Circles of my mind

Mario Vella is one of Labour's thinkers, an eminence grise if ever there was one, as the picture sitting next to his column demonstrates.

You know the sort of picture I mean, even if you can't recall this particular one to mind immediately: the earnest, socially-committed, frown, the full beard, for all the world as if Fidel had been taken as the inspiration for the "look intellectual".

Generally speaking, Dr Vella's writings would normally be considered as being on the weighty side of the balance, certainly more so than the type of thing you're perusing now, as you spread quasi-creamy ersatz butter on your extra light bran cracker, before drizzling some skimmed milk-imitating liquid onto your Special-K, all in a futile quest to achieve curves where there should be curves. As opposed to bulges where there should be curves.

But last week's effort by the brainy one sort of gave the lie to this received wisdom, the received wisdom being that Dr Vella's writing tends to be of some gravitas.

He wrote that the electorate is minded, pretty much, to be giving this young politician "who is running rings around Gonzi" a chance. He is, of course, referring to Joseph Muscat, leader of the Republic's Loyal Opposition, whose youth is only relative but certainly more real than mine, Dr Vella's or Dr Lawrence Gonzi's.

In writing that, Dr Muscat is a young(er) politician, then, Dr Vella can't be gainsaid but where does he get this idea that he (Muscat) is running rings around Dr Gonzi? Precisely in which competition has this running taken place, pray tell? Has there been an election that I hadn't noticed whoosh past? A real one, I mean, not the ones that Labour use to console themselves in the light of their successive defeats.

I'm not saying that Labour wouldn't whup the Nationalists' collective behinds if a poll were to be taken now, but that's nothing but a supposition at this time and, even so, there's years to go before it's tested.

The thing is, to say that Dr Muscat is running rings around Dr Gonzi is nothing but a bit of puffery and hero-worship that does not do an intellect like Dr Vella's any favours.

Let's recap, shall we? Dr Muscat's performance in the Budget debates was not precisely scintillating, now was it, except in the eyes of those for whom anything Labour is the acme of perfection.

And then there's this nifty idea of re-engineering the Labour Party into a movement for progressive moderates. Or is it for moderate progressives, I forget? Whichever it is, the word oxymoron springs to mind because how can you be a progressive moderate (or a moderate progressive, for that matter)?

It's like fighting for peace or praying for atheism, not to mention stripping for censorship.

Dr Muscat can't claim to be at the forefront of progressive ideas, though, to be fair, he's been a bit better than the PN side at supporting more liberal trends, such as being unamused at the regression of the country into hidebound conservatism. The snag is, so eager are Labour to ensure that they don't annoy anyone that they'll be slapping caveats on everything they say and diluting their message even more than it is already.

And there, to be honest, is the rub: in his falling-over-himself eagerness to be all things to all men, hoping that, in due course, he will run rings around Dr Gonzi, Dr Muscat will take any position that will earn him brownie points.

He'll cosy up to the conservationist hunters (what is it with these weird movements, oxymorons all over the place) because thereat lie a few votes. But no sooner has that cosying ceased than we'll see the rambling environmentalists being wooed, in between paeans of praise for mom, apple pie and gay rights.

It's the game Dr Muscat is in, of course, and only a mealy-mouthed hypocrite would point fingers at him.

In the same vein, it is not surprising that Labour will be supporting the protest being put on by the GWU and those other unions (no longer unjins taċ-ċekkċik [tin-pot little unions, in loose translation] incidentally) because it's sure to be a nod-of-approval winner.

I mean, who wants to pay more for electricity?

But simply jumping up and down and screeching, without putting forward alternative ideas, for all that it will make for snappy pictures and cool sound-bites, won't constitute "running rings around Dr Gonzi", for all Dr Vella's hagiographising, in a month of Sundays.

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