We have now been governed by Joseph Muscat’s particular type of Labour for the past 18 months and perhaps it is time to take a step back and make a calm and objective analysis of his performance over this period, particularly in relation to the glib campaign that put him there in the first place.
His fanning of the flames of public fear and misperceptions to achieve cheap political mileage is tragi-comical.
Just a few days ago, the Prime Minister called a press conference full of pomp and drama, adopting his best strongman impersonation yet. The government had sent out a patrol boat to escort a ship out of Maltese waters. The reason was that, on board, there was a sailor who was sick. According to our Prime Minister-cum-Maltese-superhero, this poor Filipino sailor was showing symptoms resembling those of Ebola.
Irrespective of the fact that this sailor was not and never had suffered from Ebola, can Muscat’s action, by any stretch of the imagination, be called “ethical and moral”, as he called his own decision? In doing so, the Prime Minister sent a message that Malta was not well equipped to deal with such a situation. What do the health authorities, in particular our ‘phenomenal’ Health Minister, have to say about this?
In the case of a return to Malta, from an afflicted country, of a Maltese citizen infected with Ebola, would our medical personnel refuse to treat him or her and ask for them to be escorted out?
Hippocrates would turn over in his grave were it to be so, which I am convinced it is not because I’m sure it was a panic decision taken by an immature politician solely on the basis of public perception. I personally do not share the lack of confidence in our doctors and healthcare professionals so blatantly shown by the Prime Minister.
Another bird coming home to roost – albeit not the proverbial chicken in this case – is the hunting issue. In a nutshell, prior to the election, Muscat sent out the message that he would allow hunters everything, reinforcing this idea in his first 18 months as Prime Minister. He actually went as far as to have the police prosecute birdwatchers and lovers. Should we then be surprised that a certain segment of hunters started to believe that they were allowed to shoot anything with feathers, anytime, anywhere?
Feigning surprise that protected species are being killed when you all but encouraged it is the height of cynicism
Being faced with the consequences of his wrong decisions, namely pictures of dead beautiful birds, he panicked and applied a collective sanction days before Karmenu Vella is expected to face the European Parliament’s grilling over the environment, with probable focus on bird shooting in Malta.
The PN in government had long pushed for legally-acceptable hunting. We went to the European Court of Justice and won the right to have a legal, limited and regulated spring hunting season.
Enforcement was and is needed but a laissez-faire attitude towards hunting can only result in the loss of the fragile balance that had been achieved between environmental considerations and the arguments of Maltese hunters. Feigning surprise that protected species are being killed when you all but encouraged it is the height of cynicism.
The hunting debacle coincided with the government’s celebrations of the 50th anniversary of our independence, much touted as a celebration of our unity as one people, a sign of the times, of unity, of Muscat’s dream to bring our nation together as one. And, yet, in his speech for the occasion there was no mention of George Borg Olivier, the universally-accepted architect of independence 50 years ago, while he awarded an Independence Day medal to himself and, posthumously, to Dom Mintoff, the leader of the campaign against independence in the early 1960s.
Lawrence Gonzi and the former presidents were not invited to the VVIP section where the celebrations were being held, being considered less favoured to be in the company of princes than Glen Bedingfield. When these bizarre decisions went public, Labour had the gall to try to shift the blame onto Buckingham Palace. Typical Muscat doublespeak.
It is, as all else, just smoke and mirrors. Anybody who accepts the fairytale that, for ‘security reasons’, Buckingham Palace chose Bedingfield over Gonzi, Eddie Fenech Adami and George Abela probably also believes that ‘Father Christmas is real and lives in the North Pole and don’t you dare be negative by saying otherwise’.
If this had not actually happened, it would have been very difficult to make it up.
Roberta Metsola is a Nationalist MEP.