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Bennett ousted for saying what everyone is thinking

His radio-show portrayal of the premier violated the 'no surprises' rule

From time to time, there have been tales about the darker side of Premier Gordon Campbell -- a bullying, bad-tempered boss who'd lose it now and again, and always privately.

But next to no public and on-the-record confirmation. Nothing to make more than a few speculative lines in a column. Until now.

On Wednesday afternoon, longtime B.C. Liberal MLA Bill Bennett, just hours after being dumped from cabinet, let it all hang out about what Campbell is like when crossed.

He yells at people. Swears. Shouts in your face until you shrink from the spittle. Leaves those of less sturdy constitutions in tears.

On and on went Bennett, as reporters listened rapt, with a mounting sense of "Did-he-really-say-that?" disbelief.

Campbell the bully. Campbell the manipulator. Campbell the boss who rules by intimidation. Campbell whose abusive ways helped drive able ministers like Carole Taylor and Olga Ilich out of government.

"He's not a nice man," said Bennett with finality. "He's not a nice man."

And as a result, Bennett figures the government caucus and cabinet suffers from a kind of "battered wife syndrome." MLAs and ministers are so afraid of being subjected to Campbell's rhetorical fists of fury, they keep quiet, follow orders, don't dare speak up or criticize.

Bennett himself admitted to enduring Campbell's dark side in silence for many years. He'd see flashes of it, sometimes directed at himself, sometimes at others. Not pretty.

But he hung in there because, as a small-and large-"c" conservative, he supported most of what the government was doing. Because of the "us or them" polarization of B.C. politics. Because for most of a decade, Campbell was a "magician," delivering three victories in a province where one-term premiers were the norm.

But he finally bailed this fall, seeing that the premier, angling to save his own political skin, had set the government on the road to ruin.

The harmonized sales tax? Yes, Bennett supported it. "It was a good tax." But the public turned against it long ago. "I would kill the HST if it were up to me."

The recent top-to-bottom reorganization of his energy ministry and others? "Very poorly thought out." Secretive too. The two deputy ministers who worked on it for eight months were ordered not to tell anybody about the plan, least of all the ministers who were supposed to implement it.

The 15-per-cent cut in provincial income taxes? "A desperate attempt to regain support by the premier." The province can't afford it, in Bennett's estimation. Late Wednesday, the Liberals agreed with him and cancelled the tax cut. More desperation.

Overriding all those concerns was Bennett's view that the premier's credibility was gone beyond retrieval. The only hope was for Campbell to go now. Every day he stays around is one less day for the Liberals to get working on renewal.

Bennett was dumped from cabinet for saying as much in an interview with reporter Sean Leslie of radio station CKNW on the weekend. "I violated the 'no surprises' rule," as Bennett put it in a charming aside to reporters.

The Liberals, for their part, tried to portray the ouster as an exercise in collective decision-making. Cabinet ministers sharing their concerns about Bennett's out-of-line comments in telephone conversations with deputy premier Colin Hansen. Then meeting in formal conclave in Vancouver on Wednesday morning.

Hansen asks Premier Campbell to leave the room. The ministers vent their collective concerns. There being a consensus, Bennett is asked to leave cabinet. He does so. So said Hansen.

But that wasn't how Bennett told it. "I was fired by Gordon Campbell. He's the only one who has the power to do that." Everything else was "staged." The ex-minister was "amazed" the government didn't have a communications staffer on hand to complete the orchestration.

Bennett's version is more like the real story. Premiers do the hiring and firing of cabinet ministers in our system. Anything else would be utterly unprecedented. And sure enough, the cabinet order firing Bennett was signed by Campbell, no one else.

But if the Liberal cabinet ministers want to maintain the pretence that they now have the collective power to fire a colleague, they should turn their newly acquired powers on the real problem in their midst.

Tell Campbell to forget about sticking around until a new leader is chosen. Select one of their number to serve as a caretaker premier.

If they don't act soon, they risk letting their discredited boss turn their government into a suicide pact.

vpalmer@vancouversun.com