The 2004 Throne Speech is the result of an ?accidental Premier? and his colleagues fighting for political survival, Opposition Leader Grant Gibbons told the House of Assembly yesterday.

?If the PLP Government didn?t really have a Social Agenda before,? he asked, ?then what have they been doing for the past six years? Pretending??

The spin, Dr. Gibbons said, delivered by the Premier ?with a straight face?, was ?positively breath-taking?.

?How could he expect anyone to take him seriously??

?Oh, but they have,? Mr. Scott answered from across the floor of the House.

However, a Social Agenda is nothing new, Dr. Gibbons continued, pulling no punches in his Reply to the Throne Speech. ?In 1998 ... (the PLP) called for, among other things, affordable housing; quality education for all; law and good order; a rescue mission for tourism; better jobs for Bermudians; managed healthcare; and, comfortable and fulfilling lives for seniors.

?That sure sounds like a Social Agenda.?

Government did have an agenda over the last six years, he said. ?It was entirely self-serving.

?Their legacy includes mismanaging the Berkeley project and squandering tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, unethical transactions by PLP Government officials involved in the Bermuda Housing Corporation scandal, sweet real-estate deals for political cronies at Coco Reef Hotel, misleading the public for social gain, secrecy, cover-ups, and ? well, the sorry list goes on and on.?

He added: ?You don?t hear much from the people who really lost out. They tend to suffer in silence.?

Their ranks, however, included fired hotel workers at Coco Reef, single mothers with children desperately awaiting emergency housing and seniors who cannot afford a doctor. Even traditional PLP supporters, Dr. Gibbons said, were fed up.

The Throne Speech did contain some smart initiatives, he said. ?We can certainly support those proposals taken directly from the 2003 UBP platform.?

However, the Social Agenda outlined too much talk and not enough action. ?Talk is cheap,? he said.

There were also some issues that were conspicuously lacking, Dr. Gibbons said, including education and Independence. ?We can assume, therefore, that any efforts by the PLP Government to use parliamentary time to pursue this issue would detract from the implementation of their own ?Social Agenda?.?

In the wake of scandal after financial scandal with the BIU Credit Union, the BHC, and the Berkeley fiasco, Dr. Gibbons noted that the Premier had promised to update the criminal code to prevent such corruption. ?Sadly,? he said, ?no anti-corruption legislation was proposed in this Throne Speech.

?Maybe another line was left out.?

The ?old? PLP, founded in 1963, worked hard in Opposition to change the entrenched social order that most Bermudians battled against, Dr. Gibbons said. ?We wonder what the ?old? PLP would think about the ?new PLP? ... Surely the ?old? PLP would agree that these new PLP leaders have lost touch with their roots.?

Dr. Gibbons offered lists of ideas from the UBP which he said addressed social problems, the housing issue, economic opportunity, care for seniors, and a plan for ?good Government?.

?There may be a few people who desperately cling to the hope that somehow, someday, the PLP Government will actually deliver what they promise,? he said.

?And Premier Scott may actually believe that a new Social Agenda will make the people of Bermuda forget the dismal PLP record.

?But the rest of us can?t make that leap of faith.

?We believe the PLP Government broke faith with the people of Bermuda a long time ago.?

The Social Agenda, he said, is ?the invention of a Government caught in a desperate political situation.

?They have let the country down ? we know it, they know it, and the people of Bermuda know it ... For once the PLP Government is completely transparent.

?They should be ashamed and embarrassed, and this social agenda ? this blatant political agenda ? cannot be viewed with anything but scepticism and cynicism.?