create more confusion.

It should be very clear to the public what has now taken place. Government wanted fast food franchises for reasons which may never be clear. The Cabinet underestimated the public reaction to McDonald's and thought that initial protests would go away in a few weeks. Instead the UBP Government has been torn apart, not by hamburgers but by the dangerous agreement to give a once banned McDonald's to a former Government Leader.

When the Franchise Policy Committee was appointed it was clear that it was far from an independent committee. We think, and the public may well think, that they set out not to take an overall look at franchises for Bermuda, but to find a way to let them in which Government hoped the Bermuda public would swallow.

Tourism Minister David Dodwell, who chaired the committee, is quoted as saying: "Our goal in this exercise was to find a way to preserve and protect that which makes Bermuda a special place, but at the same time, a way which does not cut Bermuda and Bermudians off from being able to progress.'' In other words, this Government sees fast food franchises as progress! We think Government set up the public. The week before Mr. Dodwell told the House of Assembly that Bermuda would have heavily disguised fast food franchises ... but not in the towns, at Dockyard or at the Airport ... his Cabinet colleague, Transport Minister Wayne Furbert, told the House that it was agreeable for not one but TWO McDonald's at the Airport.

Then Mr. Dodwell announces "no fast food franchises at the Airport''. There is a long tradition of asking for a whole loaf when you only want half. It looks as if Mr. Furbert's announcement was made so that it could be over ruled by the Franchises Committee. Government could then have its half loaf, hoping the public would see the ban at the Airport, in the towns and at Dockyard as a blessing and settle for fast food franchises about the countryside. Do you remember when a frustrated Minister of Works announced that he was going to put the garbage plant on a Government House lawn.

According to the Franchises Committee report, which is still only a report, we will have a new franchise commission to oversee the operation of franchises.

That, of course, makes the assumption that there will be a number of such operations. If Government runs true to form, it will appoint Dr. Grant Gibbons, the man who caused the problem in the first place, to chair that commission. Under the recommendations there will also be a specially designed licensing procedure and the introduction of strict controls on aesthetics, image and appearance. In other words, just as this newspaper predicted, the committee recommends a McDonald's in a Bermuda cottage.

These suggestions, of course, create a degree of control which will prove to be difficult to achieve and hard to enforce. Do you believe that a Country which does not enforce its sign laws will persist with strict controls on a former Premier? The only hope is that "The Five'' will push on now with the Ann Cartwright DeCouto bill to ban fast food franchises.