This is the text of the media forum held with Premier Dr. Ewart Brown on Monday night at the Berkeley Institute Cafetorium. In places, questions are paraphrased.

KEY:

EB: Premier Ewart Brown

LF: LaVerne Furbert of The Worker's Voice

BD: Bryan Darby of VSB

GM: Gary Moreno of ZBM

LB: Larry Burchall of BerNews

JW: James Whittaker of Bermuda Sun

TS: Tim Smith of The Royal Gazette

LF: What role has family played in your success in these trying times, in particular since November 2006?

EB: Well first of all, I have two families. I have my immediate family, and then I have my extended family, and Bermuda is my extended family. I have had the blessing of tremendous support. Inside my family, my wife has been amazing. I refer to her as the lady soldier, always maintaining her decorum and dignity in spite of the environment at times.

The larger family has been tremendously supportive. If my supporters owned a newspaper, it would have been great. But they don't. I have been overwhelmed by the support I've received across Bermuda. I think it has made my job much more enjoyable.

LF: What traits did you get from your mother and father that have helped you in your journey?

EB: Well, from my father I think I inherited the trait of determination and willingness to take a hit in order to move forward. From my mother, to the extent I have demonstrated restraint, I probably got that from her.

BD: You have been kind enough in the past to say that you found the news coverage of VSB to be usually fair and responsible. Perhaps that and the fact that I've been reporting Bermuda's governments for 50 years gives me the right to wonder if you realise how misguided and damaging your frequent attacks on the media have been and to ask you why you thought this was good for democracy?

EB: Well I don't think that I've had frequent and sustained attacks, at least it hasn't felt that I have conducted frequent and sustained attacks. But I don't think that in a democracy it is fair for it to be a one-way street and so when there were times when the media was piling it on, it was my turn to come back. And I think that we owe that to the people to indicate that there is some fight left in politicians and in Government when they report stories like 'the Premier's missing', 'the Premier's lost.'

GM: Some people in Bermuda don't feel they are your extended family. How do you respond to that?

EB: Well, you know, I just don't believe it. I don't believe that so many Bermudians do believe. I believe that an image of me has been created. An image of me has been created that I'm aloof, that I'm arrogant, that I steal, that I am just basically dishonest. And so there's been this characterisation if you will, sort of a character assassination over a period of time, where many times good things I've done have been ignored and that there's often an effort to paint a negative picture. Have you found me accessible?

GM: You regularly answer my questions.

EB: Anybody around here who hasn't?

TS: I've never been given an interview with you one-on-one Premier.

EB: There's a reason for that.

TS: What's that?

EB: The reason is that at times when The Royal Gazette has requested an interview it usually comes at a time when I think it is better for you and me not to have that interview.

TS: I've had an ongoing request for about a year. There must have been times throughout that year when you would have been available and it would have been a good time?

EB: Yeah sometimes. I didn't know you'd been waiting that long. But I can tell you that it's not because I don't want to have a chat with you or to be interviewed, it's just that, example, I was away most of last week and I asked Minister DeSilva to stand in for me in Tourism. We had this motion called Ten Ten Ten, there's ten weddings on October 10th. And it's a great promotion for tourism. Minister DeSilva got out of his sickbed to go the airport, greet these people and be a part of the event. And when I looked in today's Royal Gazette I saw no photo of him. Beyond that, no mention of him in the story, that he was even there. And I can multiply that by 1,750 and just show you example after example where people in my Government have been treated unfairly and sometimes, yes I do say, you know what, it's better that I not do that. And that's just, that's not personal, but it is aimed at your newspaper.

TS: So it's been a deliberate ploy to not go for an interview?

EB: I wouldn't call it a ploy. It's a decision.

GM: Says the Premier has been criticised for not giving opportunities to young black males, particularly in terms of let's say the construction industry. Why haven't we been able to see black enterprise take off in the way people have felt it should have during your tenure?

EB: Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you for the question. I'll tell you what. Just today, and this is how nature works, today my wife called me and said, honey, I have a flat tyre. I said really. She said yes, and I'm trying to organise it so I can get it fixed. While I was talking to her on the phone she said I called mobile flat fixer, whatever they're called, and I said oh really, I know that name.

The point that I'm making is that gentleman told my wife that he really appreciated the fact that prior to my becoming the Minister of Transport he was unable to get a licence for such a vehicle. He started a business under my administration and there are scores of people like him.

I think that is one of the most unfair things people can say. When I ran for leader of the Progressive Labour Party, I brought people here and I purposely paraded out over 25 young black people who had contracts for services that black people never had contracts in the past. These are all young black entrepreneurs. Minister Burgess does the same thing in Works and Engineering.

