Roamer's column

You did not need to be a royalist to be moved by the unfolding celebrations of the Queen's Golden Jubilee. If you were a republican you did not have to be a political sage to experience a hint of doubt about your belief in a non-monarchical existence.

Either way, neither the latter and certainly not the former could deny, with hand on heart, that it was a marvellous week for a monarchy that had nearly been brought to its knees by the antics of Charles and Diana and a tendency among the young royals to be frolicsome.

Prince Charles, it now appears, seems to have regained his spurs; witness the Queen's reference to him at the Lord Mayor's lunch, where the British prime minister somehow managed to find himself a place at the top table. Mr Blair, like Mr Clinton, never fails to make a good speech but all the same, in the current atmosphere of No. 10, he could not have failed to wonder how an event with as much spin as a building set in concrete had so captured the imagination of a nation slow to galvanise, but once inspired, swift to appreciate.

No doubt he will call in the organisers to show Mr Campbell how things are done - without spending almost a billion pounds on a dome doomed from the start, without the incessant spinning that has come to characterise his government's every thought, word and deed. It may not have been a humiliating experience for him, but if blood flows in his veins, it must surely have been a chastening one.

What on earth had happened to his reference to the People's Princess? How did this remarkable woman, with 50 years of almost silent duty in the service of her nation, half a century of dedication regardless of the many slings and arrows she had to bear, quietly, always with unimpeachable dignity; how did she do it without the slightest touch of a spin?

Last Tuesday's edition of The Daily Telegraph made a relevant point. "Most politicians would like to bathe in their sovereign's glory - most but not all. In his memoirs, George Thomas, then Speaker of the House of Commons, recalled how James Callaghan, as prime minister, did everything he could to keep out of the way during the Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977, even pleading other engagements in order not to intrude when the Queen visited Speaker's House. Can you imagine Mr Blair behaving this way? The question need only be stated."

Rule Britannia, Land of Hope and Glory, God Save the Queen - how long it's been since we heard them so throatily sung by the people of Britain and, more silently, perhaps, in many sitting rooms across the world where once there was a British presence!

The fly-past was something else again, with a rejuvenated Concorde swooping over the Mall with nine Red Arrows in attendance. What struck me was how like a swan the Concorde looked and how the entire lot of Arrows could have been parked comfortably inside that elegant aircraft which once ran a risk of never taking to the air again.

And how happy the British were looking, at last. They have finally realised that the young girl who came to the throne, 50 years ago, has stayed there steady as a rock, seeing off oh, so many prime ministers and leaders of the opposition whose names escape most people now. Last week, they saw a way of saying "Thank you Ma'am".

They came from all over the Isles and from the Commonwealth. They came in all shapes and sizes and in a multitude of colour, skin as well as dress. No canvassing was needed; no political emotion. It was all from the heart. In a world where thank you's are in short supply, they came to where she lives and acted out those two magical words.

And unto dust...

It is an unpleasant thought made all the more so by our daily experience of dust. Walk anywhere on this island where building is in progress and the creation of dust does not have to be seen to be believed, it only needs one to breathe in the stuff.

Falling masonry as a building is forced to its knees, bowls of dust as stone is shaped by "chasers" (illegal) and a trillion particles of dust are "chased" into the environment and the lungs of passers-by. Health and safety standards for such as stroll the streets, never mind the construction workers who provide dust-bowls wherever they gather, where promenades are laid out ad majorem populi commoditatem, of course, where hotel projects are in one style of swing or another - health and safety standards are appalling.

Any Minister of Health worth his salt, any Minister of Finance worth his worth, any government of the day, must surely recognise that the final cost in healthcare as a result of this and more - exhaust fumes vying with dust, mixing with it, finding their cancerous ways into our lungs - is enormous enough to spur them on to do something about this daily scourge. I will go a step further. The Minister of Health should offer a symbolic resignation as a sign of protest.

Where are our environmental health inspectors? Where our construction inspectors? Where the inspectors of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority? If they had any sense, of course, they would be miles away from all this in air-conditioned offices. Sadly for them, they are paid to be on site, to book all those in the construction industry, from the men on the ground to the architect (also cocooned in his air-conditioned office) for flouting every law in the book.

When Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici recently remarked that "there is no other country in Europe where the streets are as safe as they are in Malta," he could not have had any of this in mind. When Dr Simon Busuttil, at the same occasion, remarked that the EU had laws on the protection of the environment, he mentioned fuel emissions but paid no heed to the dust-bowl Malta is turned into, even more so in summer.

The point is we are paying for this form of hazard with our health. Government is paying with our taxes. It all seems so ludicrous one is tempted to laugh out loud at a situation where taxpayers contribute financially to a system that is killing a number of them; so, no laughing matter there. It is nothing less than obscene that laws, directives, regulations are ignored so openly by the construction industry. It is more than obscene that those who are paid to enforce the law should as openly fail to do so.

