Premier Ewart Brown last night poked fun at the demise of the Mid-Ocean News, claiming the Progressive Labour Party had survived "one of the most bitter, long-lasting attacks in the history of the country".

In his leader's address at the opening of the PLP's annual delegates' conference, the Premier reflected on the "evil deeds" of The Royal Gazette's 98-year-old weekly sister newspaper, which folded due to financial troubles last week.

And after making a host of digs at the media throughout his speech, Dr. Brown made an apparent reference to a wish for this newspaper to go the same way by quoting the phrase: "One down, one to go."

Dr. Brown told the audience at Ruth Seaton James Auditorium: "You belong to a strong party. You belong to the strongest, most organised political party in the country and I urge you tonight to remember that you have survived, the party has survived one of the most bitter, long-lasting attacks in the history of this country and we survived it because we stayed together long enough and fought hard enough to overcome those evil deeds.

"But it is not over. I wish I could stand here tonight and tell you that the departure of the Mid-Ocean News — may it rest in peace — I wish I could tell you that — someone sent me an e-mail when the announcement was made about the Mid Ocean, and I can't remember who it was, but it said: 'One down, one to go.'"

Laughing, he continued: "I have no idea what that meant, but let me say this to you that every day the citizens of this country still awaken to something negative about either the leadership or something that's designed to be divisive about the party.

"And I want to thank you for having the intelligence and the fortitude to resist that and to make sure that the PLP remains the Government and forever the strongest political party in Bermuda."

The Mid-Ocean reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars revenue a year after Dr. Brown's Cabinet pulled Government advertising in March last year. Government also cut advertising with The Royal Gazette at that time, which was shortly after this newspaper launched a campaign for more transparency. Dr. Brown claimed it was a cost-cutting exercise, but Government continues to advertise in the Bermuda Sun.

Dr. Brown also had a threat for insurance companies which he said had raised the premiums for people over 65 as soon as FutureCare started to take shape.

"That drove those people into FutureCare because it was too expensive for them to pay 15, 16, 17 hundred dollars a month in order to receive medical benefits," said the Premier.

"And so suddenly the Ministry of Health was faced with hundreds of people saying: 'I can't afford these rates, I was paying a thousand, 1,200 before.'"

He said insurance companies only wanted to insure young, healthy people, dubbing it "cherry-picking" and adding: "This Government will not tolerate that kind of behaviour."

Regarding yesterday's announcement that Elbow Beach Hotel's main building will close, Dr. Brown said: "Let me comment now before it gets mischaracterised about what happened at Elbow Beach today.

"It's going to be characterised in the media tomorrow as a typical closure of a hotel with Bermudians being put out of work. But let me tell you that that is not the story."

Dr. Brown said owner Prince Khaled bin Sultan had explained three years ago that Elbow Beach could not realise its full potential because of the quality of rooms in the main building.

"What happened today was that they simply announced a decision that was told to us weeks ago, that it did not make sense to continue in this economy to try to force people into the substandard rooms," he said.

"Elbow Beach is not going anywhere and will be back in full form within at the most three years."

Dr. Brown also suggested the public would this year get to decide whether the Island's gaming laws are relaxed.

Telling the audience what was in store for his final 12 months as Premier, he said: "We intend to resolve this issue of gaming. Bermuda has been tossing this back and forth for years, whispering here, whispering there, what is going to happen.

"But I think that we are going to the people of Bermuda to allow them to make a decision. I call it an adult decision.

"We are now probably down to one or two countries left on the planet that have not even made the decision on gaming in recent years."