There are surely worse ways to spend one’s 69th birthday than reading out a Budget speech in Parliament, and listening to it must be one of them.

As many sat stuck in traffic jams around the island listening to Finance Minister Edward Scicluna’s wise words on the radio, word on the street was he may be out to break last year’s Fidel Castro-style four-hour record. It was with relief the speech came to an end after a mere two and a half hours, just about the time it took to get home for dinner.

We all appreciate Scicluna’s efforts on his birthday, of course, because he did try to speed things up sometimes but kept getting rudely interrupted by those over-enthusiastic Labour MPs who really should know better; shame on them, thumping on those brand new tables like they didn’t know how much they cost (half a million euros for loose furniture for the whole building and that bill did not include those tables).

As for the speech itself, it would have been a challenge for any stand-up comedian, let alone for a man who has made a living out of accountancy. There was help available if Scicluna had wanted. His boss, the Prime Minister, spends €220,000 a year on image consultants, among others, so surely… We still sympathise with Scicluna though, it was, after all, his birthday.

Fuel will only go down in January because if it did so tomorrow it would create instability

The goodies in the Budget were quite a mouthful, especially if you’re a Green, but many are not, which is why Scicluna had so many listeners yesterday. Now how does the minister plan to increase his (car) captive audience if people get grants for electric bicycles and if licences for small motorbikes go for just €10 apiece? He really could do with some of Muscat’s consultants.

It makes you wonder if Scicluna, when he finally got home to light his candles, felt a bit of remorse for those who love to light up regularly. Alcohol lovers generally got off the hook this Budget around, though they face more breathalyser tests and fines, which is rather insensitive of Scicluna, considering you really do need a drink sometimes out there on the road. Smokers were less lucky, with a 30c increase on every packet.

The sad thing is that the life expectancy of smokers and drinkers is notoriously short. And yet, they continue to be among the main sponsors of our national health service, enabling those who want to live longer to continue to hope so.

Scicluna told us what he expects to do with some of that extra cigarette money: he will partly fund qualified carers of elderly persons who require assistance at home. It will only be a pilot project, he said, so all the frequently besotted should brace themselves for the next Budget. It will be your turn next and not even a looming election will get you out of that one.

Scicluna is also introducing a tax on chewing gum because it is apparently so hard to clean up. But he really should have developed the idea a bit more, like penalising people who dump in the countryside or build illegally. It would have spared him the trouble of wringing out of tourists 50c a day as a contribution to the very environment we should be taking care of to attract them in the first place.

But there’s more to chewing gum than meets the gum. They’ve banned it in Singapore, so it’s only logical to follow suit here since we’re the next Singapore (haven’t you heard?), at least as far as building heights go. But that is bad news for smokers too who, regularly smitten by budgets, tend to quit as a new year’s resolution. Did you ever notice how many people are walking around starry-eyed every January 1 as they chew away fervently on gum like their life depended on it? There won’t be many of those come this new year.

So what does this Budget mean to you?

Come tomorrow morning, nothing will change for us motorists who today spend much of our day, or life, at the wheel. Neither will it change the day after, because work on the Kappara junction, whenever that starts, will take two years, while the Marsa upgrade will only come afterwards.

Fuel will only go down in January because if it did so tomorrow it would create instability.

There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel, the one to Gozo, that is, now that the Chinese bridge idea has been dropped.

But don’t go packing your holiday bags to Gozo just yet. The minister said there are still technical and geological studies to be done, including where the tunnel would start and where it would end (and, no, he was not referring to the road map). Only then will the government decide.

Now that’s quite an exit clause, should the government need to backpedal on the idea.

Seems like Labour has all the luck these days, because each morning I’m stuck in a jam and there is never any exit, and certainly no way of pedalling back.

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