After nine years at the centre of Bermuda politics, Premier David Burt is preparing to step back from executive office this October to make more room for family.
In a rare personal interview, with RG, Mr Burt shared his heartfelt thoughts about his loved ones, childhood, pressure, public service and the private self behind the office.
There are moments in an interview when the mask falls away. For David Burt, it came when he was asked about his family.
The Premier paused, wiped away a tear and, for a few seconds, the familiar public figure receded.
Not the man at the press conference. Not the politician accustomed to scrutiny, criticism and command. Just a husband to Kristin and father to Nia and Edward, speaking about the people who have carried the cost of public life alongside him.
“They did not cope well,” he said of the demands placed on his family. “They still don’t cope well.”
That is why Mr Burt has no regrets that he will step back from the Premiership, the front bench.
“I want to be there for them,” he said.
He remembered his very young son watching the official car pull away. “GP1 would drive and he would stand in the window and cry,” the Premier said.
It is a small domestic image, but it says more than any grand statement about sacrifice. The machinery of government moving forward. A child at the window wanting his father to stay.
For almost a decade as Premier, Mr Burt has been probably the most visible person in Bermuda.
At the age of 38, he became the island’s youngest Premier, led through the Covid-19 pandemic and lived with the scrutiny, anger, personal criticism and relentless intimacy of politics on a small island.
Mr Burt, now 47, who also took on the crucial role as the Minister of Finance for most of his Premiership, is careful to make one thing clear: he does not see himself as leaving politics.
He intends to continue as a Member of Parliament and says constituency work is something he has missed. What he is leaving is the front bench, the daily demand of executive office, and the constant pull away from home.
“I just want to make sure I have time to enjoy my family,” he said, “and especially to enjoy my children before they turn into full-fledged teenagers that don’t want to be seen with their parents anymore.”
He smiled at that. He is already, he admitted, beginning to get “a little taste” of it.
The anti-sport youngster
As a child, long before the title and the decisions, David Burt describes himself as “an unabashed nerd”.
He says it without embarrassment. In fact, it may be one of the things he is most relaxed about.
“I grew up as an unabashed nerd because I have no physical attributes,” he joked. It is still funny to him, he said, to see his daughter running and setting long jump records for her age, and his son winning football tournaments.
He said he had loved computers since getting his first one. “I was about as anti-sport as you could get because I’ve always been in love with computers, and that was always my thing.”
His upbringing was ordinary in one sense, but formative in another. He was the first in his family to go to college. His mother was a beautician, his father was a mason, but both were entrepreneurs.
“I never saw my parents work for anyone else,” he said. From them, he learnt hard work and independence. He saw them struggle, persevere and push to give him better opportunities.
That shaped his own view of work. It also shaped his appetite for enterprise.
He spoke about early business ideas, later starting his IT company, and launching Hitch. Technology was not a slogan for him. It was where he felt most himself.
“I’m not a nature person. I’m not really an animal person. I’m more of a tech person, a computer person,” he said. “I fell in love with computers at a very young age.”
Climbing to the top
At Florida Air Academy, where he went to military boarding school, he earned his pilot’s licence a week after his 17th birthday, meaning he could fly a plane before he could drive a car.
While other students were playing sport or going to the mall, he was on the school’s computer programming team, going to competitions at a local community college.
He also attended George Washington University, where he obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance and information and a Master of Science in information systems technology.
No one in his family had been in politics before. After coming back to Bermuda in 2003, he became involved with the Progressive Labour Party, later becoming its chair.
In 2009 he stepped away, wanting to do other things, and when former PLP Premier Paula Cox asked him to return, it took time to say yes, he said.
Then in 2010 onwards, he was back on the front line. Senator, MP, shadow minister, Opposition leader, Premier. By his own calculation, most of his adult life has been committed to service.
“I love my job,” he said. “I love the challenge of my job. I love going to work.”
That is why he will miss the work: setting public policy, debating it, thinking about the future, trying to move an agenda through the limits of government.
He has also missed having more contact with his constituents — what he will not miss is the loss of ordinary space. Public life, he said, has made him more reserved.
