Binding and loosing

J.G. Vassallo's "Eye-to-eye politics" (March 14) was a remarkable piece of writing, remarkable that is for its close resemblance to a MLP hymn sheet.

We hear that "The referendum was consultative and non-binding, revolving around a yes-or-no question set by the Fenech Adami administration". That simply parrots the MLP/Super One refrain of referendum konsultattiv, li jorbot biss il-gvern li ghamlu.

On the other hand, "The electoral result at the general election will be cast in concrete, assuming that the election will be run according to the rules". Only the MLP, not much given to going by the rules, is suggesting that the election will not be.

Then, inevitably, comes the arithmetic. The MLP calculus claims that "the Fenech Adami administration has been defeated politically, morally and mathematically".

By way of "balance" PN and AD arithmetic is also quoted. The conclusion is that PN/AD are insisting that abstainers and spoilers "do not identify in any way with the voice of the people". After that distortion of PN/AD views, it is obvious that the balance is quite bogus. The two different readings are given very different punch lines.

Two facts were left out: one susceptible to little interpretation and the other to none at all. The first is that referendum mathematics were defined by parliament without dissent in October 2002. And the other is that wherever in the civilised world referenda are held, subject in some cases to a pre-defined fraction of the electorate voting, the result goes according to numbers for or against the proposition. No amount of legal squirming or of bouts of amnesia from any side can change those facts.

As if the veneer of balance was not thin enough, Mr Vassallo then declaims that "It is the sovereign electorate that will be the final arbiter". But it was the same sovereign electorate which was consulted (by those who did not issue that three-headed directive, of course) in the referendum. Or do we have referenda for Helots and elections for free Spartans?

Mr Vassallo has also at last given vent to his much suppressed feeling for the environment, which he describes as "polluted" (What with: plastic? shattered bird? lead shot? scurrilous writing?). But Sicilians at least, though much demonised by the MLP, come in for some commiseration for having swallowed empty EU promises. Never mind that recent official figures on EU regional funds for Italy show that Sicily and Calabria only managed to spend 35 per cent of allotted (not just promised) funds.

Most of the fault for that does not lie with Brussels, but with the rickety administrative structures at home, often in the grip of criminal organisations. In any case Mr Vassallo should have kept quiet about this; else a Labour government might face a wave of illegal Sicilian immigrants, seeking asylum from Brussels exploitation.

But perhaps the writing reaches a climax where Mr Vassallo prophesies that "some of those who marched in close formation during the referendum campaign will no longer say yes to everything and are likely to break ranks".

He then promptly concludes that "the need is urgent and the time is ripe" to break ranks. Unfortunately, some of the Helots who voted yes in the referendum have done just that.

In their case, however, neither Mr Vassallo, who remained silent, nor the MLP, which is trying to woo them back, felt that the need was urgent or the time ripe. But then Sparta was never a democratic society.