It is difficult to judge whether the row between Works Minister Sen. David Burch and Auditor General Larry Dennis is a storm in a tea cup or an example of the Government doing everything it can to silence an independent voice in the Government.

If this was an argument simply about office space, one would tend to think that Mr. Dennis was making a mountain out of a molehill.

It does not take a genius to see that there is not much spare office space in Hamilton right now and it is entirely possible that reduced the space allocated to the Auditor's office was genuinely all that could be found, at least until Sen. Burch banishes various Government departments to Dockyard and Southside.

And it is also true that the lease for the space the Auditor General was occupying was coming to an end. Aside from Sen. Burch's desire to stay on good terms with the owner of Victoria Hall, it would not do the Government much good to be seen to be squatting and breaching contracts.

So, on the face of it, Sen. Burch's statements in this newspaper yesterday would seem to be straightforward and heartfelt, especially if you leave aside his statement on the same day at the Hamilton Rotary Club that he would personally like to see a moratorium on the construction of office space because of the pressure foreign construction workers were putting on the housing market.

But the other revelation this week, that Sen. Burch had asked for an audit of the Auditor General's Department in the two days that he was acting as Finance Minister makes one wonder.

While, ironically, Mr. Dennis would have welcomed the audit, which he has been asking for since 1996, it seems unlikely that Sen. Burch made the move to keep him happy.

And certainly, the fact that he rescinded the request within hours, saying he had exceed his authority while acting as Minister ? and he had ? suggests that he was not doing this with the happiness of Mr. Dennis in mind.

There's plenty of evidence to suggest that Mr. Dennis is public enemy number one for the Government ? although it often feels like this newspaper is high up the list, too ? beginning with Premier Alex Scott's musings when he was Works Minister about term limits for the Auditor General and former Bermuda Industrial Union president Derrick Burgess' frequent attacks on him.

But generally those who are most critical of Mr. Dennis are those who have been rightly criticised: Mr. Scott for his mismanagement and dishonesty over the Berkeley project and Mr. Burgess for his continued failure to explain the relationship between the union, its insurance affiliate Union Asset Holdings and Berkeley contractor Pro-Active Management Systems Ltd.

So it should come as no surprise to Sen. Burch that anything that makes Mr. Dennis' life uncomfortable will be seen as an attack on his independence.

And he and his colleagues should also remember that there was a time when he appeared to be their best friend, but that was when the Progressive Labour Party was in Opposition and it was the United Bermuda Party that was feeling the sting of Mr. Dennis' audit reports.