So anybody who accuses us is not being honest. And those people who made up this story, that's what I mean by demonisation. That Zane DeSilva and Dennis Correia got all the Government contracts: it's a lie. There's no other way I can characterise it. Dennis Correia does a kind of construction that nobody else in Bermuda does, at least does as well as he does, his competitors agree. And that's how he got those contracts. You don't get contracts through my office anyway. Those contracts go through Works and Engineering but these happen to be two companies that have received contracts and there are hundreds and hundreds of young black entrepreneurs who've received contracts.

GM: We are yet to see a black construction company rival the likes of Mr DeSilva and Mr. Correia.

EB: It's not the job of the Government to form a company. They have had opportunities. You can speak to Mr. Durham at building blocks.

LB: Speaks of promises to improve tourism figures, only for room numbers to fall. So in retrospect and looking at it from today, do you consider your time as Tourism Minister a successful period?

EB: I think it's been a success, a qualified success, and I'll tell you why. You did mention that in 2007, Bermuda, under my guidance, tourism had the best year it had in 20 years. You acknowledged it. Something happened in 2008 which affected the entire world. It's called an economic recession. The country to which we turn for 85 percent of our visitors is in terrible economic shape. the globe is in bad shape. The reason I say it's a qualified success is because that had it not been for our policy, the tourism numbers would have been worse. When I report a three percent increase in a quarter, I'm very proud of it, because I know what is happening in other places. and I know that we are holding strong with respect to air arrivals being above and beyond what we expected internally, because of the tightness of the US economy.

You mentioned the hotels that have closed and I say, good, because many of our hotel rooms needed to be closed. Because for too long Bermuda has been promoting itself as a first class destination. Our hotels left a lot to be desired. In 2004/5 I commissioned a study, asked them to come to Bermuda, take a look at our hotels, because I kept believing there was something wrong with the quality of accommodation, just from information I'd been getting. And when they did their study, they concluded that Bermuda had no five-star properties at best one was a four-star.

We are so confident in ourselves we know that our country is so beautiful so that in all our years of analysis we never looked in the mirror. It was the commercials, it was the advertising company; and then we took a look in the mirror and we saw that it was us, it was the experience that we were offering our visitors starting with a, the cost of getting there, and we'll talk about that later. And also the experience and the cost of being here.

Yes, 1,200 rooms have gone away and I say that's not all bad. Because it is better to have quality than to have quantity that is sub-par. And I firmly believe that we are not on track. Unfortunately I'm not going to be in a position to take credit so to speak for a number of things that are hoping to happen after I leave but I will remind you that the ground has been ploughed up and seeds have been planted in the area of hotel development and in the next ten days or so I will be making a major announcement about that.

And when I told my colleagues in the Caribbean that we were going to be making this announcement they couldn't believe, because they had been left with unfinished properties and they told somebody I'm so glad that we didn't have projects that started to stop, because I have friends who are lamenting in their countries the fact that they have properties that were halted in midstream.

Now they wonder what they are going to do with refrigerators going rusty. So we're not there. I think that when the market clears up, you are going to see people, provided we don't chase them away, buying those properties and develop new hotels. The numbers have not been as high as they were in 2007 but just as I will accept that what happened after 2007 happened on my watch, I will also acknowledge that what happened in 2007 happened on my watch.

LB: Asks how air arrivals can be boosted instead of relying on cruise visitors.

EB: You are absolutely correct. If you are in the tourism business, you prefer air arrivals over cruise arrivals, but as I have said time and time again, a cruise passenger is better than no passenger. It wasn't because of a change in our policy. We still want the air arrivals, we are still going after air arrivals. In fact we have seen a slight increase in our air arrivals. But until those air arrivals go up we are working on cruise arrivals. Because hotels are not the only sector in the tourism business. There's a sector in Bermuda that benefits tremendously from cruise ships. They are not particularly my friends but they are called taxis. Taxis do well when cruise ships are in Dockyard. So we went ahead and built that cruise pier as quickly as we could in order to accommodate the higher numbers of cruise passengers, understanding clearly that they had not spend as much as air arrivals. You don't need to if you have already paid for your cruise, so it's understandable, and I don't think of cruise passengers in derogatory terms — I'm going to be a cruise passenger in a week or two.

JW: You said in a recent interview at Westgate that the cause and passion of my life is advancing the cause of young black men, something along those lines. Given the high levels of violent crime, incarceration and employment that we are now seeing, do you accept that we haven't actually made much progress in that regard?

EB: I don't know what much is. We haven't made as much progress as I would like, but something just occurred to me. On the one hand, I'm criticised for being too concerned about black people, on the other hand all of a sudden I don't care about young black men. Those two don't go together. You can't have it both ways.

JW: You represent a lot of people so everyone's got a different point of view.

EB: All I can tell you is there have been more than a few steps that we have taken as a Government to try to reduce the violence, the negative conduct among our men, young black men in particular. I will say to you and this is not to water down the impact on Bermuda, but if you read your newspaper, or you look at international television you will notice that everywhere on the planet is having issues with violence. Everywhere. America, the UK, the same thing. Violence is everywhere.

And so we have to get to the root causes, which is why we started Mirrors. I am so proud of that programme, we graduated over 100 young people, mainly men but some women as well. That's a programme that is at the root of the issue. While we can be punitive and punish the people who commit crimes, we must also never forget that we have to address the root causes.

I delivered hundreds of babies and I never saw one baby come out of the womb with criminal on his head, so it's something that happens to people in the society that contributes to that. We are addressing these root causes as well as addressing the manifestations. Have we cured it? No. I do think we would have been further ahead if Governor Vereker had allowed us to bring in the Giuliani group back in 2007 when I went to him and said I saw this happening in Los Angeles, I had a ringside seat. I know it's horrible. I don't think Bermuda can handle it and eventually he would not allow it. And so it went on and one. So I think we missed a chance to try to nip it in the bud.

JW: You mention that with the punitive aspect but do you think we acted quickly enough with the programmes like Mirrors or anything beyond Mirrors — and I don't know if there is anything beyond Mirrors — but anything beyond that — did we bring them in quickly enough to deal with these social problems that have been highlighted probably for 10 or 15 years before this upsurge and explosion of violence that we've seen over the last two years?

EB: Very good point. No I don't think we acted quickly enough, but remember where you are. You are in a country where change is not welcome

GM: You're considered a change agent Dr Brown?

EB: Yes I know and I tried. I am still trying and I have changed things — I brought along a list of them in case you guys forgot. I just want to tell you that social problems are often missed early and if they are diagnosed the politicians and the other experts always delay the treatment.

I was trained as a doctor that first you take a history, then you do a physical, then you make the diagnosis and then you treat. The time between diagnosis and treatment should be as brief as possible. Well, you know I ran into trouble in Government because Government by definition is not set up to move that quickly.

I want you guys to remember the number of times I was accused of being dictatorial. When I asked the head of the civil service if he would retire early. I knew what I was doing.

My job as a leader is not to see the truck when its coming right at me — anybody can see that — I have to see it because I heard it coming around the corner. That's what leaders have to do.

But when you are the only one hearing it or you and a few people hear that truck coming and you say lets get some legislation there is a truck coming — some people say "oh-oh he's having a problem."

JW: So you think people didn't listen to you enough?

EB: Sometimes. It took me 11 years to bring Mirrors into this country. That's how long it took to bring in a programme that is clearly helpful.

TS: Why do you think there have been more attacks on your personal integrity than previous Premiers have had?

EB: Well I don't know if that's true. Lets take why there have been more attacks period, not just on integrity and I'll tell you why — thanks for the opportunity. Early in my tenure as a politician there were people in this country who saw me for what I am, who knew that I was focused on certain issues. They hoped and prayed that I would never be in a position to do anything about it.

TS: Which people are we talking about?

EB: We're talking about those people who were thinking like this.

TS: Who are they?

EB: I don't have a name for them.

TS: Are we talking about white people.

EB: Some white, some black. Because in a country like Bermuda if you have a significant number of whites who take a position, by definition you have a significant number of blacks who will follow.

TS: That's the reason you've come under personal attacks so often for the last four years?

EB: I think that's probably the main reason because otherwise I should be in jail. I've got cedar beams in my house, the gate to my house was built by ministry of transport, my wife hit me with a golf club and it just goes on and on and on. I'm saying to you if you continue to paint the picture. I've said in you presence before, this is how it works: "I get a call 'Premier', and this is probably the first time a Premier would have been asked this kind of question, too. 'Premier your neighbour's chickens are missing. Did you steal the chickens?'

So I answer and say 'no I did not steal the chickens'. Know what the headline says? Premier denies chicken theft. And so if you so that enough 'Brown theft, Brown dishonest etc'. When I ask for the proof of it I ask people to say, OK, if you say that I have been guilty of financial dealings or something irregular.

TS: Often these things aren't things that go in the paper. We've never written anything to say you've stolen any money.

EB: No, no you would never say that because you have good lawyers.

TS: What would we say?

EB: I remember one time that little game that you would play, whenever Gordon Brown in England did something that was considered unpopular or not smart there was never a real distinction. They would say 'Brown does something' There was never a real distinction. You would have to read the story to know that it was in the UK — I could give you hundreds of examples.

TS: A lot of these things are things that people on the street say, people in working men's clubs.

EB: Is that a good source?

TS: I'm wondering why they say these things?

EB: Because they've been fed it. Look I think even I should be afforded the right to be considered innocent.

TS: No-one's saying you're not innocent. Why are these accusations following you around when they didn't follow Alex Scott?

EB: Part of it is because I fight back.

TS: Alex doesn't?

