The United Bermuda Party hit out again yesterday at the "dirty" campaign it believes the Progressive Labour Party is running.

"The campaign that the PLP continues to run, it is not worth me even responding to, so I will rip it up into pieces and throw it in the bin where it belongs," United Bermuda Party leader Michael Dunkley said as he ripped a PLP advertisement that ran in The Royal Gazette yesterday.

The print ad "Dunkley vs. Fact" reiterated a previous ad which claimed Bermuda was in"grave danger" because Mr. Dunkley was calling for a "regime of extreme right wing measures such as: hanging, flogging...".

Yesterday's ad alleged that Mr. Dunkley lied when he said he was not looking to reintroduce capital or corporal punishment. Mr. Dunkley had called the previous advertisement "an outright lie and misrepresentation".

Mr. Dunkley restated yesterday that the ads are misleading and that the UBP's platform does not mention either forms of punishment.

PLP chairman David Burt said the basis for their ads were that Mr. Dunkley voted against abolishing capital and corporal punishment in 1999.

During that 1999 House of Assembly session members of both sides voted based on their consciences.

As such, the vote does not usually carry a whip. Nineteen of the then-25 PLP MPs voted for the abolition and 13 of the UBP's 14 MPs voted against it.

Government MPs Derrick Burgess, Wayne Perinchief, El James, Reginald Burrows and Dennis Lister did not vote.

The UBP also denounced a television advert sanctioned by the PLP. The ad shows new UBP candidate Wayne Scott, who is running in Warwick North Central, at a news conference about Government's television station.

In the ad he asks: "Do we really need to have a Government television station?" The footage is then dubbed so that you hear Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley speaking on the topic while Mr. Scott's lips move. Then Mr. Scott says: "There are many stations around that have, that have been um..." and Mr. Dunkley prompts him by saying "struggling". The ad repeats this four second clip for the next 30 seconds before ending with the song "I'm your puppet" by James and Bobby Purify.

UBP candidate E.T. (Bob) Richards, who is running in Devonshire East, said the ad was an example of "gutter politics.

"It is offensive," he said. "It uses racial stereotyping as a political weapon."

And MP John Barritt said: "It is time to call them out for ads like this. On the PLP website there is a video of Wayne Caines, another new candidate, and you can see him struggle for the words to use, he struggles not once but twice and he is helped by a colleague on his right. No one called him a puppet.

"My black colleagues have to endure this type of criticism and it is offensive — that they are something less because they are black and support the UBP."

The video Mr. Barritt spoke of is of a constituency meeting where near the end of a nine-minute speech Mr. Caines, who is running in Hamilton South, said: "If given the opportunity I will serve humbly. I will put those three things together; honour, integrity... honour, integrity..." at this point Roderick Burchall prompted Mr. Caines and said "accountability" to much laughter. Mr. Caines then said "and accountability. I can't forget accountability — that's what you call a senior moment."

Earlier in the campaign, Premier Ewart Brown dubbed the UBP the "Filthy McNasty" party after alleged UBP supporters e-mailed mocked-up e-mails of Dr. Brown likening him to dictators.