I have resolved to eschew the temptation to make hay out of the thuggishness exhibited by Joe Grima, minister under the late Dom Mintoff, even though there are haystacks of the stuff to be made. I mean, for Pete’s sake, he actually thinks he deserves a medal for “showing the extent to which Labourites will go to defend the memory of Mintoff” (or words to that effect, don’t hold me to the exact quote).

Actually, for audiences in Malta, there’s no need for anyone to report the lengths to which these types go: their own words, on Facebook and in direct e-mails and in comments to this and other online publications, betray them for the intolerant and brutal bunch that they are. I needn’t go on about this – you can sniff the stink that the usual subjects exude by checking out my blog.

Let’s consider more important subjects than the memory of Mintoff, then. After, all we’ve had a week and more of fawning adulation and distortion of history, which is more than ample for anyone with half a brain. So, we’ve had that billboard ‘Labour won’t work’ up for a few weeks now, and Labour’s response has been up for virtually the same time, leading some to acknowledge that their speed was quite impressive. I can’t help wondering how quickly the PN would have got back at them with the boot on the other foot.

Am I the only one, though, who has worked out that Labour’s response is, all in all, exactly typical of them? Let me explain why, if you’ll forgive me, a small barbarism.

The PN billboard makes a very fundamental point, namely that Labour won’t be fit for purpose if elected, bolstering it with the unemployment angle.

It’s pretty clear that the pithy slogan irked Labour quite deeply, from the speed and range of the response, but all over again, the response was another demonstration of how Labour are run by a bunch of youths or wannabe youths whose level of communication is restricted to sound bite, Facebook status and silly cracks.

So, when the PN says ‘Labour won’t work’ and invokes the spectre of a dole queue, Labour comes back with a whine about waiting for a bus, reminding us that a) they remain prone to jumping what’s ’is name’s bandwagon and b) that they think that bus timetables are issues on which elections are decided, quite apart from the fact that they think the electorate is pretty darned stupid to be unable to appreciate that the new system is light-years better than the old one, for all that it needs tweaking and then some.

Another swift riposte from Labour’s communications strategists referred to the length of time we’ve been waiting for a tax-cut. Along with anyone who earns an honest buck, I’d love to hand less over to the Revenue but do Labour think we’re really so moronic that we don’t get that the world has changed since the tax-cut proposal was made? Come on guys, seriously?

Reference was made in another billboard to Smart City and the non-appearance of the jobs promised – leaving aside the nasty taste this leaves in the mouths of people who don’t think gloating negativity is decent politics, there aren’t exactly thousands of people out of work who would qualify for the sort of jobs that would have been available, so what’s the problem? And since when is it the government’s fault that private investors sometimes don’t step up to the mark?

With their usual flair for opportunism, Labour went for two other areas about which people whinge and whine with gusto all the time: the service at Mater Dei Hospital and the length of time it takes the Planning Authority to issue a permit.

Insofar as concerns the first, if I were a Labour strategist I’d be very wary indeed about using the health service as any sort of platform. Labour’s record in this area is – not to put much of a fine point on it – abysmal and anyone who has made use of Mater Dei knows that the service is pretty good and then some, with quite a chunk of the waiting time being caused by those whose sense of entitlement to anything and everything for free clogs up every system, not only the hospital’s.

About Mepa, what can I say? Could do much, much, better, but it’s still way better than the jungle that we had when Labour’s lads about town had their hands on the cash-till.

And then we’ve got an attempt at humour, Lord luv us, with the ‘copy and past’ (‘e’ dropped to make the funny) billboard. I yield to no man in my love for puerile jokes and whimsy, but there is a limit to which even my low standards won’t allow me to descend, and this one hit it.

Indeed, Labour, on the evidence of this and much more, won’t work.

imbocca@gmail.com http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20