One of the Budget measures that seems to have irked the Labour Party’s current leader, Joseph Muscat, very much is the increase in income that has been provided for, which has had the result, apparently, that a couple of thousand minimum wage earners are now obliged to pay some income tax, because they have moved up into the band of income that requires them to give something back.

Let’s make no mistake about it, this was a pretty ridiculous move on the part of the Government, when you think about it, because the – what? Eighteen grand? – that will be recouped is hardly a flea-bite on the back-side of the most infinitesimally small rat that infests the corpse of the largest and most decrepit political dinosaur that ever roamed the Earth, but arithmetic, which is what caused this incidence of tax, is inexorable.   It’s also pretty ridiculous that someone who earns minimum wage should actually pay tax, and it behooves the tax-man to wave his little finger and change the relevant regulations immediately if not sooner.

But this mild stupidity really doesn’t justify the meal Labour are making of it, for Heaven’s sake, and certainly not having a bill-board about it.  

Well, it wouldn’t, in a normal environment, but the thing is, you see, Labour are getting more and more desperate, what with that rather excellent Budget (which the twerp Debono seems hell-bent on scuppering) and Simon Busuttil’s election, to hoover up every vote they can see, and true to form, they relapse into the politics of envy and avariciousness, trying to appeal to the sort of mentality that sees paying tax, indeed paying for anything, as an unconscionable imposition by the State.  Don’t tell me I’m not right on this: consider this particular moronic comment I spotted somewhere, where the idiot making the comment was whining about how he’s got a major problem, because he’s got his cable-tv bill to pay along with all his other bills.

Read my lips, stupid: you have cable-tv because you choose to have it, and it’s not the Government who is making you have it or who is raking in the dosh because you do.  Likewise ciggies, your mobile phone, your fuel (take a bus, Joe) and every other non-essential item you think you can’t live without.

You have to admit it, the PN’s new bill-board is pretty apt.