"get to know you'' talks will be of great interest to political observers.

While both parties are being very careful to describe these meetings as nothing more than talk and miles away from a merger or the possibility of a break-up of the UBP, the fact that they are meeting means that the Island's opposition parties are groping towards some kind of united front.

There seems to be growing disaffection with the Progressive Labour Party Government, both within its own backbench, from swing voters who threw their support behind the PLP for the first time in 1998 and from more traditional PLP opponents.

The reasons for the unhappiness are myriad and these different groups of disaffected people have nowhere to go right now. So far, neither the UBP nor the NLP have succeeded in drawing them in. The UBP, while effective in opposing individual Government measures, has not yet succeeded in developing a compelling philosophy of its own or building noticeable political momentum.

The NLP has greater challenges. with no MPs in the House and a dismal showing in 1998, it must avoid sinking into irrelevance and the party's decision to throw its support behind the Government's plans for constitutional change were suicidal, but there is ground for a successful and vibrant opposition in Bermuda.

It seems clear that many people, black and white, are tiring of the harping of some Government members on race, while there is disappointment with the lack of progress on other issues, ranging from drugs to housing to care for the elderly. If the PLP's first two and a half years in power have been far from the disaster the UBP's myth-makers would have had people believe was coming, it is also from the utopian New Bermuda the PLP was promising.

That means that there should be room for a genuinely biracial, fiscally conservative party with a social conscience which can assure opportunities to those who can help themselves and a safety net to those who cannot.

Whether the UBP as it stands now or the NLP can be that opposition remains to be seen. But the opportunity is there.