Flogging a dead horse

It may well be that Labour’s strategy group has cottoned on to the idea that all Labour has to do to win the next election is to turn up.

… (Joseph) Muscat and his merry men have to carry on beating their third nag to death…- I.M. Beck

That is to say, they should say nothing, do nothing, just smile sweetly, crack a few funnies and generally let the Nationalist Party implode under the weight of 25 or whatever it is years of turning the country from a Socialist quagmire into a European state.

It might actually turn out to be a winning strategy because life isn’t fair.

True, the PN in government has many faults but the alternative is – heaven help us – Joseph Muscat and his 51 pies in the sky.

Will this persuade the punters to go PN again? It should but see above: life and fairness don’t go together, which means that the PN has a mountain and a half to climb.

The thing is, can you see any group of politicians keeping quiet, letting the other side do their work for them?

No. And Labour in particular will have a tough time keeping quiet because they really do seem to like the sound of their own voice, actual or virtual.

You only have to look at the Facebook stati (plural of status, just to be pedantic) of the Labour glitterati, the young guns who think they’re down with the yoofs, innit? Get past the smarmy smugness and you get the message: look at me, I’m here, I’m cool, I’m anti-PN.

Sadly for the lads, keeping quiet has just stopped being an option, even if they were able to take it, which they patently are not.

This is because the PN has taken the wind from their sails with something of a vengeance.

After the silly spasm caused by the divorce debate, they’ve opened the windows a crack and smelt the liberal roses, so that’s a plank that Labour thought was going to be part of their platform gone.

Labour’s jibe about the PN being a closed shop has also become just so much hot air: the PN’s new policies take on board good ideas coming from all over the place, such as from Franco Debono, who the Lil’Elves thought was their saviour but who served instead to prove that the PN is inclusive and that it listens.

As I write this, the Prime Minister is shooting Dr Muscat down in flames in the House, though you wouldn’t think so on the evidence of his little smiles.

Citizen John’s utility bills solution has just hit the deck, smouldering sweetly, as have a number of other cracks made by Dr Muscat, such as the projects he said he would be undertaking but which have actually already been done or are in the process of being finalised.

That’s to say nothing of his prestidigitation in saying things when the facts don’t support him.

So with one war horse mortally wounded and his other one (public transport) happily turning itself into a workhorse, Dr Muscat and his merry men have to carry on beating their third nag to death, the ruddy €500 embarrassment with which the government lumbered itself.

This is a nice little pony for Dr Muscat to play tricks with because it appeals to the envy inherent in the make-up of the people who tend to follow him.

The way ministers were made eligible for their parliamentary honorarium did leave much to be desired, that is a given, but all that really happened was that they are now being treated in exactly the same way all other members in the House who get a salary from the public purse are treated.

Take, for instance, a backbencher who in his real life works for a public authority. He gets a decent salary from the authority, paid out by you and me, and that’s as it should be.

He also gets an honorarium for being an MP, which is also as it should be, and also paid out by you and me.

If, perchance, this MP also happens to sit on the board of a public authority, a not-unheard-of phenomenon, he also receives compensation for this, again paid out by you and me, and again perfectly in order and as it should be.

Our “for instance” backbencher, on a round-numbers basis, gets something in the order of €4,000 every pay period (four weeks, in a year it’s about 52 grand and, remember, it’s in round numbers), which, I am sure, he would think represents good value.

The Leader of the Opposition surely thinks so because he didn’t raise a peep about it.

On t’other hand, the same treatment meted out to ministers met with howls of “shock horror” from the Lil’Elves because it suited them and from others because of the way it was laid for them to gorge themselves. Oh well, they’ve only got themselves to blame for not presenting it to us properly in the first place.

On a lighter front, if you’re in Gozo towards the end of the week, stop by Mo’s in front of Arcadia for tapas of an evening. Be circumspect in your ordering because the portions are generous to a fault and it’s well worth trying everything.

imbocca@gmail.com

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