My wife, a German, got her first taste of Labour back in 1982. In Malta on an English language course, she fell in love… with a dress in a shop window in High Street, Sliema. For three weeks she saved as much as she could from her holiday money and, on the day before she was due to leave, she proudly went we buy the dress. She was devastated.
The police had closed down the shop the day before. The outlet had had the tenacity not to open on June 29, L-Imnarja. Wiped off the holiday calendar by Labour, the Nationalist Party had chosen that day to call a national strike to launch a civil disobedience campaign.
Many joined, many others were afraid and with reason, because what followed was a Labour ‘bloodbath’.
Public sector employees were suspended, dockyard workers beaten to a pulp and as for the shops, including that one with the pretty little dress, they got a stern warning: there could be technical issues with their licences, so they’d better be beware.The PN civil disobedience campaign was dead the day it started.
Then, Dom Mintoff, full of mercy and benevolence, pardoned all and everything returned to normal, what passes for normal under Labour, that is.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is showing the same brand of mercy as his predecessor over the tampered Enemalta smart meters but the differences are significant.
While Labour of old used the police to terrorise, Muscat today chooses to reach beyond the arm of the law and beyond his powers, to extend his mercy. And while Mintoff chose to forgive the innocent, Muscat forgives the criminal.
And we thought things couldn’t get any worse than in 1980s.
Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi’s presence at a press conference to announce an investigation into the alleged tampering of smart meters by a handful of Enemalta employees reflects Labour’s micro management of this country and its institutions.
He shouldn’t have been there, in fact, he and his Prime Minister shouldn’t have gotten involved in this at all. It was a matter for Enemalta to handle (it’s going to be partly privatised, to a Communist State, so it had better get used it to acting autonomously), and for the police to investigate, who should be equally autonomous. But that is not Labour’s thinking.
Labour in government is still thinking as though in Opposition. This is not about the €30 odd million worth of electricity stolen from Enemalta; this is about smearing the PN, as Labour unfolds its campaign strategy for the upcoming European Parliament elections.
The fusion of party and government has been completed in less than a year, Mintoff-style. Crime is being politicised for partisan ends and if anyone is in any doubt about this, Economy Minister Chris Cardona gave the game away when he said last week that more scandals were to emerge and that we should all stay tuned for more.
Crime by striptease – thank-you Cardona, but not everyone shares your tastes.
Our Home Affairs Minister, Manuel Mallia, seems to like the idea of politicising crime. Taking a break from dishing out promotions in the police force and the army, he turned up for a press conference on a Sunday with that clever Cardona to tell us of three men who allegedly stole a container full of fake cigarettes from the Freeport.
The press conference was held a few minutes before the court arraignment of the suspects, to ensure it was Mallia and Cardona who broke the news.
Again, they should never have been there because this is not a matter for the government but for the police.
Thankfully, Mallia did not turn up when the police paraded a Mosta man for shooting his dog as a psychopath who likes killing cats and tying them to crucifixes remains on the loose in that same Mosta.
Labour’s sidekick, the General Workers’ Union, appears to be warming up to the idea of politicising crime. Last week, it splashed a front-page story on its daily paper l-Orizzont to tell us that the man murdered recently in Żejtun was a Nationalist. Really, a Nationalist thug from Żejtun? Times must be changing.
With Labour being shamelessly populist as they come, wardens will come off worst
Cardona’s tantalising teaser of more scandals to come has so far turned out to be a damp squib.
The Environment Ministry told us in a dry statement that the police are investigating Fisheries Department officials over possible misappropriation of government funds. Maybe oblivious to the obvious pun, the ministry reiterated the government’s commitment to catching the “big fish” and urged everyone who knew of serious abuses (as against non-serious ones, we should assume) to come forward and speak out.
Non-serious abuse is being left to the likes of Transport Minister Joe Mizzi and Parliamentary Secretary José Herrera to handle and the approach here is totally different. They’re taking us back to stone age.
Their primary target are the local wardens, as, clearly, the government wants to have their wings clipped, to stop the complaints by an army of mobile users who want to make their phone calls in peace while driving.
Incredibly, for Valentine’s Day, local wardens were sent from Malta to Gozo to stop wardens there from freely dishing out tickets to traffic offenders and spoil their weekend romp. Now, the Transport Minister, ever conscious of the need for road safety, has said that anyone who exceeds the speed limit and gets caught on a speed camera will not get booked if they go beyond the limit by up to10 per cent.
This is normal in civilised countries up north but they tend to follow the rules there; they actually use indicators and obey stop signs. Here we still drive like Fred Flintstone. But Labour’s home visits must have brought out the public discontent with wardens by our undisciplined nation and, with Labour being as shamelessly populist as they come, wardens will come off worst.
As the date of the European Parliament elections approaches, we shall be hearing more of ‘serious corruption’ cases that hark back to the PN administration, when corruption was apparently so rampant that the government then introduced smart meters for Labour to catch out abusers.
One can bet one’s last buck that the best scandal is yet to come; a pure coincidence, of course, that it will coincide with the EP election.
We should not think that the police would choose to proceed against a Nationalist big fish when it suits Labour best.
With this scenario ahead, the PN has little choice except to condemn and dissociate itself from whoever it is.
And it should start with those 1,000-odd criminals who corrupted Enemalta officials and made off with millions of euros. Our merciful Prime Minister is about to win them over through his benevolence. The PN can well write them off.
Back when selling passports was all the rage and the government wanted to keep the names of our new citizens under wraps, PN leader Simon Busuttil had said he would publish the names of the new citizens if he got his hands on that list. He should promise to do the same with those 1,000 thieves.
People have a right to know who’s been stealing their money because we may be doing business with them. If Labour wants to make an issue of corruption, then the PN should show them how to do it properly, whatever the price. That’s what an alternative government would do if it wants to gain back public credibility.
As for those government officials who, over the years, may have been lining their pockets, all they have to do is keep their head low, hold on to their money and hope for the best until May.
Once the EP election is over, they’d be able to breathe easier because, clearly, this government is not really interested in fighting corruption but only into politicising crime to its own partisan benefit.
Our retail sector may even look forward to a slight boon in the wake of the election. Maybe they’d manage to sell that overpriced dress in the window, after all.