I.M. Beck - quote unquote

Prissily promoting preternaturally preposterous theories, Doctor Alfred Sant returned to pastures old last week and had a good old snap at the hand from which he, like every other politician in the Western World, must eat if he is to entertain even the faintest notion of currying favour with the electorate.

For some reason or other, the rapidly becoming not so young lad decided that it was time to attack the media again, presumably thinking it was a good wheeze so to do.

I'm not exactly clear on what it is that motivates the dear fellow and sometimes I'm morally convinced that he doesn't either. I mean to say, all he seems to do is wake up in the morning and, depending on his muse, proceed to lash out at someone or other or shoot down some previous decision or something weird like that.

Only recently, for example, he seems to have conceived the idea that decisions of the highest organ of the Malta Labour Party are mere flibbertigibbets to be played around with as the fancy takes him. Thus it came to pass that Doctor Alfred Sant came up with the notion that there should be more candidates for the European parliament election than theretofore decided and, verily, it was so decided following his decree from on high.

The same neck-wrenching sort of trick was played when he gave some microns from his stupendously large stock of grey matter to the question of whether or not the dreaded VAT would become flavour of the month in future. Doctor Alfred Sant mused, Doctor Alfred Sant decreed and - wonder of wonders - the theory emerged that VAT was not the work of the devil, after all.

The same thing will happen, I would bet, on the whole vexed question of the EU and Malta's place therein. When history comes to be (re-) written, the idea that we should join the Union will have come from no other than Doctor Alfred Sant.

But let's get back to the more immediate subject of the old boy's most recent return to pastures old, which is where I started this segment. After his trouncing at the polls those months ago, many whiners had come to the conclusion that the defeat was to be laid at the door of the media, who were accused of having ganged up on the poor dear. I well recall being particularly honoured at the notion that I had played some part in ensuring that Doctor Alfred Sant and his peculiar notions of how to govern this country had been kept out.

Following that particular paroxysm of strangeness, the attacks on the media seemed to tail off, only to be resurrected last week when we were graced, by none other than his magnificence, Doctor Alfred Sant, with the title or rank of shock-troopers of the regime. To be fair, he used the word skwadristi, which evokes images more of the Mussolini-inspired gangs of Fascist thugs (at least to me) than of the Hitler-inspired squads of Nazi beasts, but the word doesn't actually translate all that well.

OK, fine, so according to Doctor Alfred Sant, I am a skwadrista. Whoopee, how lucky I am to be insulted and called names by one with a brain the size of Doctor Alfred Sant's. It just makes me want to rush out and vomit reams and reams of paper singing his praises and lauding him to the heavens.

On the other hand, I think I'll just carry on pointing out when he makes a dog's dinner of things, which he seems to have made it his holy mission to do on a regular and consistent basis.

Which is lucky for Dr Fenech Adami's successor, whoever he may be, because this way Doctor Alfred Sant will just carry on making sure that the MLP remains unelectable.

How ridiculous (1)

I've declared my interest, so I won't bother doing it again, and I don't usually go on about things in which I have a personal interest, but Mr Benny Borg Bonello's tirade last week about what a good notion it would be for the granting of pharmacy licences to be liberalised just can't go unanswered.

In essence, the dear fellow's thesis was that it would be a good thing for the consumer (that sainted figure) if the white heat of competition were to be brought to bear on the retail pharmacy sector.

Mr Borg Bonello proved, if proof were ever needed, that it just does not do to let the unqualified and the uninformed loose on issues of importance in the context of which some technical knowledge is more than somewhat important.

You see, what Mr Borg Bonello does not know - or chooses to ignore - is the simple fact that the sale of medicines is price-controlled, to the extent that there is no way anyone can sell the stuff at a price different to that laid down. Competition and the effect thereof just does not come into it, whatever Mr Borg Bonello, an evident naïf in this area, might believe.

