Since taking on the Works and Housing portfolio, Ashfield DeVent has spent plenty of time looking like Wile E. Coyote just after Road Runner has thrown a bomb with a burning fuse in his hands.

To be fair, no one would have wished Works and Housing for their first real portfolio and it is hard not to feel some sympathy for Mr. DeVent on that count.

But it is clear that Mr. DeVent has learned a good deal from his more experienced political colleagues in the short time he has been in Parliament, and the even shorter time he has been in the Cabinet.

The shame of it is he is mostly picking up their bad habits. These may see him through his current difficulties, but they will not do him or the Country much good in the long term.

The first technique is to deny all, as perfected by Alex Scott when he was Works Minister. This occurred on Mr. DeVent's watch several weeks ago when Shadow Works Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin predicted that the Berkeley project would end up costing $10 million more than estimated.

Rubbish, Mr. DeVent said several days later. Then within the week, he was appearing at a Press conference to announce that the project would not cost $10 million more, but $13 million more.

And he finally admitted that the project would not be completed until September, 2004, and not September 2003. Of course, the community was way ahead of him on the latter date, since it passed six months ago. And few people apart from DeVent can have much confidence that the new date will be met either.

The second technique, used by Mr. DeVent but expanded by Mr. Scott who came in to give support at Mr. DeVent's second Press conference, is to say that it is no worse than anything the previous Government had done.

Mr. Scott rolled out the examples of Westgate and Tynes Bay Incinerator as examples of the United Bermuda Party's inability to complete projects on time or under budget.

It goes without saying that two wrongs don't make a right, but Mr. Scott left out the fact that the case of the Tyne's Bay Incinerator, the estimates changed as additional air safety equipment was added under public pressure.

As for Westgate, it was after that that performance bonds ? for which the receipt for the Berkeley project went missing under Mr. Scott's watch ? became mandatory for large capital projects.

And the project that Mr. Scott did not mention was CedarBridge, which was finished on time and under budget and which was managed in such a way that dozens of small contractors got a piece of the pie, instead of one small contractor getting the whole thing when it was manifestly unprepared for it.

Mr. DeVent's next political lesson is to say that he has not had time to come up with a solution to a problem. Asked if he had a plan to solve the housing crises, he says yes. Asked what it was, he waffled and said he had only just taken over the Ministry which had been in turmoil.

This is no good. Mr. DeVent may be new, but the Government has been in power for six years, in which time it has done little but evict tenants and allow millions of taxpayers' dollars to be wasted and possibly stolen. For that "turmoil" to be an excuse for inaction is mind-boggling.

Finally, Mr. DeVent played his Budget Debate card, a technique developed by UBP Ministers and perfected by the PLP. This is the approach by which a Minister filibusters for as much of the time allotted in the Budget debate allotted to his or her Ministry as possible, giving the Shadow Minister and other MPs little or no time to respond.

That may keep the Minister out of hot water in the short term, but it deprives the public of a chance to see a real debate on pressing issues. And that does no one any good at all.

And just as Wile E. Coyote runs around with the bomb in his hands in the cartoons, desperately trying to get rid of it, so Mr. DeVent must realise that the bomb will blow up in the end. It always does.