If US Presidential hopeful John Kerry were elected it would not be good for Bermuda and it would not be good for business, according to Brian O'Hara, chief executive officer of XL Capital.

The insurance giant boss said that Kerry, who has been the most successful Democratic candidate so far on the campaign trail, was "bloody minded" about Bermuda.

Democrat Kerry, of Massachusetts, has been loudly denouncing US companies moving offshore to save on their taxes calling them "Benedict Arnold" firms ? after the notorious American traitor.

"It is a little worrying, no question," said Mr. O'Hara. "An election of Kerry is not good for Bermuda, it is not good for business.

"There is an anti-business agenda. It is a very demagoguish, populist agenda and they attack anything that is not a constituent."

But he conceded that once in power the reality might be different so Kerry's pledge to wipe out Bermuda's "creed of greed" within 500 days of taking office may be harder to implement.

"Once somebody is in power, the rhetoric from the campaign trail tends to fade off, because power makes everybody more conservative," added Mr. O'Hara

But he said that he would not want to see what would happen if Kerry was elected. He said: "It is worrying."

He added: "Sometimes on campaigns people say things, and then when they are elected they don't follow through."

And he said that there had to be an understanding of how the US Presidential system worked, with the President not actually holding that much power and Congress holding the real power.

"The president can direct and lead and initiate, but you don't have the votes in the Senate and Congress, or you are not going anywhere.

"So the election is much bigger than just who gets elected President, it is what the Senate make up is and what the Congress make up is. And fortunately the Republicans in Congress are for free trade and lower taxes and not restricted trader and higher taxes (like the democrats). The democrats are very protectionist. Insular. Anti-offshore."

During his campaign trail Kerry has been using Bermuda as target practice. He has been repeating the anti-Bermuda mantra and has said: "I'm tired of seeing chief executives permitted to take their millions or billions to Bermuda and leave the average American here at home stuck with the tax bill. You know what I call that? Unpatriotic."

Mr. O'Hara said: "He is bloody minded about Bermuda, there is no question about it. In almost all his speeches he throws bombs at Bermuda and gets good ovations.

"It seems to resonate with the whole anti-business mantra that the democrats have, particularly anything that smacks of not paying higher taxes. So it is an easy target and they exaggerate it of course.

"The only real meat on the bone is about the companies that are inverting and that is who they usually point to when they attack Bermuda, the companies that have moved their headquarters technically from the US to Bermuda or elsewhere, and those are typically large established manufacturing companies, the Ingersoll-Rands and the Stanley Works."

Ingersoll-Rand reincorporated in Bermuda late in 2001 and was one of a handful of companies along with Cooper Industries, Marvell Technology, Nabors and Weatherford International that reincorporated in Bermuda with few or no employees on the Island.

Stanley Works bowed to pressure in the US and halted its inversion plans and Ingersoll-Rand has been under constant pressure to move its headquarters back to the US since the move. The move allows the companies to pay lower taxes, a fact which has enraged some American shareholders who believe the move offshore to be unpatriotic and could face being penalised by Congress. Senators have been trying to find a way to stop companies moving to tax-friendly jurisdictions for decades, but in the past few years, Congress has come close to trying to stop so-called "tax loopholes" and halt companies from leaving the US for tax reasons. Troubled conglomerate Tyco has also been in the firing line because of being a Bermuda company, but so far the company has decided to stay put. Kerry has joined in the anti-Bermuda and bandwagon and it appears to be a vote winner with the US public.

Mr. O'Hara pointed out that XL was a Bermuda company through and through and had never inverted to come here. But he said that the anti-Tyco rhetoric coming from him was also worrying, because that did not invert, but amalgamated with a Bermuda company.

Mr. O'Hara went on to say that there was little point in going after the companies that moved to Bermuda because the money taken from the US coffers was so insignificant.

"The fact of the matter is there really isn't that much money here," he said. "It is more sensational headlines than it will generate in any kind of tax generation.

"In the scheme of the US tax system, it is not even a rounding error. There is no real substance there, particularly any of the attacks on the insurance segment. It is just not there."

And he went on to say that even Chubb, who along with other US insurance companies had lobbied against the "unfair" tax practices of their rivals ACE Ltd. and XL., had dropped their attack probably because they were behind some of the new insurance companies started post September 11.

"So you don't hear anything from them anymore. The main focus is on the inverters and that wouldn't have a impact on insurance. Some insurance companies have inverted, but we are not one of them."