Parliamentary Secretary Stefan Buontempo appears to be responsible for many things because he has a long title. Not that he does much, which is a good thing, given the performance of many of his Labour peers. Unfortunately, he intends to change that. He has his sights set on reforming the warden system and it doesn’t look good.

At a taxpayer-funded Labour propaganda event, titled ‘A government that listens’, Buontempo likened wardens who “hide behind trees” to catch out irresponsible drivers chatting on their mobiles to “Gestapo officers”.

Now, coming from the Labour Party with those glorious golden years of the 1980s behind it, he might know a thing or two about Gestapo tactics. The police back then borrowed more than a leaf from the Nazi secret police handbook to aid the ever-oppressive Labour regime of the time.

But Buontempo was referring to wardens, possibly one of the most thankless jobs in this undisciplined land.

The comparison to the Gestapo was offensive, irresponsible and, above all, it was populism at its degenerate best. It turned the culprit into a victim and the good guy into the bad guy. But such perverse way of thinking is not new to Labour.

Only last weekend, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat branded Nationalist advisors working in the public sector as spies against the government.

The last time we heard such talk was during the Mintoff regime where the party was equated to the State and anyone criticising Labour was branded a traitor of the country.

Yes, this country does need more discipline, but not the Labour type. We need discipline on our roads, witch-hunts of repeat abusers, but not witch-hunts on government computers to root out Nationalists.

If truth be told, this country needs more trees and more wardens hiding behind them to stop irresponsible drivers from endangering their and other people’s lives.

Instead, Labour opts to ride the populist wave and extends a hand of friendship to law-breakers, in the same way it extended its sympathy to those who tampered with electricity meters or who occupy public land illegally at Armier.

Buontempo claimed that those cruel, vicious Gestapo wardens (no, not the ones hacking e-mails in government agencies) are issuing fines to innocent law-breakers because they had a quota to meet, a quota set by their capitalist employer.

Capitalism, we must understand, is only fine under Labour if it comes from despotic countries like China and Azerbaijan, or from some conglomerate that had to build a power station by last March but seemingly lacked financial clout to the point that they needed a government guarantee of €88 million. How typically Maltese: first we win the tender, then we negotiate. Drivers that break the law also expect to negotiate and that’s why they don’t like wardens.

The chairman of one of the biggest warden agencies, Guard and Warden Services, contradicted Buontempo when he said: “Warden companies are not paid according to the number of tickets issued but for the hours deployed. This means there is no reason whatsoever for any quotas to be imposed.”

Yet, trailblazing Buontempo has promised to have his imaginary quotas scrapped by the end of the year. It gives a new twist to the term ‘empty promises’, doesn’t it?

Senior public officers are being intimidated and lynched publicly for the ultimate crime of being Nationalists

Maybe Buontempo is too busy sitting in the back of his chauffeur-driven car reading reports to look outside his window to see the mayhem on the streets. It is a nightmare out there and while many opt to blame the number of cars on the road, the true reason for the chaos is the utter lack of discipline, courtesy, education and responsibility by a worryingly large number of motorists.

The timing of Buontempo’s outrageous Gestapo accusation could not have been worse. On Friday, a National Road Safety Council was launched by Transport Malta, a remit of Minister Joe Mizzi, the man responsible for the mess on our roads and in the public transport system. Shouldn’t Buontempo have consulted Mizzi before he went off ranting about wardens sucking money out of the people who flagrantly broke the law?

At the presentation, Transport Malta said the obvious, but did it scientifically: motorists were still running the lights eight seconds after they turned red.

But then, drivers stalled for five seconds when the lights turned green because many of them were busy messaging. Truly, this must be a traffic lights system à la Maltaise.

Road safety consultant Pierre Vella said: “You don’t want to listen? Then we’ll enforce the law. People need to be penalised if they are in the wrong.”

But who exactly does he expect to enforce the law, the policemen loitering around traffic lights in the morning, as motorists challenge their nerves as they try to negotiate (what an appropriate word that is) a roundabout?

Or does Vella expect the Gestapo local wardens to do it, now that their wings will be clipped and, in the words of Buontempo, will take on a ‘civil and educational role’?

This country will get nowhere unless there is a responsible government ready to apply the law to all, equally, and at whatever political price. That, of course, is anathema for Labour, which explains its plans for local wardens.

Buontempo’s reform will see the creation of a central agency that will oversee the whole of the local wardens system.

The PN is objecting to the creation of such an agency saying it goes against the principle of devolution. They must also know it goes much further than that.

Labour in opposition has learnt that the local wardens system cost the PN votes because law-breakers had to pay fines. They do not want that to happen to them. They want to control it.

So, instead, we shall have a national agency led by a ‘person of trust’ who would decide when, where and how local enforcement would be carried out. The local councils would probably have no say and Nationalist-led local councils would have an even lesser say.

Motorists living in Nationalists strongholds will bear the brunt of this reform but isn’t this what switchers voted for in Sliema?

Labour in government can never solve the transport chaos on this island because you cannot apply populism to the common good. Political solutions require values and Labour does not have them.

It cannot enforce what it does not believe in. In any case, it now has its attention focused entirely elsewhere.

Labour’s fake façade is crumbling fast and paranoia is creeping in. They are seeing spies everywhere. We have been here before in the 1980s and it will get worse.

Labour is falling back upon its old, intimidating ways. Anyone daring to advise a Nationalist shadow minister will from now on be accused of a crime against the State. It has taken barely two years for Labour to get here. This is Mintoff all over again.

The newspapers of Labour’s old-time lackey, the General Workers’ Union, have been splashing on their front pages the faces and work places of Nationalists who have been advising former Finance Minister Tonio Fenech to formulate policies to counter our illustrious finance minister.

Senior public officers are being intimidated and lynched publicly for the ultimate crime of being Nationalists.

Rattled by an endless series of scandals and blunders, it is no wonder that the Office of the Prime Minister cannot even coordinate statements from its local government secretariat and the transport ministry.

So instead Labour resorts to its old ways – intimidation.