To date, virtually every survey that has been allowed to see the light of day in certain portions of the media has resulted in Premier Joseph Muscat, aspirant to the title of Top Salesman for Henley & Whosit, still being shown as having the confidence of “We, the People”, when compared to his opposite number.
Why this should be the case is an abiding mystery to me: I have been heard to say that had the Nasty Nats in their long couple of spans of government, either side of the Alfred Sant blip, pulled off a tenth of a quarter of a third of the stunts Premier Muscat’s crew have foisted upon us, Lawrence Gonzi would have ended up hanging head down over a smouldering fire a’ la Mussolini and the members of his Cabinet on the run or residing at the Corradino Hilton.
Premier Muscat, on the other hand, soars high in the estimation of the Great Unwashed. When you think more deeply, though, this is hardly surprising.
Aided and abetted by certain portions of the media (yes, I know I’ve already used that descriptor, what do you want, chapter and verse?) his tu quoque evocation of hypocrisy by way of the inherent, if informal, logical fallacy (check it out in Wikipedia) has bamboozled the electorate into believing that the other bunch were just as bad, so might as well continue trusting him.
A relatively minor argument that Premier Muscat keeps harping on, eagerly picked up by certain portions of, well, you know who, is the one involving one of nature’s gentlemen, Francis Zammit Dimech. Francis was with me at the University and has remained a friend since then, so I confess to bias, but only a little.
Premier Muscat keeps asking Simon Busuttil why the latter has not done anything now that Zammit Dimech has been included in the list of the accused in a criminal case concerning the death of a worker at a hotel on whose board he sits.
Premier Muscat ingenuously, and wickedly, puts this on a par with the charges that had been levelled against his minister, Owen Bonnici, when Bonnici had been charged in connection with a traffic accident he was involved in when driving his car on an evening.
Zammit Dimech is not a minister, he has no form of influence over the manner in which the prosecution chooses to conduct its affairs and his connection with the tragic accident is a result only of his membership of a board of directors.
Bonnici, on the other hand, wasa minister at the time of his accident, with all that this - correctly or incorrectly - implies and was directly involved in the accident concerned.
Quite apart from anything else, there is no ‘action’ that can be taken against Zammit Dimech because his is not in a public position from which he can be removed by the leader of his party. Moreover, he is not, was not, and will not be in a position that can even by the widest stretch of the imagination be called one of influence over the prosecution.
Joseph Muscat is obliged, because he promised to do it, to have a new power station built, even if we don’t need it
Bonnici, on the other hand, can be perceived as being in exactly the opposite position. I am not, let me be clear, implying that he did, or even think he might, try to take advantage of his position, though it must be said that he acted in stark contrast to Chris Said, who, when he was a minister (or was it parliamentary secretary?) asked to be relieved of office while an allegation against him in court was cleared up, which, for the record, it was, in his favour.
This is why I classify Premier Muscat’s argument, clearly intended only to strengthen the public perception of pre-vious (alleged) iniquity justifying the current batch of the same thing and much more, as wicked.
The same can be said of many other stunts being resorted to by Premier Muscat’s government, not least of which is the way he has manipulated the scenery surrounding his pre-electoral promise to reduce electricity rates.
Not to put too fine a point on it, the coming on stream of the interconnector, aproject brought to market by the Nationalists in government, was more than sufficient in itself to rationalise electricity costs and rates chargeable to us for consumption. There is surplus production at the northern end of the supply chain, especially at night, and this alone is enough to bring the rates down substantially.
This does not serve Premier Muscat’s political ends, however.
He is obliged, because he promised to do it, to have a new power station built, even if we don’t need it (which we don’t) and he has to appease his political creditors by making it happen.
It was not enough, though, to come to an agreement that, come what may, willy nilly, if you like, for a sufficiently long period after commissioning, electricity would be bought from the new, surplus, supplier at rates that would repay the investors many times over. No, we had to stand surety for the investors even for the transitory period during which their investment, by means of bank loans, would not be repaying them.
The investors did not put up their own money for this hare-brained scheme, they have better things to do with it (a couple of tower blocks in the Sliema/Gżira area, perhaps?) and they did not have to find some form of security to satisfy the twitchiness of the banks because Premier Muscat was standing by, our national economic well-being at hand, to reassure all concerned that no one would have to put their hands in their own pockets.
Why should they, when there were your and my pockets waiting to be picked. Do you blame them for jumping at the golden opportunity?
There’s so much more. Consider, if you will, the way Austin Gatt was pilloried and accused of adherence to the precepts of Onan, when the bus service was dragged, kicking and screaming, into something approaching the 20th century standards we have a right to expect.
Yes, fine, there were teething troubles and things could have been done differently but can you put your hand on your heart and say that Minister Joe Mizzi, under whose watch traffic and transportation in general has descended to levels plumbed only by the ineptitude of the dear chap himself, shouldn’t be given the same treatment, and way more?
No, you can’t, unless you’re a Lil’Elf bemused and bewitched, not to say bewildered, terminally, by Premier Muscat’s sleight of hand and smoke and mirrors.
In stark contrast to last week, there’s not much to mention on the nourishment front. We didn’t go anywhere new. It was, however, pleasing to revisit an old haunt, Saracino’s, in Attard, to find that the food remains good, dependable stuff and the service likewise consistently good.
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