OBA: ‘He Has No Ideas That Are Good Ideas’
[Updated with response] “Premier Burt’s speech at the opening of the PLP Delegates conference is just a further demonstration that he just doesn’t know how to end the PLP’s inertia,” OBA Deputy Leader Leah Scott said.
Ms Scott said, “He has no ideas that are good ideas, and the ideas that he does have are targeted solely to a particular group of people. Burt the man, has become so intertwined with his role of Burt the Premier that he is totally entrenched in his philosophy that “It’s my world, and we are going to do things my way”.
“We need a radical reset of our economy and it is clear that Burt is unclear as to how to accomplish that. His plans to expand the role of government and squash corporate influence and support is tyrannical and nonsensical.
“Burt’s leadership is in crisis, and Burt is not one to let a good crisis go to waste. He attempts to deflect his inability to get the economy going by perpetuating his myth of the OBA’s ‘disaster capitalism’, when the truth is that the sustainability of this economy from 2017 to date has solely been because of the economic strategies put in place by former Minister of Finance Bob Richards.
“Burt’s policies — not the OBA hand he claims he was dealt— are the key driver of the problems Bermuda is currently facing.
“Burt is trying to force a more equitable distribution of resources, and I concur that an improved and fairer social and economic system is very much needed. However, how he is proposing to achieve it will cause economic dislocation to the very people he claims he is trying to benefit.
“So what is his plan to help the people of this country whether the economic dislocation that must happen in order for income equality and other social and business equalisation to take place? What safety nets are proposed to catch those who will inevitably be displaced in the transition?
“The continued downward spiral of our country is a real and present danger and the need to address it is beyond urgent.
“We all want an alternative future, whereby our daily lives are improved on a number of levels – full employment, affordable health care, affordable housing, reliable and accessible public transportation, resolution of gender and racial wealth gaps.
“To get started, we can start:
- “to restructure workforce development so that to delivers real results for Bermudian workers and Bermudian companies.
- “scale up and be committed to apprenticeship programs and bring together the high schools, the Bermuda college, the unions, and all Bermuda companies to participate.
- “to pursue the unfulfilled promises and commitments proposed by Medici, Binance and others, by implementing our own sectoral training programs. Aligning the training of Bermudians with Bermuda’s job market, while ensuring that Bermudian workers gain skills that are transferable across employers is a necessity.
- “to ensure that every student has access to a high-quality public education — no matter where they live, the color of their skin, or how much money their parents make. This is achieved by making sure that all schools are adequately and equitably funded and that teachers and staff are treated like the professionals they are. While there is a university fund, our kids have to get through high school to get to university.
- “to ensure that all of those schools that provide educational support to our students who may be challenged with disabilities are guaranteed adequate funding and the right to a free and appropriate public education.
- “to ensure that our immigration policies that do not allow companies to feel comfortable demanding more skills from prospective employees as an excuse to be more selective about who they choose to hire.
- “consider how we can realistically afford and implement a basic income guarantee or some sort of support help a person meet their basic needs.
- “to realistically begin to address climate change, and teach people how to create lives with less stuff and better well-being
“Burt needs to stop making excuses. Political stability, jobs, an economic stimulus package that leads to sustainable economic growth, is what is needed.
“Dwight Eisenhower famously said that plans are useless but planning is indispensable. However, right now in Bermuda, a plan is essential.
“Burt’s plan, if it can even be called a plan, will encourage capital flight, send jobs abroad, keep wages low, deter foreign direct investment and cause massive unemployment.
“Burt needs to pursue fundamental, structural changes in his government’s approach to the economy, and his victimization and retaliation ideology is not what is going inspire confidence in our investors and potential investors, our visitors, or our country.
“Time is of the essence, and Burt better choose right.”
Update 3.30pm: MP Lawrence Scott said, “For the OBA to claim that the PLP has “no good ideas” is most telling.
“A living wage to ensure that no Bermudian works a full-time job will struggle to make ends meet.
“A regulated cannabis industry to create jobs and opportunities for Bermudians and diversify our economy
“Creating alternatives via government that will drive down food costs for Bermudians
“Creating alternatives via government that will drive down monthly mortgage payments for Bermudians
“Are these not good ideas?
“What does Ms Scott say to the workers making $6.50 an hour and working 2-3 jobs just to try to break even?
“What does Ms. Scott say to the young black men incarcerated and criminalized by an unfair judicial system?
“What does Ms. Scott say to the families struggling with the prices of basic food necessities and grocery stores who continue to increase costs?
