I.M. Beck - quote and unquote

OK, so the MLP are trying to get people to vote for their boys (and I can say this without fear of accusations of political incorrectness, being as, like Yorkie bars, the MLP MEP candidature is not for girls) in the upcoming MEP election.

In order to do this, the Old Guard has to be kitted out and turned out, spick and span, so they can troop down to the polling station to do what they were told not to do during the referendum, viz and to wit, vote.

The poor Old Guard, rapidly approaching terminal bewilderment due to the hail of contradictory statements pouring out of the Glass Palace at Mile End when it comes to the European Union and voting in connection therewith, has to be given some signal of constancy and consistency, some connection to the past, when they used to rally to the colours and swear undying fealty to the cause.

From what I can make out, it has fallen to that valiant warrior of the past, Mr Joe Debono Grech, to get the show on the road so the MLP can get its act together in the electoral game.

Never let it be said that Mr Debono Grech has tried to change his outward aspect to resemble anything other than the Old Labour for which the MLP tries to persuade people, sometimes with some success, it does not stand any longer. No shrinking violet, him, Mr Debono Grech has been known to enunciate the ever-green pronouncements of political thought that seem to form the backbone of Labour Political Theory, such as the immortal "who is not with us is against us" and the champion of them all, "first Labour, then Labour and then Labour".

Of course, these political bon mots are nothing but hot air unless they are accompanied by a posture that lends strength to their promulgation. Mr Debono Grech, at this aspect of the game, is a past master. He will bark with the best of them, growl as if growling were to be declared illegal next Tuesday and generally puff up his chest and beat it like Tarzan on a bad hair day.

If you don't believe me, ask anyone who watched Xarabank last Friday (not yesterday, the one before, remember I write this before The Times prints it and this is before you read it) and ask Dr Ian Spiteri Bailey, who had the pleasure of Mr Debono Grech's charming manner during Dr Toni Abela's programme on Super One.

The Super One incident was particularly peculiar, because Mr Debono Grech was not even a guest on Dr Abela's programme when he (Debono Grech) chose to shoot his mouth off, with some vim and vigour at Dr Spiteri Bailey. It was unfair of certain facets of the media to imply that Dr Abela encouraged Debono Grech in his display of less than courtly manners - I know that he didn't - but the gentleman from Birkirkara certainly did his party no favours in the "let's curry favour with the moderate centre" stakes, though he probably geed up the Old Guard no end.

Of course, instead of coming out with a condemnation of Debono Grech's boorish behaviour, the MLP machine just got itself all hot and bothered about some sort of incident that took place when some Super One journalists were at a PN function. If anything really did happen, the PN machine should be given a raspberry or ten, naturally, but I didn't see any reports about a PN MEP candidate doing a Debono Grech, so the scale of things might be somewhat different.

What does it all mean?

In case you hadn't noticed, we're going to have an election pretty soon. In fact, you will notice that it is even closer than you thought, because next week this column will appear on Thursday, lest my random scribbling be so politically charged as to influence any of you in their voting come Saturday the twelfth.

Compared to the other national polls we've had, this particular contest does tend to pale into relatively less than earth shattering significance. Whatever happens, whoever gets elected, the Nationalist Party will still be in government, Doctor Alfred Sant's Malta Labour Party will still be in Opposition (though the leadership thereof might become an interesting little sideshow) and Malta will still, most importantly of all, be a member of the European Union.

That's the sane way of looking at things.

Then there's the Malta Labour Party way of looking at things.

In an effort to drum up some support for its candidates, the MLP machine has been doing its darndest to give Labour voters the impression that if the MLP gets more votes than the PN (are they going to add AD and Lowell and Bezzina to their tally, to say nothing of the Dearly Departed's votes?) then milk and honey will flow for all time, the government will come crashing down, Doctor Alfred Sant (don't laugh) will become Prime Minister and the nasty Nationalists will be banished to the outer darkness for all time, where there will be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I have this horrible vision that keeps flashing before my eyes: come Sunday the 13th, when the first count votes are totted up, Doctor Alfred Sant will stagger to the podium after a particularly tiring and emotional day and tell the assembled masses that Labour has won, upon which pronouncement, they will shoot off in their cars and trucks towards the Sliema Front to celebrate in a carcade.

If the Nationalists get more first count votes than Labour, I don't think there will be much celebrating, because the important thing in these elections is which individuals will be elected to represent Malta and that result won't be known before Tuesday or late. The first count votes are as important as the local council votes, to be frank, an interesting barometrical reading but that's all. They're not going to make the blindest bit of difference to the political landscape, at all.

But you try telling the terminally bewildered that.

Who to vote for?

No, I'm not going to tell you who to vote for: attentive readers of my column will have already got the message, so I won't bother reminding you that I am voting for Ian Spiteri Bailey.

But when you consider whether or not to give it to this candidate or the other, I would ask you to give some consideration to the independent candidates, because it would be manifestly unfair of me not to dump on them to the same extent that I do this on other people, notably the cogs in the MLP spin machine.

Thus you might wish to cast your vote for the Alpha Males who make up the Alpha Party, Prime Alpha of which is none other than Dr Emy D. Bezzina. The learned gentleman's main claim on your vote seems to be that he knows how to do a cute jig (calling it the Dance of the Cosmos or something like that) and that he was the only MEP candidate to predict correctly Malta's final placing in the Eurovision Thingy Contest.

Then you could go on to let Mr Lino Farrugia have it, if only for the fun of listening to the simultaneous translators in Brussels trying to get their tongues (and brains) around the concept of Conservationist Hunters & Trappers.

Of course, there's always the unspeakable Mr Norman Lowell as a candidate for your vote, that is if you are a racist low-life who believes that anyone who is not four-square with your view of humanity deserves to be hung, drawn and quartered, preferably while still alive. I might be exaggerating a touch, but you see what I'm getting at, I'm sure.

There are other independents, but I'm not too clear what they stand for or whether they can stand without falling over.

Thanks

My grateful thanks are extended to the officious twerp, a member of Malta's finest, who thought that his duty to preserve law and order would be carried out by giving me a parking ticket at 02:39 hours (yes, that's twenty to three in the flipping morning) when my car was parked in a designated parking space. It is true that the parking space is on a pavement and is only designated for the use of some flipping public official or other during certain specified times, but if it is good enough to be used by a public official in the avoidance of his duties, why shouldn't the rest of us mere mortals park there at other times?

My grateful thanks also go to the Balzan local council, in whose bailiwick this stirring episode of law enforcement took place. This council has managed, by dint of some particularly expert feat of traffic planning, to remove a number of parking spots in the vicinity of my humble abode. It has not, of course, done anything to remedy this loss, presumably because the people who are affected don't actually live in Balzan but round the corner in Lija.

And in closing, thanks to the radio programming experts who, on the execution of FM Bronja, thought it would be a good idea to emasculate Campus FM by relaying Classical FM through it. The FM Bronja frequency, meanwhile, is being used to send out a singularly bad transmission of Radju Malta (or whatever PBS's station is called). Did it not occur to anyone to use 91.7 to relay BBC or Classical FM or whatever and leave Campus FM alone?

bocca@waldonet.net.mt