EB: I don't speak for Alex you guys seem to know his number.

TS: What's the difference between yourself and Mr Scott?

EB: Sir don't try. You know how long I've been doing this? You think I'm going to sit here and give you a headline so you can have me comparing myself to Alex Scott?

That's why they don't like me — that kind of thing I just did — I'm combative at times, I will fight you back.

LF: Most people who know you personally respect you and honour you yet many of your detractors are people who have never been in the same room as you. What do you think is the cause of this disconnect?

EB: Well we just haven't had the chance to meet. I'm not being facetious. It was said at the beginning of my term that I would never enjoy or have productive meetings with white people in Bermuda, but if you talk to the whites with whom I have worked, including the media, they will tell you that those things are not true that I'm not that kind of a person. I'm not here to blow my own horn but the hoteliers and I didn't start off as great friends but three or four weeks ago they hosted a wonderful dinner for me and Wanda up at Southampton Princess. We had a great time and they did it on their own. I didn't call them and ask they to invite us to dinner. They did it because they know the relationship we have is one where honesty is respected.

It depends what you are looking for. If you are looking for the Ewart Brown as defined by The Royal Gazette and others, then you're not going to like that guy but if you get to know me as a person I believe most of the people that know me and work with me enjoy doing so.

LF: Actually speaking of the hotel industry — David Dodwell the former tourism minister under another Government was on a certain radio show and one of the things he did say was that you in his opinion you are on one of the best tourism ministers Bermuda has had and he said a cruise ship visitor is as good as any other visitor and he also mentioned because of his respect for you as tourism minister that was the reason why he asked you to open his new hotel so I guess its not everybody that doesn't like you.

EB: When I work with all these people outside Bermuda, with the Grand Slam, I go to the UK I meet people there, I seem to get along fine. All these organisations I work with, the people who are doing the Sargasso Sea project. All of these people work well with me. But inside the country I'm a demon.

BD: Can you confirm that when the first two ferries were ordered from... In 2002 the builders offered a six month maintenance course for the Marine and Ports staff but were turned down by the union. You were transport minister at the time what efforts did you make to address this clearly unacceptable situation?

EB: I don't know that that happened. First of all the union can't turn down something for the Government. I don't know the details on that. I know that the firm ... did offer to help us with maintenance and training but I do not know anything about an offer being turned down.

BD: I've had this from official documents.

EB: I'm not saying it isn't true but I did not know.

BD: So you didn't know that this had been turned over — the staff didn't have proper training for maintaining these craft.

EB: I know the staff had training, many of the staff did have training outside Bermuda… I don't know about the specific issue of certain training being turned down.

BD: Can you go into any further detail on the problems we've had in the last few months on the maintenance of the ferries?

EB: I'm not happy when the ferries are out of service because of problems that haven't been fixed.

Now it appeared in the media, in some people's opinion, that I wasn't involved in this at all. Mr. Furbert of the Union can tell you otherwise. I just decided to take a low public profile on this, as he did, simply because we thought that was best for the resolution. I believe those problems have been addressed I don't think you will see those maintenance issues again in the near future.

JW: Dr Brown we are now talking about potentially replacing those ferries — your junior minister Marc Bean certainly made that statement. Is that something….

EB: I think Senator Bean had his numbers mixed up, I think he misspoke.

JW: So that was incorrect?

EB: Yes. We want additional ferries but we're not at the replacement stage yet.

GM: Do you think Bermuda and Bermudians are better off following your tenure?

EB: In some ways yes, in some ways no. I won't take responsibility for a global recession.

If you ask people today 'are you personally doing better than when Brown came in?' I think most of them might say: 'no, I'm only working part time instead of full time or whatever is the result of the recession'. But in many other ways I think you will get a response from Bermudians to say yes that businesses have grown, new businesses have been generated and I believe that in general there's also what I call a mood change a mood shift in Bermuda with respect to people being willing to stand up for what they believe and say what they think. Before I became Premier and long before then Bermudians were much more passive than we are today and that's just the truth.

GM: We're seeing a number of business closing in recent months its almost frightening, the number of people on the breadline — equally as frightening — and your saying that during your tenure.

EB: I'm saying that during my tenure there were numerous new businesses that were started up. I gave an example of one earlier, there are many of them. I'm saying in the middle of my term there was a global recession. It had an impact. I'm not going to blame everything on that but I know in Bermuda if the Premier used to do little or nothing the economy would still grow.

So if the economy would grow with the Premier not being proactive then surely you couldn't blame the recession on the Premier of Bermuda.

JW: It sounds like you're saying the success has been damage limitation as opposed to anything.

EB: To a certain extent you are absolutely correct. In tourism for example, the fact that we had a three percent plus increase in air arrivals in the last quarter is a lot better than it might have been had we not had policies and practices in place to thwart that. If we hadn't done all these promotions, for example this is the busiest October the hotels have had since 2007. That's not by accident. To get Americans to travel today is difficult so when we see a slight increase I'm happy.

