POLITICS AS SHE IS SPOKE

Last Sunday, when the papers finally came out again after the two day seasonal hiatus during which we amuse ourselves with overeating while hoping that l-Istrina will give us an excuse to call ourselves generous (it did, and sincere congratulations to all concerned, from H.E. at the very top all the way down the ranks) there was an interview with one of Malta's gentlemen and veteran politicians.

The basic tenet of Dr George Bonello Dupuis' thesis was that party loyalty is a vital component of a decent politician's make-up and that recent outbursts by some of the current crop show them to be less than outstanding in this regard.

This perfectly reasonable point of view led to an outburst of comments on timesofmalta.com.

Let me, in simple terms, so that the Lil'Elves won't have an excuse to pretend that they don't understand, outline why this is a reasonable point of view.

We live in a Parliamentary Democracy, wherein a Prime Minister is elected by dint of being the leader of the party (note the words “leader” and “party”) that achieves a majority in the House. We are not governed by a loose coalition that – erm – coalesces according to the whims of the MPs and their transient loyalties. That's the way they do things in Italy, for instance.

Once an MP is elected on his or her party ticket, that MP owes loyalty to his or party and when in Government, this loyalty translates to loyalty to the PM. You don't go around sniping at every available opportunity, show-boating and generally making a nuisance of yourself, though every so often, a dose of reality-checking doesn't do any harm. If nothing else, it keeps the PM on his toes and generally interested in life.

You certainly are not there to represent your constituents directly and egoistically, although it is part of the function of MPs, especially back-benchers, to lobby for their guys. This is the reality of politics as she is spoke, not only here but in every democracy that adopts the Westminster model.

So the deluge of comments about how Bonello Dupuis put the party before the country was completely misplaced: that wasn't really what he said, if anyone had bothered to give the interview some thought before shooting his mouth off.

Just as misplaced, of course, is all the whistling in the dark by the pro-Labour columnists who ply their trade most especially in the Sunday papers.

Yes, technically, fun and games as are had by Dr Franco Debono and, some time ago on the St John's thing by Pullicino Orlando, could, if taken to what would appear to be their logical conclusion (to the facile and the shallow, of course) bring down the Government, so you can understand the way all the people who just so hate the idea that Labour isn't in Government are wetting themselves at the prospect.

But a bit of a reality check is in order here.

Pullicino Orlando did his bit of grandstanding in the context of the screeching and wailing that was going on about the St John's controversy. You remember the case, no doubt, it was when I and you were deprived of the opportunity of making up our own minds about whether the project to build an annex to house a museum was a good one. We were deprived by a joint effort, concerted or not I have no idea, of the Labour Party linking up with the environmentalists (of all things) and Pullicino Orlando deciding to wear his green credentials on his sleeve.

Not exactly Government-demolishing fare, was it?

Then we had the more recent Franco Debono episode, which has been explained, analysed, dissected, and generally examined from the entrails out by a media that seems to have little else to do but fantasise about something that was not much more than a bit of a gesture of frustration.

Crisis? What crisis? That's the name of an album from the late Sixties or early Seventies, but until the PM takes leave of his senses and pins his Government's survival on a vote about the Chair of a Committee or something equally earth-shattering, it might behove the Lil'Elves and Labour's Groupies to calm down a bit, before they bust a gut in their simulated ecstasy.