Roamer’s column

We know this; we all agreed to the assertion when voters were askedto follow their conscience atreferendum time.

It remains sovereign for Members of Parliament now that the issue of the introduction of divorce goes before Parliament; so much so that before the referendum was held, Labour leader Joseph Muscat conceded the point that his MPs would be given a free vote in the House. A free vote must mean, by definition, taking conscience into account or it means nothing.

Those who cry vox populi, vox Dei in this instance, are mixing apples with swordfish and must answer the query whether vox populi Russorum Sovieticorum and ditto Germanicorum during Hitler’s and Stalin’s times were truly and unambiguously vox Dei? The latter, in a political context, is impossible to define.

There should be no tension between democracy and conscience for the simple reason that democracy itself defends the supremacy of conscience – for those who believe in it and in the supremacy of conscience.

Parliaments and parliamentarians...

...and congressmen; like Anthony Weiner (D) (annual salary $174,000) who twittered his semi-nude body, denied, confessed, defiantly said he would not resign and resigned two or three weeks later; Weiner was being touted as the next mayor of New York. Sic transit transient pleasures; well, not quite. Weiner, I understand, still stands to collect benefits of up to $1.2 million.

Nor should we ignore the perks shambles that shamed theWestminster parliament last year; perks being an euphemism for huge allowances allocated to some British MPs.

These monies were supposed to be used for legit expenses; in one case they were employed by a minister to satiate her husband’s purchase of pornographic videos.

One lady MP, to take another, put her tampon requirements against her allowance; and others were so massively fraudulent they gained the fraudsters involved hospitality inone of Her Majesty’s recreational quarters.

Then we have Prada-heeledEuropean parliamentarians who receive a €19,000 monthly parliamentary assistance allowance (€228,000 a year, no less; or, between them, a total of €136million, just over 10 per cent of the EP’s budget). Green with envy? Understandable.

Writing from Brussels, Ivan Camilleri recently informed The Times readers that a sample of 167 payments revealed cases where MEPs were claiming €200,000 in staff allowances and awarding themselves bonuses of up to 1.5 times their salary; or diverting public money into front companies.

And for icing, some MEPs were asking ‘cash-for-amendments’ – or spondulicks for introducing amendments to EU legislation if a company or corporation or whatever institution scratched the MEP’s well-wealed back sufficiently enough.

Same day, same reporter informed same readers that Brussels was launching measures to monitor and fight corruption in the 27member states.

Fair enough; and no doubt necessary, but motes and beams first. It would be nice if Brussels looked seriously at the weeds in its front and back gardens and cut back on such enormous expenditure of running two EP locations, Brussels and Strasbourg. The savings – I’m talking scores upon scores of millions of euros – would eliminate a jarring anomaly.

In the above context the current controversy over ministerial salaries and honoraria pales into peanuts; all the same, it could have, and should have been, avoided and the sooner a line is drawn under it the better. The opposition will try to see to it that no such line is drawn.

Nobody can deny that ministers and parliamentary secretaries are underpaid – their combined annual salary amounts to, at most, the combined annual parliamentary assistance allowances of 10 MEPs. This could justify Cabinet’s decision to increase its pay but why do this in such a silly manner?

Linking Gozo –hope not!

One of the charms of Gozo has to do with getting there by boat or sea-plane, experiencing a sense of travelling, leaving one island for another, going abroad. Why forfeit this?

For forfeit it we will if we decide to go along with viability studies being set up to test the waters, so to speak, to see whether it is feasible to dig a large hole in the vicinity of Ċirkewwa and another at Mġarr connecting the two by an underwater passage, a chunnel with all that that entails.

One of the ‘thats’ involved is the sheer expense; that it will be funded in great part by EU money, which seems to grow on trees and the fruit therefrom shaken to pass on billions of euros to defaulting economies, those of Spain and Greece and Ireland, makes no difference to the loss one will feel at beavering below the sea instead of boating above it.