LB: Asks if the $675 million Government has borrowed for capital projects and current account spending would have been better spent helping to fund private developers like Sonesta and Bazarian to get their projects off the ground.

EB: First of all I think it's a case of apples and oranges. It's like saying if you spent money on a party why didn't you spend money on breakfast and the two don't go together all the time. It doesn't flow like that in the economy of a country.

First of all I would never have urged the government, even if we knew the recession was coming, to go out and actually invest that kind of money in hotels at that point.

These are private ventures. The government doesn't benefit from those ventures when they are extremely successful other than by the usual means of room taxes and what have you.

The point is you have to let the private sector generate something as well. You don't just jump up as the government and give a developer $300 million for a hotel unless you believe that you are at that point and there is no other way to get it done. Mr Bazarian has proven that it is possible for the private sector to get it done without the Government doing anything other than facilitating and making it a little easier.

Remember Minister David Allen? Well there was a bill called the 2000 Hotel Concessions Act.

That showed that as far back as 1998, David Allen recognised that our properties needed to be refurbished and he therefore came up with a way of doing it and many of the hotels have taken advantage of it. I think we've paid out close to $50 million maybe more in these concessions.

So there was an indication way back then in 98, the Government could assist and we assisted in other ways. We made it easier through legislation for developers to make money and to raise money, we came up with new law on fractionals that will allow the developer to have a wider spectrum of customers to make his hotel successful.

And let me talk about the money we've spent because there is no question that my Government has spent a lot of money has incurred debt but I can think of no more honourable pursuit than to do those things for the people.

LB: Doing those things for the people is admirable. All the things you've brought in on your watch are all admirable. The question is could they be afforded at the time because right now based on the facts. Were we spending too fast given the way the economy did go and the economy here started to decline back in 2007 that was when the private sector started to shrinking?

EB: Yes and every country on the planet has had the issue facing us. Did we move fast enough? Looking back is always 20-20. You can see things perfectly now. When we were spending there was an assumption the recession would not last as long. There was an assumption, I would agree with that — but these were services we needed to deliver to the people. We've been criticised for creating 1,000 new civil service jobs since 2005. Well what would those people be doing if they weren't working.

LB: What will those people do if the tax base shrinks so they can't be paid?

EB: Well that's for the future that's a future consideration. My point is that the Government must take the steps to lead in the areas where it can. Employing people is an important part of that. Now I'm not saying you just employ people for the sake of employing them, but I am saying that a Government must lead the way and stimulate even the private sector sometimes with respect to employment.

LB: Back to that $500 million — why couldn't we give that to Bazarian — it would be no different than an American business doing it. It would be sovereign money borrowed from overseas in Bermuda monitored by Bermudians.

EB: Because he could do it by himself.

LB: Well he hasn't done it yet.

EB: Yes he has.

LB: I will believe that when it happens.

EB: You have a front seat table.

TS: What do you say to the suggestion that you've set a bad example by your very high travel expenses while other people are cutting back?

EB: First of all I don't think I've travelled excessively. My travel has been highlighted more than others. In fact last year when your newspaper did a story about travel, we went back in the records of the Cabinet Office and found that my predecessor had actually travelled more than I have. But see it is my attitude that bothers you, the fact that I'm not apologetic you come to me and I don't say "well, I had to travel". The fact is that I represent three major responsibilities for my government. I'm the Premier, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Tourism — one salary three duties — and if they were separate individuals you would have seen at least a 50-60 percent increase in travel. The Minister of Tourism has always travelled and should travel because the people we want to come here don't live here, so you have to go see them.

In Transport, when our aircraft registry was under attack, and it still is to a certain extent. I went to Russia. Why? You think there's a joyride to Moscow that lasts 48 hours? I went to sit down in front of those people like I'm looking at you — that's why I wanted you here to night — I want to look people in the eye and tell them the story about Bermuda. I have found that its ore effective that way that's why we have Jet Blue that's why we have WestJet.

TS: On your trip to Washington, D.C., last year you spent $16,000 on ground travel alone on one trip.

EB: That's why I wanted you here because when we explained those things to you — you never printed it.

TS: I never received an explanation.

EB: Your boss did.

TS: Are you saying you sent an explanation to the boss but not to me?

EB: Absolutely because at some point with your paper I have to deal with the top. The point is that figure was not representative of me, where am I going to go in Washington for $16,000 by myself?

TS: That's why I was asking.

EB: Maybe if you'd asked for a breakdown — just like what happened on London trip one time everything was billed to my account — so for six or seven of us in Washington all of it came on my account.

TS: Its still a lot of money — $16,000 — even if its half a dozen people.

