Following the runaway horse incident last year, in which many people were injured, the CofH have banned carriages from Harbour Nights.

Now, Junior Minister of Tourism and Transport Senator Wayne Caines has asked the Mayor to back off:

While the Mayor obviously has wide discretion within the city limits, it is the Public Service Vehicles Licensing Board which is responsible for public service vehicles countrywide – and that legislative oversight includes horse drawn carriages.

This has nothing to do with horses. It is another salvo in the PLP’s desire to do away with the independent corporations of Hamilton and St George.

I think the leadership (and transparency and accountability) of these Municipalities is lacking … but I am not convinced it would be any better under the central government. I look forward to the CofH getting off their cell phones and proposing some modernisation steps.

In this case, I am not sure that Senator Caines has it right. At all. The Municipalities Act of 1923 clearly gives the Corporation of Hamilton powers over:

the control, maintenance, repair and lighting of all streets and highways within municipal areas, and the control of vehicular and pedestrian traffic thereon

The Corporation’s rights in this regard have been reinforced many times in subsequent legislation, including the Hamilton (Regulation of Carriages) Act of 1994.

Government complains the local media is hostile? As frequently happens, they swallowed this spin without the slightest hesitation!

A look at a few examples of the rhetoric at the rallies and in the campaign generally makes it clear that voters were being asked to make an affirmation of their [group or racial] identity with their vote not simply returning an incumbent government to power or making a statement of party loyalty…

The effect of such identity appeals is that a voter no longer responds continuously to small differences between candidate platforms. Rather, a voter sticks with the candidate favored by her social group until the difference between platforms exceeds some threshold of magnitude that is [itself raised by] the intensity of group-based rhetoric.

The reasons for the sudden increase in race-based rhetoric by the PLP in the lead up to our 2008 election are obvious. Credible allegations of corruption were harming the PLP’s claims to be responsible managers, while the UBP was staking its campaign on a detailed platform of managerial tasks. By emotionally refocussing on group identity, the PLP rendered the UBP’s campaign irrelevant. Ironically, the UBP’s tactic of pursuing a calm tone, probably worked against them as it appeared wishy-washy against the intensity of the PLP rhetoric.

It is questionable whether the UBP will ever be able to “prove itself reformed” and vaccinated against such attacks. Indeed, the authors of this dissertation predict that the dynamics of group politics are typically broken by the increased participation of independent candidates. How that will happen in Bermuda is not clear. But it is certainly why the PLP whip is so tight: if parliamentary members diverge, it breaks the illusion of unity. That’s why Renee Webb became untouchable when she started to speak her mind. It’s why independent-minded Stuart Hayward drives them nuts.

A natural result is that it never hurts competing candidates to engage in maximal group rhetoric, at least so long as political speech is costless.

This dynamic explains a few other PLP moves as well. CITV and HOTT are important vehicles for expressing group identity in the PLP terms. In fact, I think popular DJ Thaao Dill got shortchanged with his Senatorship: I do not believe that Ewart Brown would have been re-elected without his constant and affable boosting of the premier to his on-air “family.”

It also explains why Dr. Brown has sharpened his knives for the Royal Gazette and other third-party media in Bermuda: given the weakness of the UBP, the media are the sole independent voice in Bermuda. They are the sole questioners of his performance as well as the “costs of his political speech.” Dr. Brown feels so threatened by them that he feels his only options are to use Government powers to kill them or to replace them with an entity that sees the world through his lens of “group identity.”

• Royal Gazette, Bermuda Commercial and General Advertiser and Recorder (circa 1877)
• The Bermudian (circa 1877)
• The New Era (or Home Journal) (circa 1881)
• The Mid-Ocean (circa 1899)

Well, whomever controls the cement business in Bermuda is ready for a bonanza. Cheers!

The Government is giddy as Bermuda’s tax base increases incredibly (in particular, the lucrative tax on sale of property to expatriates). The question is whether Government will continue to bloat on the proceeds, or streamline so that the tax burden on Bermudians may be lowered.

The exempt companies are presumably also cheered. Some of those condos will, in fact, be snapped up for executives working for Bermuda’s international business sector – as is the case at Belmont and other recent projects.

And the unions must also be well chuffed, as the new real estate projects may reverse stagnation in their membership. In fact, they may change the face of organised labour in Bermuda. Here’s why:

• There is no way that Bermuda’s small population will be able to staff the large service staff that will be required by these high end resorts. They will require an army of imported labour, who are an obvious pool for union organisation.
• If so, the large numbers will change the balance of Bermudian vs expatriate interests within the union which will need to get over its traditional xenophobia.
• The areas of union involvement may widen as many staff will be living in employer provided housing.
• Moreover, the unions should gear to different worker needs, as many of the new members will be of different culture and languages. There may be more demand for the union to provide services instead of just representation.

In last week’s Official Gazette was a notice of a change in the tax that non-Bermudians must pay when they acquire land in Bermuda.

• The acquisition tax on “normal” houses goes up from 22% to 25% and on “normal” condos goes from 15% to 18%.
• However, the tax on the “fractional condos” and hotel residences at the heart of the SDO flood will drop from 15% to 10% on the initial sale by the developer, but revert to 15% for future resales of the fractions.
• You can assume that these properties will also enjoy hotel concessions relief (which has typically included duty free imports of construction materials as well as lower land, payroll, and occupancy taxes).

The change is retroactive for the Belmont development. (By comparison, Bermudians pay an acquisition tax on a sliding scale equaling about 5%).

This would seem to underline the fact that Government’s recent attacks on the Royal Gazette are personal as opposed to “responsible fiscal management.” The whiff of BCC still lingers.

Bermuda has a long tradition of competing dailies, including several black owned papers, that were very important to Bermuda’s development. Even the Royal Gazette represents the merged operations of several of those earlier papers. Dr. Brown has also tried his hand with the Bermuda Times.

What is key is that all of these papers were independent and free to analyse the performance of the Government of the day. I don’t think that’s what Doc has in mind.