Joseph Muscat was in Gozo the other day. He spent the morning touring Chambray, telling the developers (the ‘barons’ of old, presumably) how absolutely splendid the whole thing was and how it would look even lovelier with a 500-berth yacht marina as the backdrop on the Mġarr side. You know, the new middle class and yachts and all that.

Under Labour ruthless destruction of the environment will be able to continue being ruthless. A change my foot- Mark Anthony Falzon

I decided to phone a friend. Not any friend, but marine biologist Alan Deidun. A disclaimer is in order. Some would call my choice rather lop-sided given Deidun’s associations with the Nationalist Party. Of course he would say Muscat was being rash.

Wrong, because on this one at least Deidun is quite incorruptible. He may be a Nationalist of sorts but he is a serious scientist and environmentalist through and through. So no, there was nothing the matter with my choice.

My man in ecology told me I was surely right, that an extension to the yacht marina in Mġarr – whatever the size and whichever the direction it took – would likely cause great damage to the terrestrial and marine ecosystems there. He singled out the underwater Posidonia meadows in particular and added that when the Posidonia goes, a lot goes with it.

I’m not about to say that having Labour in government would mean the destruction of the environment. That’s already happening and quite efficiently too. In fact, I’d say the country is, and has been for far too long now, under a Concrete Raj (more details on that some other time).

My problem rather is with the future. The people I meet who say they’re likely to vote Labour are either straightforward Labourites or middle-of-the-road Green-leaning types who are sick and tired of it all, who think that ‘the country needs a change’. As far as the Raj is concerned, I’m with them 100 per cent.

There is, however, a snag. I’m honestly not sure a Labour government would do anything to deliver that change. On the contrary, I think we can expect more of the same. My main clue is called Joseph Muscat.

The Be-a-Developer-for-a-Day Gozo outing was not a one-off. Some weeks ago Muscat paid a visit to the Seabank hotel works in Għadira Bay. He seemed to quite like what he saw and went on to praise the owners for investing money, boosting the economy, and so on and so on. Remember we’re talking about a horrid blot on the landscape that would have Prince Charles lost for words.

I know why Muscat is doing this. It’s all part of a campaign the aim of which is to convince us that a Labour government would be good (or ‘safe’, as he likes to put it) for business. By which he means that it would not rock the boat too much, that ruthless destruction of the environment will be able to continue being ruthless. A change my foot.

It’s all very sad really. The Labour Party has a rich history of offering alternatives. That’s what the whole welfare business was about. At huge personal and political cost, Labour leaders such as Paul Boffa and Dom Mintoff stuck their necks out and said that surely there was an alternative to a society made up of the haves and the have-nots.

The Nationalists too are hardly alien to proposing alternative models. 1987 was about a choice between an inward-looking economy based on protectionism and state-sponsored employment, and a different creature called ‘the market’.

The relative sanity of each of these is irrelevant here. The point is that once upon a time was politics, that people got to choose whether or not to change. In this case Muscat is simply offering a better deal – more brick and mortar for our money, that is.

The other ‘changes’ he talks about are hollow at best. If Muscat thinks slashing electricity and water bills by 10, 50, even 100 per cent, would iron out all the facial contortions, he is wrong. No matter how tiny the energy bills and how massive the pay-cheques, people would still want more.

That’s because wanting more irrespective of how much you have is one of the basic building blocks of consumerism. Madly enough it’s actually contradictory to talk of a better standard of living (that is, buying more stuff) and not wanting more at the same time.

I’m not saying it’s Muscat’s fault that consumerism is implicitly about perennial moaning and day-dreaming. Nor am I suggesting he should grow a beard and preach an anti-consumerist crusade. That’s a decision people must make themselves, for themselves.

But surely it’s not too much to ask from Labour that they move away from a notion of development which is pig-headedly rooted in the number of hotels, yacht marinas, and such, towards a broader one based on intellectual, artistic, and cultural growth? I may be wrong but I suspect that’s what my greenish friends mean by ‘the country needs a change’.

They’re bound to be disappointed. Labour or no Labour, it appears we’ll be stuck with the Concrete Raj, sugar-coated on occasion with environmental tokenism in the form of a few saplings here and there, a paper reserve or two, and some rather sweet turtles swimming away from the minister at Ġnejna.

Muscat is in Dubai as I write, telling ‘investors’ what a pity it is that Smart City hasn’t really come as far as planned. Readers might want to drive down to Ricasoli to see the real pity for themselves. Both parties call it ‘development’, so that’s alright then.

mafalzon@hotmail.com