EB: Sir I'm just telling you we travelled the way we normally travel which is piling into an SUV and sometimes my wife and I take a two-seater car that we drive in. We don't really splurge on the government, you should know that.

TS: Is there no way of cutting back?

EB: I've cut back a lot I've turned down trips, I've turned down many trips I should have been in Barbados yesterday. I do it all the time. Part of the problem is coming from an assumption, which may have been with you for a long time and it is that I need the Government in order to travel so I splurge on the Government. Why would I do that? If it was $16,000 for transportation in Washington for the Bermuda delegation during the week we were there, then that's what it was.

TS: Could you not have travelled more cheaply? (audience laughs)

EB: Apparently the audience gets it. I just explained to you we've used one form of travel all the time, wherever we go ground transportation is an SUV and if there's more than four of us — two SUVs. If we're going to Capitol Hill you can't tell the car to go and leave you and then you'll get them when you come out.

And we don't normally stay at the Motel 6 if you don't mind.

GM: Dr Brown, the Uighur situation. We have never heard how Bermuda has benefited from that situation. I know you continue to tell me that it was just helping your fellow man and the like but there had to have been some sort of benefit for this country from making such a controversial decision almost unilaterally. Only a few people knew about it your deputy said she felt politically emasculated how has Bermuda benefited form this. Is it that we are no longer considered a tax haven, the baselands clean up. Some people say that was the turning point in your tenure — that basically was the straw that broke the camels back. There has to have been some sort of benefit for this country other than just helping out your fellow human being.

EB: I can tell you that the camel's back is not broken. On the issue of the Uighurs, I said it from the beginning I'll say it again for me it was a humanitarian decision it was as if your son — Matthew — was in Guantánamo Bay and he had been there for eight years and he had never been charged with anything.

For me that was the basis of my decision. Mr. Smith used the word integrity. Part of integrity for me is if you sit and make an arrangement and you have the terms of the arrangement, you stay with them and you honour the terms of the agreement.

With the US we agreed right up front that there was no quid pro quo, no you give me this I give you that.

I said in the beginning that I think that it makes sense to do things that help your nearest neighbour.

I believe personally, the fact that the Obama administration has not pressed on Bermuda's status with respect to that whole tax issue may or may not be related to the Uighurs, I don't know. But I do know that we have a relationship with the US government that I'm very proud of. In 14 months we have had the secretary of state here and the attorney general and I think that's no small feat for a place as small as Bermuda. I think much of it had to do with their gratitude for how we treated the Uighurs because after all we are a centre of hospitality.

GM: That was almost political 'hair kari' for you, would you do it again if the situation arose.

EB: Yes and I'll tell you why. This too, Mr. Smith, is part of why some people don't particularly like me. I didn't come into this job to win a popularity contest, I really didn't. That doesn't mean I'm insensitive or numb to the feelings of the people.

If you want to distinguish leadership from a computer you have to be willing to make decisions on the spot that come from somewhere inside you and you must be willing to withstand the consequences of your decision and that's what I did. I realised how serious it was I sat there in parliament and I listened to some of my ministers, members of the opposition, members of my own party tear me apart about it. But I said to myself 'you know what Ewart that's what you get when you make a decision and some people don't like it and it is major.' and I was prepared to accept it. If the no confidence motion had succeeded I would have still felt what I did with respect to the Uighurs was the right thing to do.

JW: The Auditor General reports from a couple of years ago and continuing with some of the comments Heather Jacobs Matthews has made as the new auditor general have highlighted gaps in accountability in terms of the government finances — financial instructions that have not been followed and a number of deals to the point where they are saying that for every dollar we spend on a capital project only 59 cents is realised by way of a tangible asset. Is that good enough and do you think enough has been done to remedy that?

EB: First of all let's remember the purpose of the Auditor General and the function of the Auditor General in any country. The Auditor General is supposed to ask the hard questions, the auditor general is supposed to do the analysis and is supposed to point out where government has not been efficient and effective. So I have always welcomed the Auditor General when it comes to the issue of auditing — now when the Auditor General starts spilling over into politics, I've said the Auditor General ought to get out of the politics.

I think we need to be more efficient there is no question about it. Now let me tell you how projects grow from $46 million to $60 million, and this occurred to me the other day. One of the reasons for the overrun in Dockyard was internal to the government. We give ourselves so much grief internally that we are a cost centre to our own projects. When we spent all that money on pregnant dolphins to me it was an unnecessary expense I told them send the dolphins back to Chicago — don't spend that kind of money on dolphins.

But what we do, and I blame this on the British for leaving us like this, it's a sort of governance where people prey on each other and create these power centres and cause grief.

The planning department, I hate to say, was the cause of much of the overrun expenditure at Dockyard. There's no question we stand in our own way and we stumble over ourselves when we do projects. I don't have to tell Bermudians they know, they try to build a one room addition to their house and the amount of grief you get. It's like TCD. used to be.

