I.M. Beck - quote, unquote

The Rt. Hon. Anthony Blair QC, with whom I am not, to put it bluntly, much enamoured, has won a third election, putting him in the record books as far as the Labour Party winning the elections in Great Britain is concerned.

No sooner had his key slipped itself into the lock of Number 10 than the cries for his resignation, sooner rather than later, as leader of the Labour Party, started being reported in the press. Admittedly, one does know better than to take everything the press reports at face value but doesn't it strike you as more than slightly ungrateful of the Great Unwashed that make up the Labour Party in the UK to be demanding their leader's resignation just after he had led them to an unprecedented third straight victory?

It's almost as if Chelsea's supporters were baying for José Mourinho's blood, now that he has won them the Premiership (to say nothing of the League Cup, about which nothing much should, really, be said).

Fine, Mr Blair's hat-trick came against pretty second-rate opposition (unlike Chelsea's resounding victory, achieved against the likes of Man U and Arsenal... on second thoughts, not so unlike really) and he would have had to have been a real idiot to have lost it. I can't imagine what it would have taken, actually, for Mr Blair to have lost the election - being caught at having lied about the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Deception or something of that magnitude, I suppose.

Anyway, he's won the election again, so he should be pretty pleased with himself and so should his party lads be pretty pleased with him.

The reality of the situation, though, is that the party machine seems to be gearing up to grind him down and spit him out, as party machines are wont to do the civilised world over.

Now, I wonder what they would have done if, instead of winning three on the trot, the dear fellow had lost them three pretty major polls in a row.

Doctor Alfred Sant, you might recall, did just that little thing to his own Labour Party (you know, the party that even took to calling itself New Labour). He took into his head to turn a silly little dispute over a yacht marina into a vote of confidence, lost that and then proceeded to lose the 1998 election, the EU referendum and the election that followed that.

The upshot of all that was, mirabile dictu, that he was confirmed as leader of the Malta Labour Party and occupies that exalted position even today. Is it really possible that Doctor Alfred Sant is the only man who can lead the Labour Party?

A threshold or so

Discussions are in the air to introduce some sort of system that gives the minor players in the political game some slight chance of having a voice in the House. According to some reports, the Labour Party is not completely averse to the establishment of a national threshold, while the other lot, the Nationalists, are playing silly monkeys.

Also according to the reports, the Nationalists are using the "excuse" that the less acceptable exponents of political thought, such as Norman Lowell, might get themselves enough of a following, slight though it may be in the overall scheme of things, to get a seat in Parliament to oppose the idea.

Now, I bow to no man in my opposition to people such as Mr Lowell being given even a vestige of respectability by allowing him to come to the table of democracy with hands as dirty as theirs. The policies he and his like express and the way they express them put them unequivocally on the wrong side of the democratic divide and the right of freedom of expression finds itself, in my humble (!) opinion, stopping short of allowing such ideas the oxygen of freedom.

This having been made clear, I have to say that I have this nagging thought that the cause of true democracy would - in a perverse way - be well served if someone like Mr Lowell were to be given a platform from which to blurt out his ludicrous socio-political theories.

We would then have the (dubious) pleasure of hearing someone covered by parliamentary privilege telling us that the Holocaust is nothing more than a figment of the Jew-fuelled media's collective imagination. The nation could be informed, say, that it was Judaism that declared war on Nazi Germany and the nation could also be educated in the town-planning measures that Mr Lowell has taken as his own.

These measures involve razing to the ground every building that is less than five miles from the sea and herding everyone into the central high-rise pyramid, from where the Select Few can gaze out on our newly green and pleasant land.

Or something like that, all to be achieved by 2012, presumably along with the dis-emancipation of women and the selective disposal, by what means is left to our imaginations, of anyone whose presence in the country is inconvenient to the aforementioned Select Few.

Oh well, if five per cent of the voters are disposed to amuse themselves with this sort of thing, who am I to gainsay them?

This threshold idea, really, is not such a bad thing, because it is about time that the main parties recognised publicly that they no longer constitute the be-all and end-all of political activity in the country. The risk of having Mr Lowell in the House is, in the final analysis, outweighed by the advantages of plurality. After all, he won't be in the House.

Of tolerance

This bit went in too late last week to be included, so I will have to beg your indulgence for my being somewhat behind the times, in The Times where one Alexander Grima of Marsascala wrote that he feels that contributors like little me should never be given space in a quality newspaper like The Times.

According to Mr Grima, my articles are full of nonsense and hatred towards other Maltese people, especially Mr Lowell (he must really have enjoyed the bit preceding this, then).

He goes on to say that if I write of tolerance and peace (all I can say to Mr Grima at this point is, make your mind up, are my pieces replete with tolerance and peace or full of nonsense and hatred?) I should first set the example and not be so arrogant.

Mr Grima then went on to betray his real political outlook on life by resorting to the code used by the intolerant by saying that we should not forget that we are all Maltese and that charity should begin at home. In other words, all non-Maltese (translated by some, perhaps not including Mr Grima, as non-white European) get out.

Mr Grima had better get used to it: my tolerance and peacefulness have their limits and Mr Lowell went beyond them many moons ago. If Mr Grima and his fellow travellers down Mr Lowell's route, whether they travel this route for simple amusement with his burlesque or out of breathless admiration for his political theories (if one can grace them with this description) don't like this, they are free to ignore me.

Congratulations

It did occur to me to make disapproving noises about the vandalism on the Porte des Bombes but then I thought I should not be so flipping platitudinal. Obviously it was a disgrace but would I have added anything to the sum of human knowledge by saying so?

However, I am happy to extend a heartfelt pat on the back to the people who put the damage right - all of them, from top down or bottom up, deserve our thanks.

Yes but maybe no

The Labour Party, bless it, has decided, with about as much debate as the Nationalists had (not a heck of a lot, in other words), that it will back the EU Constitution.

Of course, this being the Labour Party, there was no way a few caveats and conditions weren't going to be inserted, just in case at some point or other in the proceedings it was to become expedient to change its tack.

Thus it has come to pass that the inconvenience (and potential embarrassment to either or both of the main parties) of a referendum is going to be avoided, because the Labour Party has decided that as long as the EU Constitution does not conflict with ours, then it's OK, they will vote for it.

You can understand, as well as feel a gleeful satisfaction at, Dr KMB's frustration now that the MLP has pulled yet another U-ee over the EU. From implacable opposition to virtually complacent acceptance, in a few short months, is no mean trick to pull without getting whiplash.

bocca@waldonet.net.mt