ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

OK, so it was pretty predictable, my preciously predicating this edition of my erudite thoughts with that practically preordained headline.

I'll stop with "PR" cracks, incidentally, because they're getting as boring as they were when Sant obsessed about them.

I didn't watch Dr "call me Joseph" Muscat live. Just as an aside, I'll call you what I like, mate, don't you know it's condescending to ask people to call you by your Christian name: it demonstrates that you know you deserve a title and respect but are willing to let the little people think they're your bosom buddies.

I watched his triumphal entry into the Glass House courtesy of YouTube, that unblinking eye trained on all of us (all of us dumb enough to stand in front of a video camera, anyway) and I also watched Dr Muscat's first speech as MLP Leader that way, almost missing Italy's superb start to Euro2008. It was better than England's, of course, but horrendous for all that.

Listening to the commentators afterwards reminded me about the way all the little MLP elves went around blaming everyone and everything for their own recent little contretemps. And yes, the first goal was morally offside - suck it up, the result stands. Anyway, getting back to Muscat, should I give the guy a chance and write about something else?

I should, I suppose, say that I'm quite prepared to give him a honeymoon, so all the tolerant folks over in Labour elf-land can stop writing in and calling me names. One of them, Laviera by name, called me unethical, because I pointed out, as a comment to another piece, that I will not be bound by any Code of Ethics that the political parties concoct for their media. Being a Labour elf, Mr Laviera clearly has no grasp of the concept that opinions are not formed exclusively by the political parties and broadcast by their media. Nope, I don't think so, honeymoon over for Dr Muscat.

As he said to Gonzi, "we're back in business, big time". In fact, if memory serves, he was so impressed by his own grasp of the English language that he said it twice, if not thrice. Watching the video once was cringe-making enough, so I'm not about to rewind to check.

Whatever, the honeymoon is over and he's in the public eye, big time. Where to start? Well, there's the point at which Muscat's own story started, according to him, anyway. A scion of farming stock, he was brainy enough to go to University, a feat of daunting proportions, apparently only made possible because the Labour Party had done something. Arithmetic was never my strong suit, but since Muscat is 34, and however brainy he was, he couldn't have got into Uni before he was - what - 17 at best? - this means he missed the Labour Years at Tal-Qroqq. You know the ones I mean, all you old fogies out there. The years when the Police used to come along for a bit of riot-control practice, helped by their mates from the RITZ. The years when students had to have godfathers in order to be let into their preferred course. The years when the Medical School was turned from one of the best into one not even recognised outside our shores. Those years.

Yes, if it wasn't for Mintoff's "Educational Reforms" (excuse me while I have an ironic snigger here) Muscat wouldn't have been able to go to University. Of course, the explosion in University number only took place in the years following 1987 (which was when Mintoff and KMB's MLP was given the boot out of government) and unless he was even more of a child prodigy than the hagiographies are making him, Muscat went to Uni after 1987. And he was at secondary school during KMB's fun and games with the private schools, too, which must have been fun for him. But since when did the facts ever get in the way of a good anecdote? The next bit is guaranteed to get the elves all into a tizzy.

Hard luck, guys, Muscat put his wife and kids in the frame by trying to make himself look all warm and fuzzy for the matrons in the audience, telling us all about the difficult pregnancy his wife had. I'm glad everything turned out OK, of course, and there's no way I'm going to gainsay a man for being proud of his wife and children. I've never worried about showing that I am (and it's been used against me, too) but didn't the thought cross Muscat's mind that by putting his family into the public arena, he's risking them becoming fair game?

Is he relying on the media's inherent sense of decency and restraint? Isn't that a moderately risky strategy? Was it worth it, just to come across as a good family man - who had any doubts and who, for that matter, should care? Which all lets me point out another temporal flaw in Muscat's paean of praise for Labour and all its works. According to our young hero, if it wasn't for the efforts of the Labour Party in government, his wife's difficult pregnancy wouldn't have worked out OK and they wouldn't be blessed with twin girls.

If you thought his blaming his feats in the accumulation of degrees on the MLP was a bit weird, this is even stranger. The babies were born six months ago: the MLP ceased being responsible for our medical services more than twenty years ago. Actually, the MLP was responsible for the virtual destruction of our medical services almost thirty years ago, when Muscat himself was all of four years old (so you can hardly blame him for being ignorant of our history) so precisely why did Muscat feel he should say that it was thanks to the MLP that his family is what it is?

Actually, revisionism is a skill that seems to come naturally to many of the Left. Muscat can't be expected to know what the University and the health service were like in the late Seventies/ late Eighties at first hand, unlike the rest of us, because he was a mere babe in arms at the time. Others of his generation venerate people like Mintoff and KMB because it is a trait of the Left in Malta that its youth doesn't question the wisdom from the elders - Muscat's opening paragraphs (after the lugubrious "I love you all" bit) demonstrated this.

Even those who don't have the excuse of tender years have this tendency to forget what was going on around them as the years roll on. Lino Spiteri, for instance, who certainly is not of tender years, gave us the benefit of some interesting reminiscences some time ago, which were rendered even more interesting by what was forgotten by the author.

Oh well, as long as everyone loves everyone else, that's all that matters, after all. A guy thinks he can take a mike in hand, stroll around a stage, doing an imitation of a god-botherer (or, worse, Tony Blair) spinning yarns for the adoring masses and all will be well with the world. Who am I to say that the hippies were wrong?