Of Labour, for Labour

By hook or by crook, the truth always comes out. The comfort of speaking among friends makes you feel at ease to speak your heart out and sometimes, spill the beans as well. This must have happened to my good friend Jason Micallef, secretary general of the MLP, when he was addressing a group of MLP supporters gathered in honour of a Labour candidate.

In a film of Mr Micallef's speech available on YouTube, he declares that the new New Labour will be a "a government for all Maltese and Gozitans" that at the same time "will be a government for Labourites".

For all those who follow the political scene, this was no news. We had heard claims that a new New Labour government would adopt an "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" approach. When I hear such statements I always ask the question: In reality what does having a government for Labourites mean?

Let's take the civil service as an example. After all, the highest echelons of the Labour Party claim that one of the reasons for their downfall in 1998 was their decision to leave most top civil servants in their posts to the detriment of Labourites.

One classic example cited by Labourites to prove their point was the advice, supposedly given by civil servants to Alfred Sant's government, to raise the electricity rates. As if Prime Minister Sant could not judge whether the advice given to him made sense or not!

Does a new Labour government intend appointing only Labourites as permanent secretaries, directors general, directors and assistant directors so that the civil service will be run only by their blue-eyed boys? In that case a new Labour government would not have a big problem since most of these posts are occupied by Labour-leaning but mostly valid employees. This happened because the present government has always been a government for all and not just for Nationalists.

Of course, this comes at a price since it often causes disgruntlement and anger among Nationalists who feel that their government should have favoured them. A one-sided Labour government would find the right excuse not to renew contracts of brilliant top civil servants who have different political affiliations to theirs.

Having a government just for Labourites would also mean that those who have different political affiliations or none at all will be sacrificed for the preferred ones. Hence, one might expect vindictive transfers from one department to the other for civil servants and discriminatory behaviour by departments, authorities and commissions which would be instructed to give preference to the boys and girls in red even to the detriment of others.

Can we expect full observance of the law by a party whose declared intentions are to serve just half of the population? All government entities will become just puppets-on-a-string no matter what the law states. This is, after all, what Labour's pledge means.

Unfortunately, there are many Nationalist-leaning and floating voters who think that a Labour government will be in a better position to cut corners and take decisions without using so many bureaucratic structures, as this government often does. What they are not realising is that Labour will only cut corners for those pertaining to their inner circles.

All others would be left to fend for themselves since the ruling party would always, no matter what, prefer those who are in their circle of trust. After so many years in opposition, nobody would be more eager to bend the rules to stay in government!