A week ago, Minister Jason Hayward put out a public invitation on Facebook: come meet Team Hayward, he said, at a special meet-and-greet at Francis Patton School. The post was warm and inclusive in tone. "Every conversation matters," it read. "Every handshake matters. Every person matters."

I took him at his word.

As an 80-year-old blind Bermudian, a Hamilton Parish resident, and a great-grandfather who cares deeply about what kind of country my great-grandchildren will inherit, I showed up. I was curious about Minister Hayward's vision. I wanted to listen; the same way I listen to everyone.

I did not get to listen for long. A member of Team Hayward approached me and another attendee — both of us associated with the One Bermuda Alliance — and asked us to leave, on the grounds that we were not Progressive Labour Party members. When I didn't move quickly enough, I was offered a way to stay: pay $25 and join the party on the spot. I declined. What followed was not a conversation but a directive — dismissive rhetoric, and no real interest in why an old blind man in a world of daily bus rides and hard conversations with his neighbours might want to hear a minister's vision for his home while canvassing to be Bermuda’s next premier.

I did get to shake the minister's hand before I was shown the door. So he got one out of three right. Every handshake mattered, apparently. Every person did not.

A different kind of room

The contrast could not have been sharper with what I experienced a week earlier at MP Curtis Dickinson's fireside chat. That gathering was open to all Bermudians, regardless of party, and it was treated that way in practice, not just in the invitation. Nobody checked party cards at the door. Nobody asked me to pay to belong.

What struck me most was how Dickinson spoke. Not like a career politician reciting talking points, but like a neighbour — someone who has sat with the same worries that keep working Bermudians up at night: the cost of groceries, the price of a home, the fear that this island is drifting further out of reach for the people who built it.

Oligarchy versus proven leadership

There is a phrase making the rounds these days: Bermuda Government Oligarchy. It is a blunt term, but it points at something real — the perception that a small circle of Black government ministers and one White minister, working alongside a handful of well-connected White and Black businessmen, control access to the financial levers of this country, while everyone else is left to navigate a system that seems to reward proximity to power more than merit or need.

I don't offer that description lightly. But after 27 years of PLP governance, many of the same complaints once levelled at the old United Bermuda Party-led governments — insularity, concentration of power, a widening gap between the connected and the rest of us — are being levelled again, this time at the party that promised to be different. That is not a partisan point. It is an observation that should trouble anyone, regardless of which party they support.

Why experience and character matter now

I spend my mornings on the bus into Hamilton and I hear the same things from my fellow commuters, over and over. Teachers are burning out. Nurses are stretched thin. Police and corrections officers are working chronic overtime because there simply aren't enough hands. Young Bermudians are leaving school without the skills for modern careers and many are leaving the island altogether because they see no path to owning a home or building a life here. Our public buildings are visibly deteriorating, even as a bloated 36-member back bench draws a pay cheque while contributing little to the constituents who put them there.

These are not slogans. These are not talking points from a glossy consultation document. This is what people tell me, unprompted, on the No 1 bus.

Curtis Dickinson brings something different to this moment: more than two decades of C-suite banking experience, a career built on risk assessment, fiscal discipline and hard numbers, long before he entered politics. He understands, in a granular way, how budgets work, how institutions are managed, and how consequences compound when leaders defer hard decisions in favour of easy headlines.

More importantly, he has already shown what he does when principle and political convenience collide. When Dickinson resigned from Cabinet in 2022 over the Fairmont Southampton concessions, he chose to walk away from power rather than sign off on a deal he believed was not in Bermuda's long-term financial interest. That is not the résumé of a man managed by a political machine. That is the record of someone who answers to his own conscience first.

I say this as an OBA-adopted candidate, without my leadership approval, so let me be clear: this is not a tribal argument. Set aside party lines entirely. Ordinary, working Bermudians — regardless of who they vote for — are largely united on one thing: they no longer believe the people in charge are wise stewards of the public purse or effective managers of the institutions under their care. Bermuda is not simply struggling. It is at an inflection point, a moment where the country has to decide whether it keeps drifting towards deeper dysfunction, or finally demands the competence, accountability and moral courage it deserves.

A message to the delegates

To the PLP delegates who will decide this: the wider electorate is watching, even those of us not in the room. Vote with your conscience, not based on popularity for your “ace boys“ . Your families, relatives and constituents are tired — politically tired, and in some cases morally tired. Tired of staged photo opportunities standing in for governance. Tired of watching a small circle of political and business insiders manage the levers of power while the rest of the island is asked to make do with less.

Maintaining the status quo is not a neutral choice. It is a choice with a cost and everyday Bermudians are the ones paying it — in longer waits at the hospital, in schools that can't retain teachers, in young people boarding one-way flights because they see no future here worth staying for. A government does not get to keep its moral authority while working families can't afford groceries or a mortgage.

I was thrown out of a meeting for not carrying the right membership card. But the people who matter in this decision are not in that room and they are not carrying party cards, either. They are on the bus with me every morning, asking when someone in power is finally going to manage this island the way they manage their own household budgets — carefully, honestly and with the future in mind.

Delegates, poll your family. Ask them who they trust with the finances of this island and who they trust to tell them the truth even when it costs him something.

My answer is Curtis Dickinson.

• Clifton Lambert was a One Bermuda Alliance candidate for St George’s South (Constituency 4) in the 2025 General Election