JW: One thing the new Auditor General, I think, has said is the problem isn't projects going over budget. It is that how much overrun and why wasn't tangibly accounted for and secondly you've said you are a strong leader prepared to make unpopular decisions do you think you should have been stronger on this and sent the dolphins back?

EB: I didn't want to overrule the civil servants at the time and I had no idea it was going to grow into that kind of bill. I don't like cost overruns on my house and my money. So surely I don't like it when it's the public purse. I do think we can be more efficient I accept that — that's why we created our own internal audit so long before these things get to the Auditor General they will get to our own internal auditor and we can start picking up on these things.

I don't think that the Government is very efficient. I think sometimes we hire three people to handle a door — one to open it, one to hold it and one to close it. I think we need to get away from that mindset and be more efficient and let me tell you and this is aimed directly at the unions — sometimes when you want to make it more efficient that's where the resistance comes from. Sometimes when you want to push people to perform at a higher level — that's where the resistance comes from.

JW: You're having it both ways now Mr. Premier because a moment ago you mentioned the thousand extra jobs in civil service as a good thing and now your talking about inefficiency and three guys being hired to do a job that one could do.

EB: But the 1,000 jobs didn't mean 1,000 people were hired in that three man model that I just mentioned. You can increase jobs without decreasing efficiency — you can increase efficiency in the Government but you have to set standards and demand performance.

LF: There are many in the community that are saddened that Oct 28th is coming so soon. Why did you choose to serve only one term as Premier and once you step down as Premier will you accept a knighthood?

EB: I'll answer the second part first. Not unless you spell it 'night'…. No. One term? I think it was in this room I first mentioned I was only going to do one term. That was one of the best decision I've ever made. Not only did I commit that to my wife and family but I had looked at my country the last thing I could have said in 2006 was I didn't know Bermuda. I knew what I was coming into. I don't think that it is a good thing to extend when the toxicity level has reached a certain point. I knew that I would upset a lot of people. I would have a list of achievements but they would be drowned out by the negativism that would come from people that really felt honour and privilege should be maintained that it had a place etc. I knew this four years would be good I wanted to plough up the ground, plant some seeds and move away.

BD: When you returned to Bermuda in the 1990s you told an interviewer you had come home to work for the people of Bermuda and at the same time you had some scores to settle. As you leave the stage may we ask what the scores were and if you believe you've settled them?

EB: I said that a rally at PHC in 1993 and as I explained later one of the scores that I wanted to settle was that the party had never won an election. The first score, if you will, was settled in 1998. I don't think that was the best choice of words but it did indicate that I wanted to balance an imbalanced country, because Bermuda was out of balance.

LB: Looking back now who would you describe as the three most powerful white Bermudians (or inaudible) who offer the quickest resistance to change.

EB: I don't have a single… I call them the Combined Opposition.

LB: Who are they?

EB: I don't know that I know all of them.

LB: I just asked for three.

EB: The first ones would be those who want no change with respect to improving race relations in this country, the people who resisted, who referred to the Big Conversation any derogatory terms. The others would be those people who believe we should not have sovereignty as a country — and many of them come form countries that are independent — and those who want quiet and not peace.

GM: Two questions — greatest accomplishment, greatest disappointment?

EB: You have to give me time to detox and then think about it more. I've just been on a treadmill, doing things every day, I can speak of things like Jet Blue, West Jet, accomplishments in the airline area, Mirrors, the passage of the bill that allowed Julian Hall to practice was a personal special for me. There's a long list- the PATI legislation is important. Introducing National Heroes Day, the Queen's visit, teaching Portuguese in schools, starting some relationships with India and China, getting CITV off the ground was most important, developing Port Royal Golf Course into an internationally renowned course, getting some hotel development in the midst of economic decline, setting up offices in Washington and London and it goes on and on.

GM: I thought you would have looked at some of your social programmes — the social agenda as your predecessor called it.

EB: Well FutureCare is important. In the future people will look at that and say it is when seniors in Bermuda really got comprehensive coverage from the Government, day care where mothers and families with income under $70,000 can get free day care, people in the east end now have an urgent care centre they can go to, instead of having to go to the hospital for everything, and on and on.

Disappointment? On the top of my mind right now. I wish we had been a little more patient with the idea of gaming in Bermuda because it is going to come back, we will just be late.

TS: Do you have any frustrations that the backbenchers appear to block what you wanted on gaming bill?

EB: I wouldn't blame that on the backbenchers alone I think the gaming bill fell victim to the timing. We had a contest for the leadership for my party. During that week churches had come out in opposition to it, one of the candidates had come out in opposition to it and I think that caused others to feel at the time that it wasn't good to do at that time. But I do think in the future Bermuda will once again grapple with the issue of gaming.

