Is it just me, or has the country gone and done a Rip van Winkle, nodding off for four years and waking up in time for a General Election?

Both parties seem to have gone into “yah boo, sucks to you” mode, doing their damndest to get the electorate to vote for their candidates by turning the poll into a PN v Labour re-match. Precisely what they hope to achieve by doing this, I’m not too clear in my mind.

From a Labour perspective, I can just about figure out what they’re doing. By trying to convince the electorate, bless it, that this is all about voting for Labour against PN, when they (Labour) get a good result, which is pretty much a foregone conclusion, they will be able to exercise bragging rights and strut around for the next four years, saying that Gonzi’s PN no longer enjoys the country’s confidence or whatever.

Labour will no doubt be bolstered in this by a few decent Local Council results, it being traditional that Governments in office get a right good kicking at the lesser polls, especially when the economy is going to hell in a Prada handbag.

So it’s understandable that Labour are trying to turn this into a national thing.

What is not understandable, though, is how, when they have such a good field on which to play their games, some of their people can make a pig’s dinner of it.

It is to Mr Beddingfield, Glen of that ilk, to whom I refer. This political genius (I’ve no idea of his real IQ, it’s about his political acumen that I’m on) came up with the stupendously inane crack that democracy in Malta is in danger during the course of one of his pre-poll monologues.

I don’t know if he was speaking to the massed ranks of the Bubaqra Ladies Who Tombla or to an assembled bunch of caffeine-imbibers corralled by “The Friends of Glenn Bedingfield” (and yes, I have used Glen and Glenn interchangeably, I don’t know which is correct and I’m not really worried) or if, indeed, he was addressing an august body of men and women in Brussels or Strasbourg, which I suspect may be the case, but the point is, does this gentleman really think that making ludicrous statements like this is designed to attract voters to him?

Let’s analyse it.

Anyone who is not a natural Labour voter will probably think “oh hell, another loony statement by one of the Old Labour Guard, let’s move on” and not give the thought of perhaps voting for this bloke the time of day. An intelligent natural Labour voter will probably think “oh hell, another loony statement by one of the people who are doing everything to remind people of Labour’s inglorious past” and cross him off the list of probables.

An un-intelligent natural Labour voter will probably think “oh hell, there’s a great man, telling it like it is, let ‘em have it, Glenny-boy” and put him on the list of people to give it to. The problem with this, from our hero’s point of view, is that given that this is the un-intelligent Labour voter we’re talking about (of whom there are presumably as many as there are un-intelligent PN voters) the voter will probably forget and just vote for the names he recognises.

As to the effect Beddingfield’s ludicrous statement had on anyone who isn’t able or doesn’t intend to vote for him, well, it’s probably pretty similar to the effect you get if you stick your finger far enough down your throat.

Moving over onto the other side of the political fence, the PN campaign has attracted the ire of various commentators, being the commentators who, surprise surprise, weren’t exactly enamoured of the PN when we went to the polls in the General Election and who have been demonstrating their bitterness ever since, rather like Chelsea supporters after that display of honest and skilful refereeing by that paragon of gentlemanly virtues, the Norwegian ref.

The bill-board which most annoyed the various people who were annoyed was the one that put Dom Mintoff, KMB, Alfred Sant and Joseph Muscat at the bottom of the tree, with the Labour MEP candidates hanging from the branches like so many fruits.

If I were Muscat, I’d seriously consider a libel action: he’s not turned out to be the bee’s knees and the cat’s cream, true enough, but he’s certainly not as bad as the trio with whom he’s been lumped in by the Nasty Nats. I mean to say: Dom Mintoff, whose respect for democratic process was non pareil, KMB, his worth successor and Sant, who still says that Malta did not vote for joining the EU and still regrets rien.

What a bunch to be associated with, poor lad.

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