As the Middle East starts to smoulder – more precisely, burn, if Tunisia is anything to go by – we concern ourselves in this country with prosecuting a young woman for getting her bits out, with arguing about divorce and with whether or not the Labour Party knew about the pay hike, since reversed, the ministers were getting.

This says something about our priorities but we shouldn’t be too despondent because while I’m writing this Sky News is having paroxysms of sanctimony about some inane remark or other which some sports broadcaster made about a female referee’s assistant and other such politically correct remarks. The remarks weren’t made on air but this is not relevant, it seems.

Now I’m as partial as the next bloke to having a bit of an ogle if someone decided to let me have an eyeful: it would be hypocritical, not to say completely unbelievable, of me to try to convince you otherwise.

This having been said, I’m not entirely sure the women who perform in these gentlemen’s clubs (the word “gentlemen” being used somewhat loosely, of course) are not being abused in some way or other. I’m not saying the whole thing smacks of white slavery or anything as drastic as that but it doesn’t take a really astounding leap of intellect to come to the conclusion these women are doing what they do because it’s one of the few ways they know to improve their lot.

So the gentlemen (that word again) who trot along to these clubs to get an eyeful, apparently sometimes quite literally, would do well to remember these girls aren’t strutting their stuff because they’re so eager to please the high rollers the patrons imagine themselves to be. Fat chance they will remember this, of course, since I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them are quite regular travellers to places like Thailand for reasons not a million miles from sex tourism.

Or would be if they could afford it.

But is this residual distastefulness with the activity any reason for the heavy hand of the law to descend on the girls themselves? With due respect, m’Lud, I doubt it.

And on it trundles. The argument about divorce, I mean. Is it perhaps possible we might come to an agreement the debate is not about whether divorce is morally acceptable or not but simply about whether to allow people whose conscience allows them to resort to it to have a proper legal structure with which to regulate their affairs?

There is as much chance of this happening as of Joseph Muscat accepting the Labour Party actually knew about the ministerial and MPs’ pay hike.

The problem with the divorce debate, at the root of it, is that the country’s agenda in matters like this is informed not by a dispassionate assessment of the realities but – in many cases – by the perception of the politicians of the degree of harm even seeming to agree with something with which the Church does not. I should emphasise I do not include Austin Gatt in this (somewhat sweeping) characterisation but, as for many of the others, I am morally convinced they will take a position with an eye and a half to what this will mean to their re-electability.

The fact so many politicians are rushing, lemming-like, to embrace the idea of a referendum with such eagerness is evidence of this, to my mind. By abdicating their responsibility to legislate and leaving individuals to the mercy of the many-headed. Not to mention the hard-line stances adopted in places like Żebbuġ or the Gozo Curia.

Are you getting the feeling Labour’s left doesn’t know what the right is doing? Hands I mean, because perish the thought there is a right-wing to the Labour Party, that paragon among protecters of the worker.

I ask because after pandering to the baser envious instinct that plagues many men and women by coming over all shocked about the ministers’ pay rises in these times of recession (they should try living through a real recession − we’ve been lucky so far) they’ve over-egged the pudding by trying to convince us the rises were snuck in clandestinely.

They should have left well enough alone because it’s now becoming increasingly clear quite a few Labour “big beasts” knew full well what was happening − whether Dr Muscat himself knew or can be deemed to have known is not completely clear. I prefer to think the Leader of the Opposition would not seek to mislead the people consciously, so he either knew and genuinely forgot or else he didn’t know, which means his people have left him a bit out on a limb on this one.

It’s always nice to welcome a new kid on the block and, in this spirit, I commend to your attention Ġużè’s on the corner of St John’s and Old Bakery streets, in Valletta. We had lunch there a couple of days ago and it was rather tasty, with service to match. They’re the same guys who run the eponymous outfit in Ta’ Xbiex, which is a good enough recommendation in itself.

imbocca@gmail.com

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