TS: What's going to change?

EB: People will feel more secure. The leadership will be in place and it will not effect the success or failure of the leadership.

TS: You think the leadership contest is the main reason the bill did not go through?

EB: Remember we were only having a discussion it was never a vote against gaming.

TS: But the discussion went in such a way that it would have been a vote against.

EB: Had there been a vote it would have been. I think it will come back and there's enough support in the House for it to pass whenever it gets to that point.

EB responding to audience question on Morgan's Point: Your Government in negotiating that exchange kept 40 acres of that property for Bermudians so we know right away that 40 acres of it will be for something that Bermudians want, open space. The type of resort that goes there will determine how much Bermudians tend to interact. I believe the acreage is such that it lends itself to Bermudians playing golf, visiting the restaurants etc. So I believe that it's going to be open and I don't think there's any chance where Bermudians are going to feel shut out.

EB responding to audience question: There are always going to be people, believe me, my successor whoever that might be, will not be free from attacks from some people.

It happened with Dame Jennifer Smith, it happened with Alex Scott, it happened with me. The reason that mine was more hyped, if you will, is because I'm more combative and that I will fight.

That's just part of my make-up and I try to keep my decorum as much as I can but I do speak my mind and my father taught me that the correct place for my spine was straight up. So I do that and I try to speak my mind and speak as clearly as possible.

I can tell, there was an issue once with the media, about plantation questions. Remember that*?* And some media and some of the racist bloggers took that to mean that I was hiding from their questions.

I wanted to explain to them listen, I didn't start dealing with my media in Bermuda. I have dealt with journalists, I can say real journalists, in Washington, D.C., when I was 21 years old so dealing with the press is not a big issue.

But when I'm asked a question that I think is reserved for a black man and would not have been asked of a white leader, I will call it a plantation question until I die.

EB responding to audience question: Eventually in a democracy you have changes of Government. There are consequences to elections. Something that's threatening the democracies of the world everywhere is the phenomenon that's extremely dangerous and it is that people are not willing to live with the consequences of elections. In the US, 18 months ago, 19 months ago, Barack was the second coming. Within a year, 13 months, they have now got to the point where he is not very popular. In fact I wanted to call, give him some comfort and say you are around 40 you are doing pretty good.

But the thing is that we no longer have that gentlemen's agreement that says if you lose an election you back up and give those that won the opportunity to govern. The morning after the election, the one who loses then puts all his resources into destabilising the Government. Democracies were not made for that and I will predict that if that continues around the world you are going to see the destabilisation of a number of countries because the system wasn't set up for that. It was set up to create some space after victory, let people breathe, let the winners execute their agenda and create some space.

Royal Gazette Sports Editor Adrian Robson: Over a period of three years we gave $28 million to national sports. Do you believe that was a good investment?

EB: Well, the jury's still out. The recognition of those two sports as the national sports makes sense. When the money went to cricket and football I remember saying to the cricket people and the football people, you have got to make use of this investment, you have got to make progress. And I believe that they are doing things that will enable us to see in a few years the results. I have learnt one thing about sports, you can't judge the development of a team by its current record all the time. When you're in development, it takes time, it takes losing.

Our teams in cricket and football are not doing very well. More importantly, I'm concerned about whether they really want to be better. I've told them, I've told them this in Trinidad during the World Cup, that if you just want to be the best cricketer between Dockyard and St. David's give us the money back. But seriously, we talk like that, there are people that say that I'm being harsh or what have you. That's just reality. I don't have a long time to say it. I want them to get the message that if you don't want to reach for excellence then you should not encourage the investment in you. And so I think that in football, with the change of leadership that's going now, it's a progressive step. Let's give them a little time. I would say I wouldn't call it a bad investment until it's been seven/eight years, given them some time to develop.

But if at the end of that period we see no development from the youth up then I would say it's time to question. I think the time is now to have more than those two national sports.

I think it's time to add some sports. I think sailing ought to be considered a national sport and I think that it should be adequately funded.

EB responding to audience question: It was February 2001, I took a proposal to 550 taxi owners, the largest meeting of taxi owners in the history of the country and we offered them control of their own industry. I said, take this, and have something to pass on to your children after you are no longer driving taxis. They didn't want it, they rejected it, they got support from people who complained privately about the quality of service but would never say anything in public. And it went on and you know the history. But I'm happy to say that the younger drivers today value the GPS system and part of that is because they are not afraid of the computer and they are not afraid of technology. There are many things that I tried to do that you must not judge now. Give it a little time. Some of them were just seeds that have been planted, and time will tell whether I was heading in the right direction.

EB concludes: I don't feel that I'm leaving under some kind of pressure or cloud. Let's be clear, I have had the most exciting ride that anybody could ever have wished and I thank you for giving me the opportunity.