Change our voting process

February 14, 2003

Dear Sir

Another day in the asylum... today's paper blares out the news that our justice system is completely failing and that the Berkeley Project already has collapsed. At least the Governor has the guts to stand up and tackle the justice system's problems but the bleating continues from Alex Scott and Arthur Ebbin who still think "it's all rumour and innuendo"! Hey, Al and Art, do you really think Peter Pan was real? This so-called Government has made us the laughing stock of the Western World and no doubt, our fellow Caricom members are laughing all the way to the bank. Look at the litany of total incompetence:

A serious crime hasn't been prosecuted successfully for years.

The economy (other than the International business community, which the PLP can't seem to get their claws into to screw that up, too) is a shambles

Tourism is almost a non- factor in the economy - sorry, we do have the African Diaspora Trail (let's be fair).

Our young people are fighting in the streets.

The public education system is a total failure - over 40 percent of Bermuda's primary and secondary age students go to private schools here or overseas - do you realise that this means that 40 percent are going to maybe five local private schools and the other 60 percent are going to 30 plus Government schools?

Bermuda has become re-segregated - the PLP have done more to polarise our Island than years of any white government. Is this the way you want to live?

Corruption in Government "seems" to be running rampant.

Outside of a few minor successes (and I am saying that because I can't actually think of any) highlighted by the introduction of personalised licence plates - Ms Smith's attempt to give Bermuda an alternative and better form of rule is failing miserably. There are a lot of people in Bermuda who support political parties for one reason or another but, even so, there are many more people - black and white - who support Bermuda. The issue of race and it's part in why we do things a certain way is more or less a fact of life here but if we care about this place as Bermudians we will be far better off deciding how we are governed by forgetting about race.

For the moment there are only two choices - the UBP did a lot of good over 40 years but had it's share of difficulties, the PLP has shown that it learned nothing about governing in their 40 years of Opposition and they need to go back to the drawing board. I know that there are people within at least the UBP who are concerned with the fact that it clearly makes a difference (we now know) which party is running the show. Ideas are being discussed to make sure that, in the future, the party in power does not govern in their best interests but in the best interests of Bermuda.

I personally hope that we move slightly away from the Westminster style and introduce an elected Senate, election dates which are set every four years (or five), take the politics out of the Attorney General's office, introduce absentee ballots, and introduce a system where major constitutional or community decisions are first put to the community by way of a proposal on the election ballot - not just dictated to us by the Government.

JUST THINKING

City of Hamilton

Draw your own conclusion

February 9, 2002

Dear Sir,

In the wake of the recent, vigourous debate over the expropriation of land in Tucker's Town in the 1920s, I have posted the article I did for Bermuda magazine in the summer of 1996 on the web. I have done this so that anyone interested in the controversy can read the original article which has been so frequently alluded to in recent speeches and newspaper articles. By putting the article on the web, I hope that every reader will now be able to draw his or her own conclusion about the issue involved in the Tucker's Town expropriation and the quality of the article's interpretation. In doing so, I wish to acknowledge the contribution of Charles Barclay, the magazine's editor in 1996. The article can be found at:

www.carleton.ca/~dmcdowal/articles.htm

DUNCAN MCDOWALL

Department of History

Carleton University

Ottawa, Ontario

Quality or quantity?

February 14, 2003

Dear Sir,

"One of the features of the American legal system which caused some raised eyebrows in the rest of the world was the fact that there were 200 lawyers for every, man woman and child in the States. It was a ratio, considered by many, to be a bit of a joke." Well, lo and behold, Bermuda has now got the same ratio, nearly 300 lawyers in a population of some 60,000! Bearing in mind the recent fiascos in the various court cases, one would have to ask has Bermuda sacrificed quality for quantity?

RUMPOLE

City of Hamilton