LET'S PRETEND

In a couple of years, some of us will be asking themselves the question "are Labour fit to govern?" Some others will be asking themselves whether they are annoyed enough with the Nationalists to risk the governance of the country in the hands of Joseph Muscat and his mates. Yet others will be asking other questions, while a pretty large chunk will not ask any questions at all but scribble the numbers against the boxes where they've always done this.

It's the people asking the questions that will determine who will bound up the stairs to Castille come the day and all we can hope is that they ask themselves the right questions and give themselves the right answers.

At this point in the political calendar, it's pretty useless speculating on what the questions will be and whether the answers are going to be self-evident, but to get ourselves in the mood, we can have a small game of "let's pretend".

Truth be told, we needn't pretend too much, since Labour are in election mode and have been since their (new) hero got himself elected to their head-honchoship. Whether or not this is a particularly good idea is debatable, but that's a debate they can have for themselves, since far be it from me to interfere in the internal machinations of the Labour machine. For myself, their continual whinging and whining and tedious exertions to get people onto the streets to protest about the price of oil and the temperature of the sun (yes, I know, I'm being silly) is counter-productive, but hey, who am I to tell the Labour gurus how to do their job?

But to get back to the "let's pretend", let's pretend that tomorrow you're off to cast your vote and you need to make that choice. What are the issues that are exercising the citizenry at the moment and how are the parties handling them?

Leaving aside the absence of Comedy Channel and Living TV from the airwaves, that are problems for which not even Labour have managed to blame the Nationalists (much) what is worrying Stacy at the moment?

Apparently, if her interview on the Torca is to be taken at face-value, she's all hyped up about the fact that fuel for her car is going to cost more and she's going to have to pay to park it. Labour's ladies-who-whine and their consorts, the Lil'Elves, of course, describe these vicissitudes as prime examples of the way the heartless Nationalist government governs "against the people" as opposed to for them.

When you think about it, this mantra is ridiculous to the point of being incredibly stupid: do Labour's spinmeisters really think that anyone with half a brain in his or her head actually thinks that the Government is composed of a bevy of top-hatted plutocrats who are plotting the next eviction of a widow and her bairns on Xmas Eve?

I mean, honestly?

We also have the small matter of politicians' salaries about which to get ourselves all worked up. Frankly, it was about time that their salaries were brought into the real world, just as its high time that judges and magistrates and nurses and heck knows how many other people got a decent pay rise, and I, for one, am not prone to succumbing to the base instinct of envy that obsesses the inadequates to whom Labour is cravenly appealing in its campaign against the pay rise.

What worries me a tad about the whole thing on the Nationalist side is the apparently limitless depth of their failure to see the way Labour would capitalise on the issue. Is it really possible that the strategists that the party has (should have?) didn't see this one coming?

That said, the way their Labour counterparts have messed up their own party's tactics shows them up as even less capable to handle things, really. I mean, they've dragged the argument down to discussing whether the pay rise is €350.22 or €592.54 or whatever, having chucked so many variables and pettifogging details into the mix that my eyes glaze over at the mention of Ministers' salaries.

If it wasn't for the antics of the disgruntled PN back-benchers, who seem to need a shot of notoriety every few weeks to make up for what they (and no-one else) perceives as the injustices done to them, Labour would be in such a spin that they'd be disappearing down their own spin-dryer's plug-hole.

So, getting back to our "let's pretend", who is the fitter candidate to run the country, if we were to take to the polls tomorrow? On dispassionate evidence, leaving out the "maaa, these Nationalists, how arrogant they've become" syndrome afflicting the ladies-who-whine, I'd say the answer is pretty clear and it doesn't involve trusting out and out amateurs messing around with my country.