“What does Ms. Scott say to families unable to sustain mortgage payments due to banks increasing rates with no relief available?
“The reality is that those like the OBA who are happy with the status quo, who profit handsomely from keeping things the way it is will never see anything that challenges the status quo and levels the playing field as a good idea.
“I’ve always said in Parliament that the haves can continue to have, but the have nots need to have more.
“For 2 years we have tried to work with those who want to keep Bermuda the way it is and all it has shown is that there is an unwillingness to cooperate in making Bermuda fairer and better. There is a critical need for fundamental change in Bermuda for us all to progress. Unfortunately, too many may say they agree with that, but actions speak louder than words.
“Ms. Scott has often found herself a maverick on the OBA side by not always following the party line. That makes her current oped even more disappointing. That she would champion the business community over the people, without giving an objective review of the proposals shows she isn’t a maverick at all, but simply another pawn on the OBA’s table.”
Impeach the PLP before it is too late and our island and pensions and hopes and futures are destroyed eternally. Seriously.
I have a idea start a new party the oba aka UBP is a ghost ship that will not win next election. This party changed the name to hide it’s racist past and you wonder why the PEOPLE stop voting for you.
Clearly you are a team player. Would you say then that Furbert, Simmons and Swan must be reformed racists? Also, if you can put race aside please tell me what the plp have done that has made your life better. Do you have any good reasons why we are almost $3B in debt? Do you like that trash is being collected once a week? Are you satisfied with paying higher taxes for less services? Do you truly understand how our economy works? Do you think that if the ubp was still in power the three names above would still be plp?
Funny how racist call other people racist, if Black people were in economic and social position to deny another race from progressing, I will call them racist.
LMAO
You might want to ask why all the black Bermudians stopped trusting the UBP before you single anyone out. You can’t face facts the oba is the UBP. Out of all the educated people in the oba/UBP that you could have placed as leader you choose JETGATE. LOLOL are you serious!!!!
Return when you stop looking for surrogates to help you win or poster men with no credibility. Until that time you will lose every election.
Are you saying that the plp are trustworthy? Anyway I said put race aside but you didn’t or couldn’t you are not a free thinker.
Whilst I agree the OBA is dead politically, you are wrong to claim that the UBP changed ists name to the OBA. I am tired of explaining the history, but I will not let that lie you perpetuate go unchallenged.
What a joke, so did UBP supporters and ideology disappear
LMAO
You can change the name to hide but you will never erase the past. Thus the reason you keep losing mate.
We also lost $2.5-3 Billion but you would rather not talk about that would you?
There was no change of name but you do not seem to care. You would rather perpetuate a lie than learn the truth.
THE oba is the UBP until you accept the facts your party will keep losing. It’s ok I hear that people in the oba are leaving you anyway to form the what was once the BDA. It will happen before the election or right after you get defeated next election. TRUST ME!!!!!
“THE oba is the UBP”
…and the plp is the OBA….lol
Speaking of no idea.
So who’s bright idea it was to guarantee $200 Million at Tuckers Point and give away our Airport for 30 years at $30Million each year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the same level of payment going overseas every year due to the hospital … careful of throwing stones in glass houses
Don’t forget the approx $185m a year just to pay interest on the debt created by the PLP going overseas into the pockets of bankers.
Don’t forget the millions spent trying to enshrine discrimination against gay people into law.
Such a sour party, running the island into the ground.
You’re really not very bright are you
How much does the plp induced national debt cost us per day?
Thats how we are paying for the airport. Through its revenues instead of borrowing more. How hard it this to understand?
JetGate = Impeach
Uighergate = Impeach.
Jetgate = nothing
YEs and NOthing is the oba leader jajajajaj.
Burt’s plan, if it can even be called a plan, will encourage capital flight, send jobs abroad, keep wages low, deter foreign direct investment and cause massive unemployment.
Burt needs to pursue fundamental, structural changes in his government’s approach to the economy, and his victimization and retaliation ideology is not what is going inspire confidence in our investors and potential investors, our visitors, or our country.
Well said Leah…
Yes Indeed , you are Right
B U T f and f are still hungry
Burts bright idea to lower food costs is a co-op supermarket run by the same group (aka BIU) that failed at this before?
