The not-fit-for-purpose bunch that hold sway over us appear to be hell-bent on demonstrating that their perspective is not exactly that which should be adopted by governments. Take, for instance, the insouciant manner with which Dr. the Hon. Husband of Sai Mizzi Lang, Konrad of that ilk, has let it be known that certain measures taken by the government in respect of Enemalta were vital, because otherwise, heaven forfend, the corporation’s credit rating would have gone into the cellar and carried on down.
Yes, fine, commercial viability and all that is important, especially when Brussels-tinted spectacles are employed, but a balance has to be struck, and struck it is, even in Brussels, between commercial viability and social purpose.
Consequently, fuel tariffs, while ever so slightly brought down by Premier Joseph Muscat and his merry ‘shame on you’ ministers, can be brought down further. We need not be paying all that amount for petrol and diesel, not at the moment, but according to these guys, well, yes, we have to do that little thing, because otherwise credit ratings would suffer.
It’s all very well for the government led by Premier Muscat to come over all businesslike and gung-ho, after all their Best Best Friends are all captains of industry and commerce, but could we have just a little less of the “we’re doing this for your own good”? Because, you see, it’s not really any skin off our collective noses if some rating agency or other doesn’t give an A++ grade or however it is that they describe things.
If Premier Muscat wants an example from the country he holds so dear to his funny-bone, he can look into Britain’s relatively recent past and consider how in the late 1950s/early 1960s (yes, I know, ancient history, but you know the old one about people not learning the lessons of history, I trust) when a Big Beast of the Commercial Jungle was engaged to make British Rail commercially viable.
Dr Beeching, for it is of him that I muse, chopped great swathes off the network, which was losing money hand over fist, but failed abjectly to make British Rail anything even approaching commercially viable. The dear fellow is charged, in fact, at history’s dock with having created far greater trouble than his plans avoided.
Governance is not only about saving money and cashing in the chips, though to look at these guys, you wouldn’t think so.
“Peanuts” Scicluna also seems to find it difficult to bring a sense of proper perspective to bear when he gives us the benefit of his wisdom about matters financial and economic. According to the erudite gentleman, we’re going to have to keep on paying for the Nationalist government’s mistakes for many years to come, which leads me to wonder whether, in the great tradition of English full backs over the years, he’s not getting his retaliation in first.
Prof. the Hon. Edward Scicluna didn’t bring his beady stare to bear on the shenanigans his government, under the watchful gaze of Premier Muscat, has been engaged in, it really should be said. For instance, how long are we going to have to be paying, admittedly only very little each, for the millions of euros Premier Muscat’s minions saw fit to pour into the pockets of the people who used to run the Cafe’ Premier? In the greater scheme of things, what’s a few millions between friends, to be sure, but the point stands. And then what about looking further back into time, a feat that Scicluna can pull off with no difficulty, as he was sentient at the time: what about the millions and millions and millions of Maltese liri that had to be poured into the dockyard after Mintoff had his way with it?
It’s all very well for the government to come over all businesslike and gung-ho, after all their Best Best Friends are all captains of industry and commerce
Or the millions and millions that went into the salaries of the people illegally employed by Mintoff’s anointed one, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnci, when he was frantically trying to buy every single available vote in the run up to the 1987 election?
I know, as I’ve already written, this is all pretty ancient stuff (not the Cafe’ Premier scandal, that’s a Premier Muscat novelty) but it’s all got to come under the heading of “let’s keep things in perspective, shall we?”
I’m glad I wasn’t here last week, as I would have had a crisis of conscience about trotting along into town to show my disdain for the motley crew of a couple of hundred who thought they had to show their true colours. And that might have provoked one or two of them into passing the time of day with me, and where would that have taken us?
In fact, I was visiting Auschwitz, the memorial to man’s inhumanity. If you want to know where racist, elitist, xenophobic intolerance leads you, go there.
The people who were calling immigrants cannibals who wanted to turn us into hamburgers were not, of course, racist thugs, indeed, they were perfectly reasonable folk.
None of the placards carried contained vile slogans of rampant xenophobia or anything at all like that. Of course they didn’t, these were ordinary citizens, the salt of the earth, with a sense of perspective and humanity that is second to none.
If you want evidence of what these people really are and think, look no further than the comments that popped up under the story that we’re going to have to take in a couple of hundred immigrants. All the usual suspects are there, with the “I told you so when we were trying to keep you out of Europe” wisecracks about how our national identity is being threatened and how we’re about to be engulfed in a veritable wave of terror.
I can’t be bothered to give you chapter and verse, you’ll have to look them up for yourselves and you will realise that most of the people who are chanting the racists mantras also chant other mantras, in different contexts, lauding Premier Muscat and his policies to high heaven.
The hilarious thing is that these twerps don’t even twig that Premier Muscat is committed to keeping us in the EU, however much many of his grassroot supporters hate this, because that is the only way in which our passports are going to have any value at all.
It’s ironic, when you think about it, that it is by prostituting our passports that Premier Muscat redeemed the “let’s keep out of the EU” sins of his recent past.
But the prize for failing to have even a vestigial sense of perspective, this week, goes to the Għaqda Kaċċaturi San Umbertu, who without even an inkling of a tongue in their plump, middle-class cheeks, let it be known that it is Birdlife who are causing pain and suffering to birds.
Seriously, just in case you missed it, an organisation that does its damnedest to justify killing birds by shooting them out of the sky has the sheer nerve, the unmitigated gall, to accuse Birdlife of being cruel to birds.