Many people were unhappy about the idea that in addition to Camden, Premiers of Bermuda should also have an official residence at Clifton, formerly the home of the Chief Justice.

And the amount of money — $1.7 million — spent to bring the home up to par also seemed extreme. But the events since former Premier Alex Scott moved in and then moved out of the home have descended from fantastic to farce. First Premier Dr. Ewart Brown said he did not need to live at Clifton and was happy where he was, in his own home in Smith's Parish. In reality, he is the first Premier since Dr. David Saul who was wealthy enough to have a home that was private enough and large enough to serve as his home.

That hasn't stopped him from now having more security installed at taxpayers' expense, an about to be hired taxpayer-funded housekeeper/chef along with an ever-growing entourage of security guards, press secretaries, aides and consultants, but that's another story. For now, it is the extraordinary waste that Clifton has constituted that is appalling. First, $1.7 million was spent on the house, to make it fit for a Premier, after hundreds of thousands had been spent previously on the homes of Dame Jennifer Smith and Dame Pamela Gordon.

Alex Scott spent precious little time at Clifton, Dr. Brown decided he did not want to live there, and despite claims by Government that it has been trying to rent it, it has been vacant since the beginning of 2007; a total of some 21 months. If it had been rented since Mr. Scott moved out, the taxpayer would at least have seen some return. Let's say it could have been rented for a very conservative $7,500 a month; some $157,000 would have come back to Government to recoup the cost of those improvements. If Government had received the obviously optimistic $25,000 it had initially hoped for, it would have received $525,000 by now. Instead, the taxpayer has received nothing.

And now it is no longer the official Premier's residence. The latest idea is to let the US Consulate have a relatively small piece of land on the corner for a parking lot for the Consulate, thus saving people from having to walk from the Arboretum and along a stretch of Middle Road that has no sidewalk. The price for this? Unknown.

Not so fast, said Mr. Scott, the only Premier to occupy Clifton. This is the official Premier's residence and should be protected. So what did the Cabinet do as a result? It took away the Premier's residence designation; the same one that many of them had approved only a few years ago. The question now is whether Clifton will end up as a residence for a US consular official. Because the US Government, in a shortsighted economy drive a few years ago, sold the US Consul General's Chelston residence, US Consuls General now have to rent homes befitting their status.

And so, amazingly, the question of whether the Consulate should take over Clifton was actually raised when Dr. Brown met with President George W. Bush at the White House earlier this year. And that will be the next stage, no doubt, once the fuss over the parking lot has passed by, as it will. And so it goes.

From Premier's residence to Consulate residence, all decided by one Cabinet in direct contradiction to earlier Cabinet decisions. Is it any wonder that Bermudians are so cynical about the political process? Dr. Brown will not be Premier forever. He will be succeeded at some point by someone who is less wealthy than he is. At that point, the taxpayer will again be asked to fund improvements to a house to make it secure and "fit for a Premier". And by then Clifton will presumably have been a very nice house for a US diplomat.