The news of Nick Clegg's reference to Malta appears to have tickled just about everybody's fancy on our (bitter) sweet isle. The Lib Dem leader and UK's new Deputy Prime Minister spoke in the late morning of Tuesday, May 19 at the City and Islington College Centre for Business, Arts and Technology, which venue is very helpfully described by Ann Treneman of The Times of London - who was there and was evidently not impressed - as "a sixth-form college just off Holloway Road in North London, which may be home to the most kebab shops in Britain".
Mr Clegg began his speech setting out the government's plans for political reform - focusing on what The Liberal Democrat Voice (an unofficial website run by a collective of Lib Dem bloggers) calls "three more Rs: repealing infringements on freedom, reforming politics and redistributing power" - at about 11.15 a.m. British summer time. He was late, again helpful Ms Treneman informs us, adding that this seems to be a habit with the man. "Clegg-time," she announces, "runs about 15 minutes behind BST."
Be that as it may, The Liberal Democrat Voice launched the full and unexpurgated speech online at 2.21 p.m. of the same day and by 5.34 (our time), industrious little Maltastar had already picked the reference to Malta and came out with the story. The parting shot: "Malta has been branded the most centralised country in Europe by the new Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, Nick Clegg." The morning after, this newspaper caught up and announced that "Nick Clegg, the UK's Liberal Democratic deputy Prime Minister, yesterday labelled Malta as the most centralised country in Europe."
The not-so-subtle difference between "branding" and "labelling" Malta as the most centralised country in Europe will not be lost on those familiar with our own political universe. That, however, is not the issue here. What did the Liberal Democrat member for Sheffield Hallam (with 27,324 votes, the choice of 53.4 per cent of electors from this largely rural constituency and term-time home to a considerable student population studying at Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam universities) actually say about Malta?
If you really want to get to the bottom of this, the best thing you can do is read the full text on The Liberal Democrat Voice. Go to libdemvoice.org and look for A Power Revolution: Nick Clegg's "New Politics" Speech. Malta is mentioned once in the text totalling 2,415 words. What does the Lib Dem leader (since 2007) say about our fair isle, meaning the Maltese islands, not the idyllic rock 25 miles south west of the southern tip of the Shetland mainland in Northern Scotland, home to one of Britain's best managed small communities and renowned for its successful application of principles of environmental sustainability?
The man - a former journalist and MEP - said: "Britain was once the cradle of modern democracy. We are now, on some measures, the most centralised country in Europe, bar Malta." To which Ms Treneman of The Times, again most constructively, retorts: "Bar Malta? Only a former MEP who is also a Lib Dem would care. I can hear the Libs now: 'My God, we can't be as centralised as Malta, let's have a power revolution.'"
Significantly, in the summary of the speech published by the Liberal Democrats' official website libdems.org.uk immediately after it was delivered, the reference to Malta is omitted. I very much doubt that the official site of the junior party in Britain's shining new coalition government censored its leader's first big speech as Deputy Prime Minister to avoid diplomatic trouble with Lawrence Gonzi's government. The more sober and realistic explanation is that the reference to Malta was not central to the message and could, therefore, be safely cut. Meanwhile, I would not worry, as one J. Martinelli commenting online on this paper seems to do, that this episode "doesn't bode well for future relations with Britain's coalition government". How provincial!
The key to understanding the reference to Malta lies in an article by Mr Clegg himself in The Independent the day after the speech, available online on www.independent.co.uk. He again refers to Malta in the context of his plea for a "radical devolution of fiscal powers" intended to reverse a situation where "up to 80 per cent of all local government funding comes from central government". Only Malta beats Britain on this score. We are fiscally more centralised because the power of taxation and of expenditure is as good as completely in the hands of central government. The Lib Dems want more fiscal power for local government.
Only fools would rush to thread on such dangerous terrain. In a country where - let's admit it - most are not at all comfortable with how central government is exercising its fiscal powers, the good sense of calling for a radical devolution of fiscal powers to local councils is not at all obvious. Mr Clegg's argument, however, is part of a broader concern with the centralisation of power generally and this is an issue that is very relevant to us. His concern with more open and accountable government should be the concern of all decent citizens in our country. Too much is invisible and unknown to the voter, to the taxpayer, to the consumer of public services.
Dr Vella blogs at watersbroken.wordpress.com.