frontbench stood up on the floor of the House and called on their leader, the Premier, to resign. Any division then since appears to have been papered over and patched up.

One of them has returned to the Cabinet and by all accounts the Premier survived his party's annual conference by promising to step aside next year. It may be that the strength of this truce will be tested in the House, from time to time, by what the Premier chooses to put on the legislative agenda: gambling, for instance, looks like a good bet.

But there's another problem too, and that is the word of the person who leads the Government in the House. When we last left off for the summer recess, the Premier told us through his Whip that we would not be taking up the cruise ship gaming bill. It turned out that we had been deliberately misled in the hope, presumably, that members, on both sides, might be caught out. We weren't.

Once bitten, twice shy. Members have good reason not to believe anything they are now told by the Premier or his Whip. Unintended or not, this has its upside. Members should not only be on guard, but in actual attendance, most especially when matters come on for a vote.

An alert and attentive House will be a good match for the busy legislative agenda which we have been promised. Today, with the Throne Speech, we will all get a glimpse of what may lie ahead. There's nothing wrong with a little hard work. Like my father used to constantly remind me back in the day – and still does: the only time success comes before work is in the dictionary.

Everyone understands how Parliament works best for them: Government has to be on its toes and the Opposition on its game to make sure it happens. If there is one universal and over-riding concern members of the public share with me when I walk the streets, it is this: we need a strong Opposition. I agree. I understand too, that they also mean a more effective Opposition too.

Like it or not, 14 of us are there to fulfil the role of Opposition and in so doing to help make the parliamentary system work – regardless of how imperfect that system may be, and therein lies an additional duty which we face, and that is to lead the charge on how it can be improved, and to make efforts to bring about this change, not just by position, platform and partisan posture, but by practice wherever and whenever possible.

The fact of the matter is that when the 14 of us ran for election we took the chance our party might not win and instead have to once again form the Opposition – and here we are, members who constitute the Official Opposition under the Bermuda Constitution Order.

No one ever said being in the Opposition would be easy. It isn't. It never was. Ask those older, longer-serving members of the Progressive Labour Party who can give you chapter and verse.

They were ragged and pilloried for years, inside and outside the House on the Hill, as inept and incapable and without the necessary experience to run the country. They suffered all manner of slings and arrows. Turn about, I am sure they say, is fair play. It also happens to be the way of the Westminster system – and, yes, being Opposition is no bed of roses. The Opposition by definition has lost and as such has within its ranks people who carry the grudges and scars of defeat. The Leader of the Opposition lacks all the tools of power and promotion and perks that the leader of a Government has at his disposal to impose or induce discipline.

There's also that constant damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't dilemma. You put forward bold new creative policies and you run the risk that Government will tear them apart or adopt them and claim them as their own.

If, on the other hand, all you do is criticise, you run the risk of being dismissed as whiners, lacking in substance. There's the added problem too, of limited resources. The Opposition does not have at its disposal a civil service to research and develop alternative programmes and policies; and there is no access to Government coffers for advertising and promotion. It was ever thus.

But it doesn't have to always be that way. There is a job to be done and the Official Opposition can stand and press for change at every turn. The House on the Hill is a good place to start.

There needs to be greater, more meaningful opportunity for MPs on the backbenches, Opposition and Government, to roll up their sleeves and go to work in the sunshine of public scrutiny whether through a more robust and timely question period in the House, or through the establishment of more joint select committees to investigate and report on some of the key issues of the day, and the opening up of the work of committees to the public and the press. These are much-needed reforms to the way in which we conduct the country's business, some of which will be on the table for consideration and adoption upon our return in the form of revised Rules. It's a start. There is, Mr. Editor, much work to be done to bring about change and with it greater responsibility, accountability and transparency.

Comments? Email jbarritt@ibl.bm.