July 29, 2013Dear Sir,I read with interest the article in Saturday’s RG online under the headline “Roban: Status pushes shows business leaders are ‘intellectually bankrupt’.”It seems this is just more regurgitation of the PLP ‘smoke and mirrors’ about status from Messrs Brown, Roban and Commissiong.Thank you, to Dr Gibbons for putting it so succinctly; they are setting up ‘straw men’.Bermuda must be one of the only western countries which has no mechanism for creating citizenship for people who have lived here and contributed to the community for most of their lives, and whose children are born here but grow up without any possibility of being able to attain the rights of a citizen in the only country they have known as home.I wonder how Messrs Brown and Roban, etc, would feel if the shoe was on the other foot?The development of PRC status was an ‘intellectually bankrupt’ (to borrow a phrase!) PLP concept and has been a disaster for Bermudians in many professions, allowing non-Bermudians to set up in business and thereby diminish opportunities for worthy young Bermudians to progress.In my view we should not ‘sell’ Bermuda status to anyone, but we do need a system for the grant of status to a small number of people annually (either by nomination, invitation or application) who are judged to have contributed over a long period through service and contribution to our community in business, culture, sports or charity, etc.RW Leader