campaign debts of some $500,000 helps to illustrate the challenges that the former Government is having adapting to life in Opposition.

The fact that the UBP is hampered with a debt of that size makes it difficult to focus on opposing the Government -- and raising money is made more difficult because no one likes to back a loser.

The fact that the Progressive Labour Party also carries a heavy debt load, both from the campaign and on its mortgage for Alaska Hall, will be scant comfort for the UBP.

It is, as the PLP noted for decades, easier to appear professional and capable when you have an army of civil servants to produce research and position papers for you. A party in opposition will find the going much tougher when MPs themselves have to do the work in the absence of a policy unit or the money to pay for one. More importantly, the UBP needs to define what it stands for and there the challenge is greater.

The notion that the UBP was the party of integration and the party of opportunity, combining fiscal conservatism with a social conscience, began to wear thin in the early 1980s, when the UBP, having been led by two white Premiers, seemed destined for defeat.

The election of Sir John Swan as leader rescued the UBP and brought it another 17 years of government; but somewhere in the early 1990s, it began to lose its vision and became more a group of good managers than a party with a compelling message.

Then too, the growing pattern of having strong black candidates in the marginal constituencies -- with white members in the strongholds -- suggested that the UBP was not as integrated as it would have liked the public to believe.

The fact that the PLP moved into the political centre did not help as the UBP was forced to share political ground that it had to itself for decades. That may have been good for Bermuda, but it was bad news for the UBP, which now must differentiate itself from the incumbent PLP.

Opposition also gives the UBP the chance to think the unthinkable. Freed from the constraints of government, it can consider -- and keep or throw away -- bold ideas on everything from electoral reform to education. But it should also think carefully about whether it should return to its roots.

A colour-blind party which believes in true integration and selects its leaders on merit; which promotes a system of real free enterprise where there are opportunities for all and individual achievement is rewarded; while at the same time recognising the responsibility of a government to help those who cannot help themselves should be a compelling message for the UBP's traditional supporters and for the key swing vote.