London riots

This post should have been a retrospective on Charlton’s League Cup game, which selfishly I am still pissed off at missing, with the added annoyance of having spent money on a hotel room and match ticket. It’s the third game that has been moved or postponed that I’ve come back for in past year…. ok, selfish rant over.

After the game Saturday my son and I stayed at my brother’s in Hackney, and when I woke on Sunday morning I truly thought he was watching some library clips from the 1985 Broadwater Farm riots. I was in Hornchurch Sunday night but my brother spent most of it stood looking out of his window with his baseball bat as groups of yobs roamed the streets outside. Fortunately the police unsettled them enough to move the low-life’s toward Bethnal Green Road.

Three become two

It was just 18 months ago that a 3rd political party, the Bermuda Democratic Alliance (BDA) was formed (I wrote about it here). Yet yesterday BDA and the countries main opposition party, the United Bermuda Party (UBP) merged.

On the face of it, it appears a strange decision. Yes, the BDA’s hopes of getting into government within the next decade are slim if non-existent but politics is a marathon and not a sprint. From an outsiders point of view and from what I had read the BDA had some common sense ideas and they offered a different perspective outside the current prejudices.

The UBP is stuck in the past, which was the reason why some of it’s more open minded party members and MP’s defected to start the BDA in the first place but instead of ploughing their own furrow, the BDA have given up their independence and rejoined forces with the UBP. There is a small political gene pool here and loyalty seems thin on the ground as regularly ministers flee across political divides.

The new combined party will be called One Bermuda Alliance and will be led, at least initially, by ex-journalist and retired lawyer John Barritt.

Frankly it doesn’t matter what it’s called, what Bermuda needs is an effective alternative to the PLP, a party that leads by example and conquers and not divides.

Paula Cox to be Bermuda’s new Premier

Last night in Bermuda Paula Cox was voted in by fellow Progressive Labour Party (PLP) members as the countries new Premier and will take the place of Dr Ewart Brown, who is stepping down after an eventful four years. I will write more on Brown when I get a minute.

Cox is currently Deputy Premier and her winning was about as predictable as the rabbit winning a greyhound race. Cox strolled to victory with 124 votes with Terry Lister 39 and Dale Butler collecting a rather embarrassing 2. Derrick Burgess was voted in as Cox’s new Deputy narrowly defeating Lister.

Paula Cox ran a low-key, organised and meticulous campaign, which I would say sums up her personality. Some would argue that she is more suited to a management role than that of a leader, but after Brown a bit of stability and less drama is probably what is required. Mind you as Finance Minister Cox is hardly blameless when it comes to the island’s debt now exceeding $1bn.

I personally felt Terry Lister had more appeal, but I can’t vote so can only hope like the rest of us that Cox is strong enough to steady what is becoming a more and more precarious and erratic ship.