Everything gets so confusing under Labour. We all thought we had a woman president, but it appears we have a first lady too. Fascinating. The Department of Information has been releasing photos of the Prime Minister’s wife strutting around the Big Apple, meeting the US President and First Lady, the wife of UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon, and even one standing alongside the first lady of Iceland. But what exactly was she doing there and in what capacity?

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly. He’s spoken about everything under the sun, but most especially about the Libyan crisis and the migrants’ problem. That’s his job as Prime Minister, now that we’re stuck with him. But Michelle Muscat?

The DOI happily told us that the Prime Minister’s wife attended the fourth annual Fashion 4 Development (F4D) in New York.

The theme for this year’s event was ‘Giving back the new luxury’. The government’s propaganda department made it sound like it was some charity event. From the F4D website, it is difficult to work out what they’re up to. F4D somehow wants to combine fashion with sustainability and diplomacy, which sounds rather ambitious. Then you click on the ‘shop’ button, and begin to understand what the whole thing may be about.

The DOI said the event was for first ladies, diplomats and fashion influencers. Mrs Muscat is not a first lady and she’s not a diplomat, although you never know.

The Energy Minister’s wife is not one either and gets paid as one and more. Which leaves us with “fashion influencer”.

Earlier this year, the Malta Tourism Authority appointed Mrs Muscat’s business partner Michelle Buttigieg as its representative in New York. The MTA has not needed a NY representative for a decade and they suddenly need one now. But just because Muscat and Buttigieg used to sell jewellery together does not make the Prime Minister’s wife a fashion influencer. That’s until you visit the TVM news portal, another arm of the government propaganda machine; at TVM, they think she is.

TVM has a fascinating report about the pattern of the dress Mrs Muscat wore when she met Prince William, name-dropping the designers, of course. It also gives a description of the dress in “vintage orange” she wore at another ceremony with the British prince. Our State-owned television wants to make us believe she is a celebrity trendsetter.

Having no fashion sense myself, I would rather leave the assessment of Mrs Muscat’s fashion taste in the more able hands of the blogger-who-must-not-be-named, Daphne Caruana Galizia. Unfortunately, she’s on long break, to the relief of some and the disappointment of many. Mrs Muscat’s fashion followers may have to wait.

The fashion-setter image would explain why fashion shows were held under Mrs Muscat’s patronage at her husband’s office in Castille, his official residence in Girgenti and at Villa Francia, and why she found it necessary to send a gift to a real celebrity this time, Princess Kate.

The gift was a sparkling midnight minaudiere (whatever that is) handbag and decorated with tiny Swarovski (lost again there) crystals and a white Maltese cross. We’re all sure the princess was waiting with bated breath, in between her stomach upsets, for that handbag.

Earlier this year, the Prime Minister was asked by Malta Today what exactly was his wife’s role. The question was justified, considering how former prime ministers’ wives have kept a dignified low profile.

Muscat said he saw “Michelle’s role as something she is working very hard at”. She was not on a government salary, he insisted, and she took her role very seriously: “She meets with people, with NGOs, is very empathetic and very passionate about her work.”

Labour can be very vague and confusing, especially over job descriptions.

Muscat went on to assure that he and his wife did not model themselves on others or mimic anyone. This is how we are, he said. Talk about tough luck for the rest of us.

Labour and its supporters still look at power and government as a milking cow. Once there was the British Crown to milk, today they milk taxpayer money

Muscat said criticism did not bother him and his wife, as long as it was not personal or aimed at their children with cruel intent. That makes the next question easy to put because it is neither personal nor cruel: what exactly were the Prime Minister’s twin daughters doing with him in New York? School started last Thursday, and their desks were empty.

The voluntary worker prime minister’s wife, who only recently was chastising stay-at-home mums in that now infamous speech, had this to say about her children in an interview with The Sunday Circle last November:

“My life revolves around my kids; there’s school time, supper time and there are extracurricular activities that I need and want to take them to. I was invited to the CHOGM in Sri Lanka, but since the girls had a ballet show coming up and lots of rehearsals, I decided not to accompany my husband.”

That means that while ballet could beat Sri Lanka, school could not beat a trip to the Big Apple and later to San Francisco. In life, you need to get your priorities right, don’t you?

We have an education minister, who for months has been campaigning against school truancy. He looks likes he means it.

Evarist Bartolo has had some slip ups along the way, but that is bound to happen when you come up with ideas and actually set about implementing them. There’s a lot his colleagues could learn from him.

The Social Solidarity Minister upset Bartolo’s applecart when he said medical certificates would be compulsory whenever schoolchildren absent themselves from school. This drew the criticism of the Malta Union of Teachers who said this would lead to parents sending sick children to school to avoid the additional cost or hassle of procuring a medical certificate.

The parents of the classmates of the Muscat twins can keep their minds at rest, though. A nice San Francisco suntan is not contagious, and nor is jet lag.

Bartolo has been at pains to combat absenteeism in State schools. He said: “We will be embarking on a fact-finding operation to get the real picture of student truancy. We would like to know how many students are missing school, why and how often. Then we can start addressing the problem more effectively.”

He could bring the subject up at the next Cabinet meeting and ask his primus inter pares why his children skipped school last week and what would other parents think when he clamped down on their children.

What the Muscats were up to in New York comes as no surprise. Their behaviour is symptomatic of all that Labour stands for and puts to shame whoever voted to put this lot into power.

Despite their lip service to half a century of Maltese independence, Labour and its supporters still look at power and government as a milking cow. Once there was the British Crown to milk, today they milk taxpayer money.

That explains the huge influx of public sector appointments, the widening deficit, the ransacking of the environment, the dismantling of the land planning system, the free concerts, the electricity rate cuts from a power station that remains to be built and the pie in the sky projects that, thankfully, don’t get off the ground.

This is a government obsessed with showmanship, with staging events like that shameful press call where the Prime Minister said he had bravely turned away a ship requesting medical assistance from Malta because there may have been someone with Ebola on board.

It was reported that the government never replied to the captain’s request to enter port.

They left him waiting outside Maltese territorial waters and, as he waited and waited, arrangements were made to take the sick seaman, who had no Ebola, to Sicily.

According to the company that runs the ship, the captain just turned the ship and left.

If that is true, then what we witnessed at Castille was a sham or a damage limitation exercise.

There is a growing feeling that this country is going absolutely nowhere because there never was a Labour plan and there is no leadership.

This is government by impulse. All we are getting are publicity stunts, populist policies to keep the rabble happy and the appeasement of interest groups in sheer disregard of the common good.

Labour wanted power at all cost and now it is on one hell of a joy ride.

Someone down the road shall have to foot the bill for all of this, and it shall cost more than some crystal handbag.

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