celebrate last night's by-election result in Paget West -- if only because neither lost very much.

The UBP can breathe a sigh of relief that it held the seat following the controversy over the selection of Patricia Gordon Pamplin and the ensuing legal fight over whether she had properly resigned from the Senate.

Given that Mrs. Gordon Pamplin was a newcomer to the constituency and some UBP supporters were alienated by the selection process, this is a good result for her.

Few people will remember or care how close this result was when the next General Election is called. It is now up to the newest MP in the House to prove her worth to her constituents and the Country.

Still, this result shows that the UBP has a massive amount of work to do if it wishes to be seen as a credible alternative and a Government in waiting.

Turnout was down heavily from the General Election and it would appear that the majority of those staying away were UBP supporters as Mrs. Pamplin Gordon received some 150 fewer votes than incumbent Tim Smith and the late Madeline Joell in the General Election less than five months ago.

This was not an inspiring campaign, with few issues being aired publicly aside from what boiled down to an accounting row over the Paget Post Office -- a hard issue for the UBP to win when it had failed to move the building during the years it was in Government.

The UBP needs to find issues which resonate with the public and which carry real meaning, and to do that it needs to take a hard look at itself and to decide what it stands for and what its philosophy is.

The PLP need not worry about that. Mr. Scott maintained his voting bloc from November, and in doing so he took a far greater proportion of votes cast than he did then.

For a PLP candidate to take 45 percent of the vote in Paget West is a great accomplishment in itself. To claim that the constituency is now a marginal may be stretching things, but it should be clear that the UBP cannot take any seat for granted now.

This result has something to do with the disarray which the UBP now finds itself in and quite a lot to do with the success of the first few months of the new Government, which remains on its honeymoon with the public.

The fact is that the PLP has managed the Country well in this period and this result is an endorsement of that.

There will be greater challenges ahead -- the White Paper, housing, the threats to Bermuda's financial status among them -- but for now, the Government has done well and voters have seen that the dire warnings from the UBP of what would happen if the PLP was elected have proven to be empty, at least so far.