TO THE BARRICADES

Come the 14^th, we’ll take to the streets, or something to that effect, seems to be the line that Labour are taking, ignoring the fact that they’re going to disappoint their supporters yet again.

Cast your minds back to the last time the motley bunch (just being playful, no insult meant) took to the streets, which if memory serves was also to protest about utility bills, when so many people thought that the Government would come crashing down around the PM’s ears because dissident back-benchers would feel their conscience pricking to such an extent that they would join the demo and neglect their duty to vote.

Or something on those lines, anyway.

Labour’s heralds are gearing up to summon the massed ranks of the discontented and annoyed to take to the streets to protest utility and fuel prices, yet again. Already, heroic shouts are being heard, with enthusiastic members of the blogosphere and the minor commentariat predicting a massive wave of popular support. There are those who are of the opinion, sometimes expressed with not a little vim and vigour that this should be a weekly event until the Government, dastardly exploiter of the working man that it is, sits up and takes notice.

Am I the only one who finds this all pretty bemusing?

It is a fact that fuel and utility prices, for all that Vincent Farrugia and his mates bellow to the contrary, are dictated by forces that are way, way outside the control of the Government. In truth, these forces are pretty much out of the control of anyone, and it’s not the Ministers’ or MPs wage-hike that has caused the price rises, although if you look at the sanctimoniousness with which some people are foregoing part of their salary, you’d think this was the only reason.

Just as an ironic aside, did you know that, from what I hear, the people who are oh-so-nobly not accepting their salary but instead transferring it to the Philip Sciberras Fund for Good Causes are going to have to pay tax on it anyway? Even more ironic, the Nationalist back-bencher who is going to donate his portion is not only going to have to pay tax, he’s also got the por-lifers, that tolerant and liberal bunch, on his case, which was probably not an intended consequence.

So we’re now going to have town cluttered up with a load of people carrying placards, probably with a very large banner up front carried by a phalanx of grinning politicians and union worthies, all protesting about energy and fuel prices, while the rest of us look on wondering precisely what it is that the Government is expected to do about it, apart from finding oil in the middle of Sliema Creek, which is about the only place Gaddafi won’t try to get his sticky fingers on it.

Truthfully, the Government could be doing a lot more a lot better in the economic sphere, as every Government everywhere could, I suppose, but this continual whinging and wailing is really getting a bit tedious. We’re weathering the storm and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and we’ve certainly got away with it better than many other European countries. I’m no economist (that’s a statement of the bleeding obvious and a half) but it’s pretty clear that if you look at things with an eye unclouded by the vapour that rises when you’re simply gasping for power, we’re not badly off. I mean, even the shop-keepers have said that Xmas sales weren’t too bad, which must be a first for many years.

Can you imagine, for instance, what people would be doing if they were without water for a couple of weeks (cfr. Northern Ireland) or drowning in the stuff (cfr. Northern Australia, and they’ve been whupped in the cricket too)? They’d be going around with a tumbrel, looking for the nearest Minister.

Instead, the real moaning and groaning is about how Living and Comedy Central and Jimmy have been taken off our screens, which is a pain in the butt, true, but the fact that it exercises the populace so much is evidence that fundamentally, there’s not really so much to be really worried about.

In other words, can we have less gloom and doom and stop trying to talk ourselves into a recession?