The law is the first remedy. Commonsense is the next. What prevents those engaged in construction in whatever size, shape or form making certain that they water down the site at the end of the day so that cars driving past do not kick up the acres of dust? What prevents them "chasing" stone away from the site, or using machinery that is available to absorb the dust in some metallic pocket? Nothing.

Well, not quite nothing: insolence towards those around and a heedless disregard for the law are quite a lot of something. We are forever being balked in our development by an attitude that our law enforcers adopt which beggars belief. But the practice is there for all to see and breathe.

I understand that leaded petrol is being phased out by the end of this year. That should make a difference to the tonnes of fuel emissions that cars spit out at every turn, with every change of gear. An emission-free Malta. And will pigs fly?

Apart from the cemetery, there is a gainer from all this: the car-wash industry.

Lumme! Not another one!

Pascal Lamy is the European Trade Commissioner. Pat Cox is the president of the European Parliament. Amre Moussa is the secretary-general of the Arab League. What have they in common? They are all in favour of Malta becoming a member of the European Union.

Malta will not join the EU because these three men are happy to see Malta in the Club. When Malta joins, however, and until it does, it makes no sense for Dr Sant to talk as if membership will turn Malta into a bastion from which, or with the aid of which, Europe will be in a better position to confront the North African littoral. It makes no sense because Euro-Arab relations have rarely been better. Nor will it make sense merely because Dr Sant reiterates this bizarre point of view, one which the secretary-general of the Arab League does not share. One presumes his opinion is representative of that held by these unthreatened countries.

The Leader of the Opposition has not been having a good time of late. What with his crash-landing in the Lamy-Cox-Moussa Triangle and the latest news from Switzerland on the subject of abortion, things on the foreign front are looking distinctly down. We have grown used to the idea expressed by the Euro-Noes that joining Europe will bring not only AIDS in its wake but divorce, also, and abortion while we are about it, and euthanasia once we cross the threshold of pain, never mind the Mafia and all its works.

Now his role model for Malta has held a referendum - the sort of mechanism that is natural to its government and seemingly anathema to Dr Sant and the No-bodies - and legalised abortion. No Big Brother from Brussels brought this about, as no Big Brother from Brussels brought about divorce in Ireland.

A referendum, freely organised, freely held, did for abortion and divorce respectively in those countries respectively. In the first case, it must feel as if the Alpine hills are falling before Dr Sant's very eyes and crashing all around him. If this does not put paid to that silly slogan - mountains of chocolate, armed neutrality, economic self-sufficiency, a GDP to make one gawk are some other differences between Switzerland made in Malta and us - nothing will. One suspects that nothing will.

Dr Sant has not dismissed Mr Moussa's opinion, nor did he tell the man that Malta in the EU was bad news for Arab countries bordering the Mediterranean. He did, however, display a certain alacrity in dismissing Mr Lamy who, as the European Commissioner for Trade, will be the man Dr Sant will have to deal with on the construction of a free trade zone "when", as Dr Sant put it last Monday in Parliament, his "(party will be) back in government after the next election..." Pascal, beware.

Apparently he did not hear a word you said on the effects of adopting the "so-called Swiss model" instead of membership. It would mean, you said, that the island would have to abide by all the EU rules without having any say on them. "...the idea that you can have the nice things and not the less nice things is something which the EU negotiators will not accept". And for good measure, he made a reference to agriculture. "You cannot have a scenario where you have obligations minus, rights plus".

It is not difficult to hold the opinion that Dr Sant does his party little good by hanging on to myths. He must know this but shows no sign of doing so. His problem is that he has been caught up in a nightmare of an argument that is of his own making and cannot see his way out of it. He cannot wake up from this dream.

This is not good for him, for his party and for the country. He has every right to disagree with this membership business; that is the way of democracy. It is also the way of democracy to allow the people to choose for themselves in a free vote, a referendum, to disagree with him. One can understand people being against membership. He should understand that there are people who are in favour. Let the majority decide.

England's cup overfloweth

It is starting to look as if the United States is well on its way to the finals. The French team, which came over thinking Senegal would be a walk-over, was itself walked over and is out, as I did not foretell. England is in when I said it would not make it to the second round, but what a close shave! Still, it is nice for Her Majesty the Queen's Jubilee.

What an ill-tempered first half it was, though, which is why England won with a penalty kick because some Argentinian cowboy touched that remarkable player, Owen, and caused this innocent-looking, well-groomed Englishman to hurtle all over the penalty area. Had the goal-keeper stood stock still, he would have stopped that Beckham's wretched ball. They never do, though, do they?

Last week, the Irish were behaving as if they had already won the blessed thing. Germany slashed Saudi Arabia to ribbons and proved once more that money isn't everything. The result contributed strongly to do in my brave and foolish 100-1 against forecast that the Saudis would end up battling it out with the United States in the finals.

Brazil nicked Turkey, likewise Italy, Ecuador; but goodness us, down 2-1 to Croatia. My mind remains steadfastly focussed on Sudan and Sierra Leone. It is a strange thing for it to be doing. From what I could discover after some nippy research, neither side is in the dammed thing, but I would not be surprised if I were proved wrong again and they do make it the finals, after all.