Personal impact
He finds himself not fully being himself in public. Sometimes he wants to enjoy time with friends without someone trying to discuss politics. Sometimes he is out with his children and needs to ask people to let him simply be with them.
“It’s not just the scrutiny of the role. It’s that sometimes you just want to enjoy yourself with your friends and not have to worry about a person at the bar who wants to cause a scene or wants to discuss politics when you’re just trying to relax and enjoy your evening.”
Asked about regrets, he pointed to the quarantine hotel policy during the pandemic.
It was done, he said, for the right reasons, but the Government later reversed the policy. The division it caused became deeply personal.
He also remembers the sound of ambulances from the Premier’s official residence during Covid.
At night, he said, he could hear them going to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.
Sometimes, worried by the frequency, he would call the hospital to ask whether everything was all right.
“It was very difficult,” he said. “It was very stressful.”
As Covid closed the island, there were 20-hour days, press conferences, e-mails, documents, decisions, and then the attempt to still be “a husband and a father and a son”.
The job aged him, he said. He can almost date photographs by the beard: before the pandemic, no beard; after the pandemic, beard. He joked about the grey, the hairline and the visible signs of office.
As well as being Premier, he is the leader of the Progressive Labour Party which comes with its own set of meetings: central committee meeting, party executive meeting on top of Cabinet and caucus meetings, Parliament and constituency clinics: all in a week.
But he is not leaving with bitterness. Nor is he trying to pretend the work did not matter.
Putting family first
If he could speak to the David Burt who became Premier in 2017, his advice would be simple. “Push harder on your agenda.”
He added: “I don’t think there’ll be anyone who says that I haven’t pushed hard, but you can always push harder.”
It’s not because he regrets everything, but because politics gives leaders narrow windows to act.
When he speaks about what comes next, the emphasis changes.
Kristin, he said, has had to carry the burden of his career. He wants to support hers.
His parents are getting older. His children are growing up. He wants to be present before the window closes.
Perhaps that is the real story of this transition. Not a man disappearing from public life, but one trying to recover more of his private life before it passes him by.
Asked about the “Premiership mask”, Mr Burt did not offer an easy theatrical answer.
The role does not come off neatly at the door. There are always messages, calls, briefings, decisions, pressures.
“I struggle to stop being Premier when I’m at home,” he said.
But when the public mask slipped, the person underneath was not hard to see.
He was the computer-loving boy who became a pilot before he could drive. The son of two entrepreneurs. The “unabashed nerd” who found his way into public service.
The husband who knows what his wife carried. The father who still remembers his child crying at the window.
And now, after years of being available to almost everyone, he is ready to be more available to the people who know him best.
On transitioning from public life, he said: “I would say that it is going to be a huge adaptation, but I would say that people underestimate my ability to do nothing well. Trust me. I will look forward, hopefully, to that point in time.”
David Burt off duty
A lighter look at the Premier’s favourite places, rituals and cultural touchstones.
Favourite ordinary Bermudian ritual
Swizzle. Mr Burt joked that “everyone knows the answer”. His own swizzle story began at a Department of Immigration end-of-year gathering, when he tasted his father’s version and decided he could improve it.
Favourite Bermudian traditions
Public holidays, especially May 24 and Cup Match. He enjoys being around people, saying hello, catching up and moving between camps.
Somerset or St George’s?
Do you really have to ask? Somerset. People assume he is from Somerset, but the reason is simple: both his parents were St George’s supporters.
Favourite place in Bermuda
His first answer was his bed, because he does not get enough of it. More seriously, he named Paradise Lakes and Turtle Bay. He loves the calm of Turtle Bay, although he’s not a big beach person because he hates sand.
Music
An “unabashed soca fan”, but he only got the bug after moving back to Bermuda.
Books
Mostly audiobooks now, especially on technology and artificial intelligence. He does not have much time for fiction.
Favourite film
True Lies. This answer has not changed in years because he does not watch many films.
Television
Star Trek: The Next Generation. A huge Star Trek fan, in keeping with what he describes as his “nerd thing”.
English football team
West Ham United. The first song sung to both his children was I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, and both wore West Ham kits in hospital after they were born.
Bermuda football team
Devonshire Recreation Club. He was involved before having children and would like to give back to football administration in future.
