The Equality Bill and the Human Rights and Equality Commission Act will soon be uploaded for public consultation. We’ve been told that these laws will usher in a bright, new era of meritocracy. No longer will people be discriminated against on grounds of gender, sexuality, creed and a host of other characteristics. What’s not to like?

We’ll reserve judgement until the final draft is available. However, there’s a glaring case of double standards here. While all private employers and institutions are supposed to get up to speed with their non-discrimination and will essentially be deprived of the right to choose who to employ freely, the government seems not to be bound in the same way.

Oh yes, the equality laws – when in force – should cover the public administration. But how exactly is this going to come about? Are the ministers going to sack those hundreds of “persons of trust”? Will they get rid of those canvassers guzzling so greedily at the public trough? Will the Labour government show us why its ministers have engaged so many “consultants” and advisors? Wasn’t their assumption based solely on their political affiliation?

With every family member taking on multiple roles with different government quangos, other people are being discriminated against

With the engagement of every gormless “customer care” official polishing her nails at ministerial reception desks, a far more deserving candidate has been excluded. With every family member taking on multiple roles with different government quangos, other people are being discriminated against. With every job created for totally unqualified persons, someone far more deserving is losing out. And it’s a hundred times worse because these injustices are being financed by the public’s taxes.

So perhaps before preaching about equal playing fields, meritocracy and other noble concepts, the government can start by practising what it preaches and shedding these leeches. Only then will it be credible enough to lead by example.

■ Earlier last week, I came across an uncharacteristically whiney article in the Italian daily La Repubblica. Actually it wasn’t the tone which was oddly inappropriate – it was the topic. For the author wasn’t commenting about the dismal state of Italian politics, or massive unemployment or racism or any of Italy’s long-time woes. No – he was moaning about a tree – the Christmas tree set up in Piazza Venezia to be precise.

According to the writer, it was an ugly, melancholic reminder of Rome’s decline. It wasn’t as spectacularly rigged up with lights as its counterpart in Milan.

Apparently, the online sadsacks also got in on the hand-wringing. Someone said the tree looked like a giant 20-metre-high asparagus, a symbol of mediocrity and the new austerity. On and on it went, this angst about the so-called “totem of absence”, a sad excuse for a tree which was not befitting of a capital city and a tourist destination like Rome.

The author signed off by writing that the Dickensenian shadows of Christmas past were throwing their desolate shadows over Rome 2016 – the city of mediocrity and of a new austerity – a city paralysed in fear and inertia.

Me – I looked at the source of this anguish and smiled. Maybe it’s because I live here and a couple of saplings growing through the cracked concrete desert are enough to send me into paroxysms of delight. Maybe it’s because I’m tree-starved, but I quite liked the Christmas tree in Rome – just an honest fir with a wonky cascade of lights.

Yes, the brilliantly illuminated cone set up at Torino was magnificent and the 17-metre-high white structure in Bari blazed with light. And the upside-down Christmas tree in Pietrasanta was surreal and in keeping with the Dali exhibition in the city.

In Florence, several silvery Christmas trees with huge red bows were dotted round the city. And way down in Naples they assembled a giant structure which is a hybrid between an oil rig and a Christmas tree and which can host more than 450 people at one go. Definitely a showstopper.

But also a bit depressing – a bit ‘de trop’.

Of course, it’s a free world and everybody is perfectly entitled to set up a bigger, better, gaudier Christmas tree than his neighbour. Whatever floats your boat. However, I just can’t shake off the feeling that something is really, really wrong when a massive controversy is stirred up simply because a perfectly delightful, simply decorated tree doesn’t measure up to the vulgar excesses of another town.

drcbonello@gmail.com