To spin or not to spin?

I knew it would happen and it did. I wrote innocently about a guy I christened Pedro and his escape from Barcelona's doldrums and unemployment to a restaurant in Malta.

Bang—I was shot and reviled as an outrageous spinner for GonziPN.

Can I get a real break from the world? Can I opt out? I mean I know Gonzi and his merry men harp on endlessly about employment—but should they damn our state of affairs and say hey we are in employment crisis? Should he scream out that we are worse than Barcelona or Athens in the unemployment figures? But just because I blog about a story that should make any Maltese man, woman or dog proud—be he green, red, blue or rainbowed—that does not make me revoltingly blue or an underground, underhanded agent from hell or GonziPN.

Chances are that Joseph Muscat and his motley crew will manage to kick out the GonziDemon by winning the general election in the nearest future. This victory will be quite moving for a number of people both in the PL movement and especially for the PN. The Joseph followers will be moved to tears of joy while all the ministers and a number of chairmen and other perked people will be moving despondently out of their cosy nests to make way for fresher, redder folk.

Now if this scenario does come to pass with a Joseph Muscat victory at the polls won't he, and the rest of his musketeers, go in search of Pedro and give him a few bear hugs and red roses in homage to his words and feelings? Isn't it better for all of Malta that we have Pedro here and finding work—as opposed to many of us not finding work and having to rush off to some foreign land? Is this latter statement politically biased and diehard blue?

This is not politics we are talking about—it's about facts, facts and more unadulterated facts. And these facts—that Malta has weathered the storm of unemployment well—are hardly political footballs to be mishandled by all. Whether Joseph Muscat or Michael Briguglio or Franco Debono is in power I will still sing the praises of this tiny piece of rock, which in past years hardly had jobs for some of us, let alone for all of us. And now we even manage to employ a few extra Spaniards.

That Malta has been faced with grave problems and is still in grave danger of having untold damage done to it is a known fact—but we cannot look at all news and stories as politically tinged spin. If we do that we will all end up getting singed.