You know, I think people could put up with a lot of things if they felt that their every day concerns were being seen to. I bet they wouldn’t mind Lou Bondì being appointed to every little poxy board in the country, and they wouldn’t bat an eyelid, even if the whole Cabinet had to doff aprons and serve visiting dignitaries foie gras and melon sorbet, if more mundane concerns were being addressed by the government. I say this because I sometimes note a huge discrepancy between what is highlighted in the media and what Labour and the Nationalist Party are permanently squabbling about, and what really worries the man in the street.

People can’t understand why there are a plethora of local and central authorities overseeing the built and rural environment, and yet the streets are filthy

The headlines this week were mainly taken up with the ongoing tiff about the Security Services, more fall-out from the police-serving-as-waiters-saga and the latest twists in the Dalligate tale.

Yet online and on the streets, these matters are not the subjects of any heated conversations.

Yes – there’s the occasional quip about the Bahamas and about the depot catering service, but it’s not as if these issues feature high up on the list of people’s priorities.

Despite the fact that political anoraks (I plead guilty as well) find every mis-step, every gaffe and every action of rival politicians worthy of poring over and analysing minutely, it’s not the same in the real world – the one which doesn’t have Castille, the Mile End or the Stamperija as its epicentre.

In the real world – outside the political bubble and navel-gazing, people are fretting about other’s issues, which affect their quality of life. They’ve had it up to the gills with gridlocked roads, with never-ending traffic tailbacks which make a relatively short journey an hour-long ordeal.

There may be armies of wardens deployed on the streets, but they’re wholly taken up with dishing out tickets for heinous contraventions such as letting one’s bumper hang over a double yellow line by a few millimeters.

Sightings of the green wardens are as infrequent as those of the Abominable Snowman. Reports of sightings are few and far between, and now whole generations are starting to believe that they have been lied to by the authorities and that the green wardens don’t really exist.

People can’t understand why there are a plethora of local and central authorities overseeing the built and rural environment, and yet the streets are filthy and sometimes you can’t walk for dog droppings and discarded litter.

They wonder why the police are so ineffective when it comes to tackling matters such as noisy neighbours or establishments which pump out music throughout the night. Now these concerns may not make for the high drama of political warfare.

They’re difficult wrongs to put right, requiring the co-operation of several departments and bodies, forward planning and a good deal of common sense.

However, it would be a mistake to dismiss these every day concerns as mere grumbling of people who have nothing better to complain about.

These ‘niggles’ make up the very fabric of people’s lives. Political parties – whether in government or not – would do well not to dismiss them, otherwise when election time rolls round again, they’re back to the time-old problem of being “out of touch from the electorate”. At that point the breast-beating about not listening to people’s ills (the ‘weġgħat’ which get trotted out during every campaign) will begin.

Politicians will apologise for having their eye on the bigger picture and neglecting these micro-issues. There will be a last-minute dash to introduce stop-gap measures, and we’re back to square one post-election. The highly-polarised atmosphere in Malta does prevent us from to some extent from detaching completely from politics.

However, I believe that unless politicians tackle these every day concerns, and persist in point-scoring and squabbling, there will come a time when voters disengage from the political process, resulting in voter apathy and a complete division between the ruling class and the electorate.

It’s happened in several other countries. The most glaring example is of course Italy, but there are others. A poll carried out in England by the Hansard Society last year showed the British public more disengaged from politics than at any time in the past decade.

Only 42 per cent claimed to be interested in the subject; and only 24 per cent thought the ruling coalition was working. If our politicians want to avoid the disconnection from the people they are elected to represent, they would do well to heed their concerns instead of aiming poisoned arrows at their opponents.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt