Hop on the red wagon

The Labour Party and its little helpers are still desperately trying to live down their shameful decapitation of former (hopefully not for very long) Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici.

For those of you who may have been living on the less sunny side of the moon for the last couple of months, Labour have been trying to hitch a ride on the Franco Debono Pony Express for some time now.

They jumped with gusto on the little red wagon that he was pulling when Minister Austin Gatt was the centre of his attentions, only to find the wheel coming off that.

Then there was a vote of confidence which they lost and so on and so forth, with their faces getting blacker and redder (at one point, they looked like Milan’s kit) as they stormed out of the House.

Pretty soon, they’re going to lose another one, that almost equally shaming motion they proposed in respect of Ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana, based, of all things, on their failure to understand plain English and on Wikileaks.

The fact that Mr Cachia Caruana has also been the subject of Dr Debono’s ire was, of course, entirely coincidental, a matter of happenstance and no evidence of Labour opportunism and shallowness at all.

Of course it wasn’t.

The only confidence vote Labour actually won was the one that saw the departure from the Cabinet of a gentleman of honour and integrity, who was caught in the line of fire simply because Dr Debono wanted his head and Labour, cravenly and without shame, thought it would be a good idea to give it to him.

And, then, they had the unmitigated gall to tell us it was nothing personal.

They promptly lost yet another vote in the House, it need hardly be said, and in the manner to which we have become accustomed, the little helpers pulled out all the stops and started trying to spin the public’s attention away from Labour’s shameful treatment of Dr Mifsud Bonnici.

The spin they’re putting on the story is pretty remarkable. According to these luminaries of political thought, whereas in the case of Dr Gatt, the Nationalists, those scheming, nefarious, power-hungry louts, had turned the thing into a confidence in the government issue, in the case of Dr Mifsud Bonnici, they had not.

Insofar as the facts go, they’re right, of course, but, seriously, is Labour’s opinion of our collective intelligence so low?

The answer to that particular question, put baldly, is yes, actually, because only a party that thinks that everyone is as dumb as its own dumbest supporter acts like Labour are acting at the moment, but that is hardly the issue. It was as clear as daylight, a commodity of which we have plenty now that summer is upon us, that while the Austin Gatt motion was not one which would have moved Dr Debono sufficiently to bring down the government, the Mifsud Bonnici one was a different kettle of herrings altogether.

So what did Labour expect, seriously, that the Prime Minister acts like a total twerp and hands them an election on a plate, taking the risk that the country would be placed in inept hands just at the moment? I mean, really, guys, do you think the country is that naïve?

Politics, someone once said, is the art of the possible and Labour seems to think that just because its leader wants to bound up the steps to Castille immediately if not sooner, everyone should bend over backwards to make this possible. I don’t think that’s what the guy who coined the “art of the possible” phrase meant, though.

Leaving these depressing thoughts aside, I intend to write to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue (I know that he’s called something else but old habits die hard) to inform him that I think that one per cent of my income is a much more reasonable level of tax to be paying and I want a refund, now, instantly, stretching back to when I started working, which is, Heaven help me, more than 30 years now.

I take my cue from the Fenech Adami chap – Michael of that ilk, if I recall correctly – who let it be known that he thinks he’s paying enough tax and that he wasn’t going to pay whatever amount it is that the Revenue, unscrupulous beasts that they are, were trying to extract from him with menaces.

And then they say that people don’t have a sense of humour in this country: look at the comments below this and my blogs and see if that’s true. After all, you either have to have a sense of the absurd that reaches cosmic proportions or be profoundly moronic to write some of them.

Last weekend, we went to a private party, so I can’t give you any new ideas of where to go for a decent meal but if you happen to be in Gozo and need to have a party catered, you’d do far worse than contact the people at Mojo’s. They took care of our nourishment while listening to the best band between Fontana and Xlendi and a pretty good job they did of it too.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20