It seems anyone who’s anybody in the PLP these days is talking about Bermuda’s “culture of entitlement.” Social Rehabilitation Minister Dale Butler, Senator David Burch, Premier Ewart Brown and, most recently, new PLP chairman David Burt have all weighed in on the subject, arguing with some passion but little evidence that Bermuda is a hair’s breadth away from becoming a welfare state.

Perhaps the public debut of the PLP’s newfound concern came in January, when Butler-with new responsibilities for the office of financial assistance, among other social programmes-complained, “We have a growing number of people with crutches saying they are handicapped. But really they are not.” He pledged to “nip them in the bud.”

Then in March, during the controversy about Club Med squatters, a stone-cold Colonel Burch is reported to have said, “If you ever expect to govern those very same people you have turned into thinking government will be my mamma, my nanny and change my diapers and do everything for me will be the same monsters that we are having to deal with today.” Despite its syntactical challenges, his message was clear; these folks weren’t ordinary homeless people seeking shelter in St. George’s-they were less than human.

Around the same time, Premier Brown’s abrupt decision to close the Medical Clinic was drawing heavy fire. Among the many spur-of-the-moment justifications he gave for his unpopular mandate was the following: “It’s important to understand what happens to people in a welfare state. I have lived in the U.S. and seen what happens when people have their entrepreneurial spirits and ability to self-sustain taken away from them because the state came in to provide for them. We don’t want that and we are not going to have that in Bermuda.”

The premier even admonished Bermudian students for their inappropriate sense of entitlement. During his recent overseas college tour, which was designed, ostensibly, to provide students with information about careers in Bermuda, the premier took offence when some of the students actually asked him what his government was doing to provide them with job opportunities. He said, “I had to stop some of them because I’m not going to just sit there and let it go like that. I said this is a joint venture. You don’t want to become dependent on the government.” He indicated that the government would assist them with assurances of equality and opportunity, but the rest was up to them.

Most recently, David Burt, the 28-year-old PLP chairman who apparently has spent more time during his formative years living in the U.S. than in Bermuda, gave an interview in which he sounded eerily like his party leader. This newcomer to PLP politics said, “There are many in this country who do believe in this entitlement. There are many who believe they don’t have to work.” And, according to the reporter, Burt said that “other countries had floundered because they had increased entitlements and saddled themselves with a ridiculous tax burden.”

There is a pattern here, and its sudden appearance in PLP politics coincides with the elevation of Ewart Brown to sole decision maker. Before Brown became premier-but while he was an active member of Cabinet and presumably had his wits about him-the PLP government proposed expanding entitlement programmes by introducing unemployment insurance. In fact, before Brown became premier, the PLP government worked hard to convince an increasingly sceptical public that it still had a “social agenda” after embarrassing policy failures in housing, health, education and crime.

One thing is clear: Butler, Burch and Burt are following the leader, and Bermudians should be prepared to hear more of this entitlement rhetoric as Premier Brown’s foot soldiers march in unison toward the looming election.

Out of context, these statements should fall on sympathetic ears. After all, solid middle-class values have shaped Bermudian culture. We celebrate the hard worker, the entrepreneur, the person who makes it against all odds. We applaud parents who make huge sacrifices for their children’s education and future. Bermudians aren’t tolerant of freeloaders, never have been, nor should we be.

But taken in the context of his party’s labour roots, Premier Brown’s sudden campaign against a “welfare state” seems orchestrated and strategic. His implicit calls for less government support for social programmes sounds positively, well, right wing. But his words ring false, and with good reason.

First, the evidence does not support the claims. The amount of financial assistance granted in 1998 was slightly over $14 million; the amount seven years later was just under $15 million. Inflation alone would account for a good part of that increase. And the number of financial-assistance staff has remained constant for the past four years. Clearly, Bermuda is in no danger of becoming a welfare state.

And if David Burt is truly concerned about a “ridiculous tax burden,” he should complain, loudly, to his own party’s leadership: From 1998 to 2006, annual revenue from payroll taxes jumped from $150 million to $270 million, a whopping 80 percent. And land tax has doubled, from $26 million in 1998 to $52 million in 2006.

Second, entitlement rhetoric is a convenient way to allow the PLP government, once again, to avoid responsibility for its own social failures. Only this time, in Brown’s Bermuda, the homeless are to blame for the housing crisis, the indigent are to blame for escalating healthcare costs, and deficient principals, bad teachers, and a “poisonous” Department of Education are to blame for a failed education system.

Entitlement rhetoric also provides a perfect smokescreen for a new kind of entitlement and its real beneficiaries: cronies of PLP politicians who stand to gain handsomely from government contracts awarded without open tendering or public scrutiny; the premier’s highly paid entourage who do little but increase the isolation between the premier and the people and even his own political party; and PLP politicians who voted themselves the largest pay raise in Bermuda’s history.

If, on the other hand, the premier actually believes that Bermudians with legitimate needs for housing and healthcare must be “rehabilitated,” like addicts and criminals, then there really must be a battle going on for the heart and soul of the PLP.

In any case, this is wrong for Bermuda. As a wealthy country, we have long recognised government’s duty to assist those with legitimate needs. Bermudians may not like the idea of people getting something for nothing-who does?-but they take well-deserved pride in their generosity and willingness to care for each other. The recent entitlement rhetoric we’ve heard from Brown, Burch, Butler and Burt seems not only calculating but also mean-spirited.

Premier Brown might well heed the words of the celebrated writer and first president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, who said, “The main task of the present generation of politicians is not, I think, to ingratiate themselves with the public through the decisions they take or their smiles on television. Their role is something quite different-to assume their share of responsibility for the long-range prospects of our world, and thus, to set an example for the public in whose sight they work. After all, politics is a matter of serving the community, which means that it is morality in practice.”