Back at it as usual

It's Beck back to business as usual (check out my blog last week to see what I mean) and time to annoy the elves again. One of the things that gets the small mythical creatures spluttering and fulminating like diminutive (and ineffectual) thunderstorms is when horrid, horrid people like me dare to take a peek at the wondrous machinations of the various cogs in the MLP machine and have a bit of a public rumination on who did what and who was to blame for the MLP's nth defeat in a row at the polls.

In general terms, two people have been singled out for special mention as the guys who did it to Labour: one has now bowed out, apparently permanently (although he does a Banquo every so often to have a rant) so nil nisi (until his next imitation of the other Scotsman, anyway) but the other one certainly hasn't.

In fact, Jason Micallef is contesting for his post at the very apex of the MLP's power structure: not for him this peculiar notion of placing hands on hearts and bowing out, acknowledging that responsibility has to be taken.

It being a few months since the results of Mr Micallef's political ineptness were made public at the Counting Hall, it would have been the case for me to pause a while before choosing to re-visit this happy/sad subject (happy from the PN point of view, sad from the one that wanted the MLP to win). I don't mind annoying the elfin-like, but it gets a bit tedious having elf after elf after elf pontificating on why I should shut up about the MLP's internal problems, it's none of my business.

But you see, chaps, it is my business. A country without a decent opposition, as this one has been for so many years, gets itself a government that gets a bit smug and, so help me, few can get as smug so comprehensively and so quickly as many Nationalists - just a few short months after they scraped in by the shortest of short hairs on their collective chinny-chin-chin, many of them are at it again.

Thank heavens for those particularly peculiar bus and taxi drivers, propelling one of the few non-complacent ministers to the fore, reminding us that there are some people who get things done.

And then there's the fact that we, the commenting classes, get choice morsels flung around with jolly abandon (can't say gay anymore, lest the elves think I'm casting aspersions - not that calling someone gay is particularly insulting but you know what I mean).

How can I ignore, pray tell, a comment by one of Labour's grey eminences, Leo Brincat, when he writes that there are many who, in their urge to satisfy their own political exigencies, are doing their best to make (Labour) forget their self-inflicted defeat?

Think about this statement: it implies that the current manifestation of Labour is part of a strategy to make Labour's rank and file forget the recent past, and presumably forgive those responsible for it.

What does this say about Joseph Muscat's political nous, I have to ask, with my tongue only slightly ensconced? For all his "dawn of a new era" hype, for all the enthusiasm that - somewhat strangely - seems to have kept the MLP in election mode, ignoring the fact that the next real election is five years away, for all the patina of freshness and straight-out-of-the-wrapper sparkle, according to Mr Brincat, this might all be part of the "make the rank and file forget" strategy adopted by those (Mr Brincat is politically correct and uses the plural, avoiding the singular) who made strategic, tactical and administrative mistakes that were big enough to render their position untenable.

Mr Brincat is raising a red flag of enormous proportions here, primarily being waved at the MLP's internal electorate, but one which has implications for all of us, especially those who have been seduced by the "new way of doing business".

According to Mr Brincat, change might not be as inevitable as one might think (although he wants it really, really badly if the depth of his feelings are anything to go by) and if this is the case, then what price a fresh new political climate when the actual heat of the summer dissipates?

The national conference's choice of the two lesser sides of the current troika already gave an indication, to those who want to read the runes, that real changes in attitude are hard to drive through: if Jason Micallef gets back in (not putting too fine a point on Mr Brincat's words) that will put the cherry onto a cake that might prove to have a very familiar taste after all, notwithstanding the introduction of the flavour known as Muscat.

On taste

Very briefly, lest it is chopped, a public service announcement: dinner at Il-Kartell in Marsalforn remains a very good experience. We went there last week and it's a fascinating place for people watching with good food and service. At the other end of Gozo, the Seaview in Mġarr (first on the left) is good too, especially if you're on the terrace.

It being that time of the year, you need to book at both places.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs