Premier Ewart Brown called the election yesterday but gave few clues in the announcement about the issues upon which it would be fought.

And while the Throne Speech indicated a willingness to spend more on education and housing it is likely that the PLP is still keeping its powder dry on key promises until further into what could well be Bermuda's longest ever election campaign at just under seven weeks.

Economic empowerment for the Bermuda's majority black population could be a big selling point for the PLP but there was little mention of it yesterday.

Meanwhile the United Bermuda Party have already unveiled a lifelong learning strategy which they say offers real hope to widening opportunity.

Most observers expect the election to get racial and Dr. Brown is never shy of playing the race card.

At a PLP election rally in 2003 he asked: "Have you ever heard of any people on the planet who have voted their way back onto the plantation? No? Then you do not want to be the first."

With Dr. Brown surrounded in controversy and with falling personal opinion poll ratings, PLP strategists might be tempted to push the Premier to the background and bring others to the fore. But that is unlikely to suit a man whose style has been likened to the presidential manner adopted by predecessor Sir John Swan.

And Dr. Brown's successes in reversing the decline in tourism and luring new hotel investment and air routes are key cards for the Government to play.

The UBP are likely to hammer home the failures of the PLP on affordable housing, education, care of seniors and crime.

At a press conference yesterday Opposition leader Michael Dunkley said: "In this election, Bermuda can decide to proceed as one people, with respect for one another and living by the highest standards of democracy, or we can go down a path of division, self-interest and intolerance."

And he pledged the UBP would take the high road in what many are predicting to become one of the dirtiest elections Bermuda has ever seen, Mr. Dunkley said: "Politics has gone into the gutter but it is coming out of the gutter with the UBP in this election campaign."

Meanwhile the Premier said his Government had a vision for a more prosperous Bermuda that included all its people and touched every aspect of their lives.

¦ In Monday's Royal Gazette the United Bermuda Party will release a large plank of its platform. Included in it is a plan for strengthening St. George's — a key election battleground — while the party will also announce what it intends to do on education, affordable housing, safer streets, empowering people, seniors, the environment and good governance.