Bermuda has boomed throughout the ten years of the PLP with international business spurring that growth.

The scale of the advances can be seen everywhere from the office blocks springing up across Hamilton to the rising rents being gathered by Bermudian landlords as employment levels swell.

The statistics bear out the story on the street.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures – which are the total market value of all final goods and services in a country in any given year – show Bermuda forging ahead.

Inflation-adjusted GDP figures in 2006 showed Bermuda at 5.4 percent, Canada at 2.7 percent, the UK at 2.8 percent and the US at 3.3 percent.

According to the Bermuda Government statistics department's most recent figures GDP per head stands at $83,935 in Bermuda compared to $39,004 in Canada, $39,207 in the States and $43,562 in the UK.

Meanwhile inflation has stayed competitive.

Former Premier Alex Scott said: "The hue and cry before the PLP won was that the international companies would pack up and leave.

"Quite the reverse happened. Bermuda grew stronger in the financial sector, so therefore the economic expectation or threat went away.

"So much so that at the last two general elections the economy has not really been an issue. The PLP demonstrated they not only could manage the economy but manage it well.

But he cautioned: "It is not a given that the international sector remains stable."

Former Chamber of Commerce head Charles Gosling said the PLP had been particularly lucky to have had ten years of very, very active growth but now it faced a great challenge over the next two years.

Instead of reducing spending and stopping projects the PLP should encourage businesses to get through the lean times with carefully targeted spending, he argued.

Bermuda College economist Craig Simmons said the economy had performed better in the PLP years than before it became government.

He added: "For the period 1999 to 2006, average annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP) under the PLP was 3.8 percent. For the eight years that preceded the PLP government – 1992 to 1998 – annual average GDP growth was 2.6 percent. A similar story emerges for income per head."

There has also been slightly greater price stability under successive PLP governments at 3.0 percent rather than the 3.1 percent under the UBP.

Mr. Simmons added: "Perhaps the most significant change since the PLP have become government is the growth of foreign currency earnings: they have mushroomed since 1999.

"As a very small and open economy, the current account is arguably a better indicator of economic health than GDP. Under the UBP, the current account surplus averaged 4.5 percent of GDP. "

"Since the PLP became the government that number has swelled to 8 percent. Comparable numbers for the US and UK are 4.7 percent and 3.1 percent respectively: both countries are unable to cover their import bills and so are forced to either borrow or allow their currencies to depreciate."

And while personal debt levels soar on both sides of the Atlantic, Mr. Simmons said Bermudians saved in excess of $1 billion last year – even after they had spent over $1 billion on merchandise and had taken over 130,000 vacations costing almost $300 million."

The size of government has not grown significantly under the PLP said Mr. Simmons, with spending remaining at around 18 percent of GDP.

Government debt, however, has increased from four percent to six percent of GDP since 1998.

Mr. Simmons said: "In hindsight, the recent growth phase and resulting boom in tax revenues could have been used to finance a government surplus. The PLP, like the Blair and Brown Labour governments, were drawn by political forces to spend, leaving today's fiscal outlook less rosy."

Care needed to be given over assigning credit to the PLP for our economic success, said Mr. Simmons.

"The PLP's success has more to do with what it doesn't do than with what it does.

"Its approach is unmistakably laissez-faire; it prefers a light touch, believing that entrepreneurs, investors and workers are better off under a system of economic freedom, than one in which the state has a major role to play."

He said the PLP had not introduced capital gains or profits taxes, neither had it moved toward greater progressivity in taxation.

"Its economic policies are pro-business, although recent changes to the immigration policy over term limits have drawn criticism from the international business community.

"Governments must be reminded that it is the people who are the catalyst for economic growth and it is they who deserve the credit."