The sale of anything else that is sold in pharmacies, be it nappies, lip-gloss or perfume or whatever, is not, of course, restricted to pharmacies (unlike medicinals) and no licence (other than a normal trading licence) is needed, so in this area, competition is free to operate. And it does, as most pharmacists know.

Perhaps, one may ask, there are other areas of a pharmacy's operation where competition might come into play for the benefit of the consumer. I doubt Mr Borg Bonello meant to suggest that the pressure of competition would perhaps persuade certain pharmacists to be less rigorous when it comes to dispensing controlled drugs. It is good to bear in mind, however, that the only reason the sale of medicines is controlled is that - not to put too fine a point on it - you can't trust a simple shopkeeper to do the job.

At the end of the day, licences to operate pharmacies, in serious jurisdictions, are only granted with due regard being given to the number of people to whom a proper, professional, service is to be given within the context of the absolute requirement that the supply of medicines is a function that is not dependent on the simplistic interplay of supply and demand.

People like Mr Borg Bonello and his backers stamping their little feet and demanding things is not going to change these realities one iota.

How ridiculous (2)

All the health fascists have come charging out of the woodwork, and no mistake, hooting triumphantly at the prospect of a famous victory.

In this area I have declared my interest in the past, so I won't repeat myself, but the heavy handed way the public smoking regulations have been introduced, clearly without any consultation of the bulk of the interested parties (bar and restaurant and other places of entertainment operators, I mean) demonstrates that scant regard has been given to the impact of the regulations.

Fine, people like Mrs Emily Barbaro Sant who, I have no doubt, is a frequent patron of the establishments that will be hit by the restrictions, are ecstatic because smokers are going to be treated like pariahs. The rest of us, those who enjoy a convivial pint or three with their friends, some of whom are smokers, are going to find that the Nanny State has tried to lay its heavy hand on our enjoyment and proscribe it to the point of making an evening out an exercise in political correctness rather than a pleasant social interaction.

As you know, I've been to a number of restaurants in my time and in hardly any single one of them have I been annoyed by someone smoking at my table or at a table near me. Have I been so lucky to have gone to places where air extraction is near-perfect or is it the truth that really, smoking in public places is not such a horrible thing, except to the terminally obsessed?

What is going to be fun for people like me, of course, is watching the contortions that will have to be gone through by the health nuts, when they find out that the regulations don't, actually, prohibit smoking in public places, they only limit the habit to smoking areas. In these areas, smokers are allowed to do their thing, according to my reading of the regulations, and unless the Mrs Barbaro Sants of this world are going to go about armed with directional fire extinguishers, people are, actually, going to carry on smoking.

As usual, the normal people of this world will come to some sort of amicable arrangement with their neighbours and life will go on, spiced up by people like Mrs Barbaro Sant, who will kick up a fuss here and there and make nuisances of themselves.

Well, so I hope anyway. The alternative is too nauseating to contemplate, because it presages a society where the great and the good (self-appointed though they might be) have sway over the way the rest of us lead our lives.

And by the way, all this paranoia about environmental tobacco smoke causing people to keel over like nine pins is not exactly based on the most rigorous science ever to see the light of day, though I doubt whether anyone will believe me on that.

How ridiculous (3)

That bastion of liberty, brotherhood and equality, France, has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to ban outward signs of religious belief, ostensibly because such signs offend the finely honed sensibilities of the citizenry.

Words fail me. Well, they don't, but almost. According to the proponents of this forward thinking piece of legislation, then, the sight of a Moslem girl wearing a headscarf or a Jewish boy wearing a yarmulke is offensive.

Personally, I find overbearing religious fundamentalism to be a carbuncle on the posterior of society, but, hey, that's me. To have this sort of intolerance adopted as a state philosophy is another thing entirely. Were this sort of decree to have been handed down by Idi Amin or some other weirdo, the western world would have risen in horror.

But it is that cradle of democracy, France, that has spawned it, so that's all right then.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt