SPARKLING BRIGHTLY

I’m not in the best of moods, those overpaid self-indulgers who play what passes for football down the Fulham Broadway having failed to get a goal past what is statistically the worst defence in the Premiership.

Still, I suppose it’s better than supporting Liverpool and seeing it so near but knowing it’s so far, far away. Or Arsenal, who seem to still have this collective delusion that they are relevant.

So, there you have it. According to Joe Muscat, the upcoming elections are going to be a point of departure for the Labour Party. Let’s analyse this erudite pronouncement. It is being made what – four months? – before the MEP Election round, a round which the MLP (as was) won quite handily last time. The Labour Party went into the General Elections last year buoyed up by this fact, and by the fact that in most local elections they did OK too,

In fact, in every election except the one that really counts, the Labour Party doesn’t do badly. It didn’t do badly in the last General Elections either, for that matter. It just didn’t do well enough.

So what does Muscat’s pronouncement actually signify, then? That the Labour Party is poised to soar into the electoral stratosphere, carried along on a wave of voter support that will be of such Tsunamic proportions that it will sweep Gonzi’s government away as if it never existed? Somehow, I doubt this is going to be the case. It’s not exactly likely that Gonzi and his mates will feel so downcast by the fact that the PN will get as creamed as it is likely to get that they will be constrained to throw in the towel.

On the contrary, the (relative) thumping they will (might) get in June will serve as a wake-up call and they’ll just re-double their efforts to make sure they get in in four years’ time. Just like they did last time.

Not.

It is a trademark of Nationalist Governments that they tend to ignore the writing on the wall (more about this later, incidentally) and drive its supporters to despair because they carry on acting as if they have a divine right to govern. Given the way the Labour Party has behaved in opposition over the years, you have to forgive them for thinking this way but they really can’t rely on the Labour Party “doing a Sant” every time.

Is Muscat’s up-beat crowing, then, a signal that the Labour Party is going into election mode, poised on the threshold of the blast-pad?

Gawd ‘elp us if this is the case, then. We’re already getting a taste of the negativity and more of the same that has started to characterise Muscat’s general way of going about things, despite sporadic flashes of change, like distant lightning on a summer night (i.e. signs which never come to anything) If we’ve got another four years of this to come, it’s going to be a pretty tedious legislature.

I don’t imagine he meant that it was going to be a point of departure from its (Labour’s) previous incarnations, either. We’re still being subjected to interminable arguments about parliamentary procedure, refusals to let the business of government gain momentum through pairing and barely-suppressed glee every time something goes wrong. They tell us they’re not going to make political capital about the economic situation and then promptly do so – I don’t blame them, that’s the political game, but don’t try to kid us you’re not playing it.

This wasn’t the only spark of brightness to cheer up my grey day, though.

Gavin Gulia, a personable enough young Labour MP, berated the Government for not reading the writing on the wall about the way the world was going to hell in a hand basket.

Leaving aside the fact that the dear chap didn’t offer anything positive other than the usual platitudes about expecting the Government to discuss things with everyone and his brother and help everyone and her sister, I have to point out, fondly and with all due respect, that there is no writing on the wall.

This is because the phrase, when used correctly, implies that there are signs (as in, slogans on a wall) which foretell all manner of nastiness to come. In this instance, there are no such signs to read, no tea-leaves or stars in conjunction: the disaster is here, all present and incorrect, and we don’t need to read the runes to know about it.

Pedantic of me, I know, but I’m having one of those days. At least, up to now, Liverpool haven’t scored.