Another ‘that’ has to do with the loss experienced by approaching Gozo like under, underwater rats and missing out on the aesthetics provided by the profile of an island that has so charmed travellers, local and foreign.

And if you want another ‘that’, try the idea of approaching a destination without ever catching sight of it before arriving there?

At a presentation that had as its theme Linking Gozo: The next big step, a high-powered Norwegian professor addressed anybody who mattered in Gozo on the feasibility of such a connection, the time it would take to complete the project – five to 10 years, but no doubt more than that – the cost of €13,000 per metre, and a number of other factors that would have to be taken into consideration. Like the future of Gozo ferries.

The audience asked intelligent questions about self-preservation, that greatest of all human instincts, emergency exits and, displaying foresight in an age when anything can happen and does happen, the odd passing sea- and earth- quake. Apparently, we need entertain no fear on either point. As if.

The BBC and other animals

At least, and if I may be allowed an irenic comment, “Peter” died with a good taste in his mouth; a piece of praline chocolate, no less. “Peter” was 71 and a millionaire hotelier when he took a lethal dose of barbiturates wrapped in chocolate, provided by the Swiss suicide provider, Dignitas.

The BBC put on a ghoulish one-hour documentary for viewers to witness his suicide on their television screens, choke by choke, asking for water which was not given him, and his wife holding his hand as he left the land of the living, assisted by Dignitas.

Assisted suicide in Britain is illegal. This was Peter Smedley’s way of protesting against that reasonable illegality; helping him along was a Sir Terry Pratchett, who defended the BBC. He has a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease – hardly, one would have thought, the best condition in which a person may properlypresent such a controversialprogramme.

Still, there he was and there, too, was the BBC, which failed to provide any justification for what Bishop Nazir-Ali called “the moral implications of crossing this Rubicon” and which, as a public service broadcaster had “an obligation to provide a balanced presentation of the moral issues of the day, especially when legality is also at stake”.

And only last week there was an admission by the corporation that “faked footage” was used in a Panorama programme, two years ago. Bring on the sans cullotes!...

...while I bring up, in a manner of speaking, Pippa Middleton. Close friends will tell you that on the day her sister was wed to Queen Elizabeth’s grandson – to become Duchess of Cambridge and Britain’s future queen – I failed to gush over the Duchess to the same extent as the rest of the world and, instead, rooted for Pippa: slim, elegant, composed, well-dressed, beautiful. Naah! I was told, Kate’s the thing. Maybe; but Pippa, I note, is doing quite a bit of running and is being followed by the British press – even selected as prime contender for the prettiest bottom award; and here is another late endorsement.

Pippa seems not to be immune to the lure of wealth and titles; which is why, if reports are correct, she has taken up with the Duke of Northumberland, again, dumping an ex-England cricketer for the 14th Duke in that title, a castle owner as one would expect of what Americans call a Dook, and sitting on a family fortune of more than £300 million. Atta Pips...

...and for my third animal and a boomerang, Sarah Palin, who will one day endorse, or not,the Republican candidaterunning for President 16, 17 months from now; or, unlikely but possible, which is after all theart of politics, claiming thatcandidacy for herself.

Well, the story here is that nine days ago something like 30,000e-mails detailing Palin’s time as governor of Alaska were released, at the request of media outlets, for journalists and news organisation to scour, scrutinise, in the hope of discovering who the real Sarah Palin was/is.

The hope was that they would reveal all manner of indiscretions and foibles. The drip-drip-drip of salivation among liberal newspapers could be heard in newsrooms across the globe; and as a contributor to Spiked, as an ‘online phenomenon’ and a champion of liberalism, put it, the Observer and Guardian were in ‘pant-wetting’ mode.

Can you imagine the chagrin experienced by the liberal media when the documents they demanded with an evangelical fervour only liberals can muster, not only failed to rubbish the ex-governor, still less harm her.

She emerged unscathed as being “idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane” according to The Daily Telegraph, and with her reputation “considerably advanced”. Talk about boomerangs.