He also suggests that they will become a bigger player in the banking businesses which would lower fees. Wasn’t fintech supposed to do that. That was his last big plan. Why encourage the union to get into the business if that business as we know it is over? He thinks the BIU being in charge of the people money is a good idea? This is the same group that was 10 years behind in filing their accounts? This is the same group that backed the ProActive Berkeley project and would be no more today if the PLP had not “forgiving” that debt. This is who you want me to have faith in. I won’t even talk about PHC
Oh and if you wanted to lower food prices than why would you create a sugar tax? It wasn’t to make people healthier as you claim because if that was your true reason for doing this you would have lowered the duty on health foods.
Like BoB said….You can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all the people all the time.
Well said!
why no mention of fintech in Burt’s speech?
Because of Victoria Hall building, Savvy Entertainment, Arbitrade, Caroline Bay, empty offices in Hamilton
all major successes of the Burt administration.
Its up to US to make that change come election day.
How can anything change when we all know the oba is a white party and the plp is a black party. Stop being a fool.
Both parties know who their base is!!!
Craig and Leah are seen as puppets only. Until people keep it real this is how it will be.
BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!
And its mentality like yours that stops change from happening. If you think your vote can’t change the outcome then poor you.
My vote did change the out come. That’s why my entire family like so many others stopped voting for the OBA. It’s mentality like yours that cause Bermudians to flipflop to PLP. If you can’t see that now the party might as well close it’s doors again. In the end out of desperation you replace a respectable leader aka Mr. Dunkely with a man we all call the jetgate premier. The voters will not return to the OBA with him as the leader.
But when MD was the leader he was assailed as the privileged oligarchy UBP , etc , you name it.
Will you all please make up your minds .
He is a silver spoon fed elitist who I told to his arrogant face that he would lose the election and he dismissed my views. Well here we are.
ENOUGH ALREADY the peoples minds were already made up when you UBPers change the name to OBA and also got voted out. You say you care about Bermuda, but it’s pretty hilarious that you have the original JET GATE back as the commander. He is the wrong puppet for the UBP show.
It’s hilarious, and hypocritical, that you harp on about ‘jetgate’ while ignoring everything else your plp does.
Does the plp care about gay Bermudians? No, they don’t. They’ve clearly stated that fact that they would discriminate against some Bermudians.
What about the gay black Bermudians? Don’t they mean anything to you?
If food prices are high, and the CO-OP will sell food without mark-up, then they will have no profit. Why would someone take their pension money out of a fund making interest and invest in a business that intentionally is not making a profit? Such foolishness.
What Lawrence Scott gets spectacularly wrong in his ranting response, is that the items he lists are not plans. They are goals, ideals, and no-one would oppose them.
What he fails to articulate is the “how”. We’ve had, what, 17 years of the last 21, of PLP rule. It’s been marked by sheer incompetence, fiscal calamity, accusations of ‘more.’ The debt has ballooned, the population has contracted, the cost of living has gone up, shops are shuttered on front street, we can’t run buses, deliver the post, collect the trash. Permanent election mode is all the PLP have to offer. Keep that racial divide going – because without it, you are nothing.
The racial divide has been here since we landed here.
Wake up and open your eyes, well I guees when you benefit from it you wont notice it.
And we are something and always will be something without it, we were building pyramids while you were discovering fire in the Caucasus Mountains.
“The racial divide has been here since we landed here.”
Stop perpetuating it.
Stop being so racist, stop hating people based on their skin colour.
It’s not as black and white as you’d like to believe it is.
WTF are you talking about?
The response from Scott merely extends the message from Leah Scott. Nothing he said was anything except fluff and has no substance. Platitudes and wishes but nothing he listed has actually been achieved by the PLP since 1998.
There is no plan. This administration is going to ruin this island. How much money has been pulled out of accounts and sent overseas? I don’t want this administration messing with my pension funds, they are mine not the PLP’s.
I am cashing in my pension and moving money out of Bermuda! Retirement in Antigua looks bright – they offer citizenship for $450,000 home purchase or investment in local business! See you later dumb a$$ PLP!
The US has Trump. We have Burt. Both out of the same mold. Both go from one blunder to the next. Day after day. Neither one has clue one. They make things up as they go & always blame somebody else for their failure. The difference is that in spite of Trump the US economy is booming. Because of Burt & his meddling with business Bermuda is in a slump not seen since WWII.
If the world’s leading economists are to be believed, an economic downturn is coming at some point likely in 2021 or 2022. All the PLP Government has to do is hold on until then and afterward it can blame “the forces that be” for Bermuda’s troubles. No other plan is needed.
Remember this on election day!
ENOUGH ALTEADY….. when are we going to have leaders that care about this Island and the people ?
this blame game is old and else for the race card !!! well we all have had enough of it.