Neither of Bermuda's main parties came out of Monday's Budget Debate very well.

First, it would appear that the Opposition United Bermuda Party decided not to accede to a request from Premier Dr. Ewart Brown that they hold the debate on his Ministry of Tourism when he was on the Island and not at the Caricom leaders conference.

As a result, the debate will take place on Friday when Dr. Brown is in Dominica and presumably an Acting Minister will have to stand in. That's too bad. The UBP argued, with some justice, that the Premier should be in Parliament for one of the most critical Budget debates in memory instead of going off the Island.

But the UBP should still have taken the high road and scheduled the debate for a time when Dr. Brown was here. You can't have an informed debate on a Ministry when the Minister is not there.

So this was a petty act on the part of the UBP, and damages its claim to be the party of good and transparent government. If you want to be on the side of the angels, you have to rise above pettiness, as hard as that may sometimes be, and as bad as the other side may sometimes play. And the Progressive Labour Party Government can be both petty and bad, and it gave plenty of evidence of both on Monday.

First Dr. Brown, Works Minister Derrick Burgess and Environment Minister Glenn Blakeney all refused to answer parliamentary questions about the consulting firm Ambling, saying they had not had enough time to find the answers. This was so obvious a planned ploy that the Speaker was moved to say he would investigate.

Then Dr. Brown, annoyed about the Tourism debate timing, decided to speak for all but 30 seconds of the two hours set aside for the debate on the Cabinet Office. Every schoolboy knows that two wrongs don't make a right, and just as the UBP should have taken the high road over the timing of the debate, so Dr. Brown should have in the Cabinet Office debate.

Who lost in the end? The public, who was deprived of a vigorous debate on the central office of Government. Instead the public got a laundry list. Perhaps it felt satisfying to get one back, but the House of Assembly is not a schoolyard, and the people elected to it are supposed to be the grown ups and role models in society, not the babies.

In fairness, this particular ploy did not originate with the PLP but with the UBP when it was in power. And in those days, the PLP used to protest mightily. But rather than junk the practice, the PLP has refined it, both in the Budget debate and elsewhere, especially with regard to Parliamentary questions.

The problem with all of this is that Parliament, which is supposed to be supreme, is increasingly being held in contempt; it is being treated as an irrelevance to the executive arm of Government instead of the place where the people's business is conducted. That's dangerous.

The United Bermuda Party made a good deal of hay out of the performance of the Post Office Monday, and understandably so.

The Post Office is expected to run a deficit of around $8 million this coming year, compared to a deficit of around $4 million in 2005-6. The years in between describe a steadily worsening situation. Why? Mainly because the volume of mail is dropping in Bermuda and worldwide due to the growth of e-mail and courier services. This is exacerbated in Bermuda by the Post Office's own suicidal tendency to drive its customers away.

In 2009-10, the Post Office handled 10 million pieces of mail, compared to 11 million the year before. Numbers for other years are not readily available, but it's reasonable to assume they show a steady decline.

With the new rules on correct addresses, that number will probably drop further. As Shadow Finance Minister E.T. (Bob) Richards, noted, those rules make the customer serve the provider, instead of the other way round.

But what is remarkable is that the number of Post Office employees has actually grown, even as the volume of mail has fallen. In 2005-6, there were 216 postal workers. Now there are 232. Go figure.