It is generally with great glee that a section of the media greets the news that a government member has shown less than absolute admiration for the doings of said government. The latest manifestation of this glee came when Jesmond Mugliett saw fit to get to his hind legs and have something of a mega-moan about the way “we, the people” have been treated in the matter of being told how much we have to pay for our water and electricity.
You know the bill I mean, the one that is actually less, though you wouldn’t think so to read some sections of the media, than you pay for your communication and/or television services. I suppose being able to have a chat with your husband’s mother-in-law or watch every split second of EastEnders is way higher on the scale of things which are essential in life, so these bills don’t get the treatment the utility bills get.
Which is not to say that I enjoy paying any of them and that I don’t wish they were lower. In fact, I wish taxes were lower and my food and drink came free, to say nothing of getting money for nothing and my chicks for free but it is a fact that the world is in dire straits.
Getting back to Mr Mugliett and his moan, he was of the opinion, admittedly somewhat subjective, that the government has spent a tad too much on a billing system that was not doing what it says on the tin, actually, though he did rather shoot his argument in the foot a bit when he patted himself on the back about the way he had set the world to rights in the Roads Department with a lot less of the folding stuff than the ARMS billing system had cost.
Sorry, mate, I’ve been driving a bike around the highways and byways of this fair isle and t’other one and, frankly, you didn’t really get it right with the roads – they’re better than they were when I used to ride a trail-bike around, but not that much better. Let’s call them a work-in-progress and leave it at that, shall we?
I do have to wonder, though, why it is that so many people, the ones, of course, for whom everything Lawrence Gonzi and his merry band do is not the best thing since sliced bread, find the fact that the government backbenchers criticise their government so newsworthy. It is of the essence of democracy that MPs do their best to keep governments on the straight and narrow, after all. In fact, that is the precise function of the republic’s loyal opposition and – in a perverse sort of way – the fact that government MPs are having to do the opposition’s job for it is more of a commentary on the opposition than on the government, the opposition is doing such a poor job of its main reason for being, perhaps because it is too concerned with getting its stationery all prettified and making sure there isn’t too much facial hair on show when the head honchos venture out in public, that the government side is having to do it for it.
Combine this with the ever-increasing perception that Labour will do anything and say anything as long as it makes a nice sound-bite and makes the government look like the worst administrator since, I don’t know, Mintoff?, and you have a formula for a credibility loss of pretty tragic proportions, if you’re of a Labour bent.
In other words, Labour, don’t be so happy that Mr Mugliett and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and all the rest are doing their job perhaps a touch more loudly than is seemly because what they’re doing is precisely what you should be doing and they’re doing it better than you are.
Last weekend was a nourishing one (is it ever not the case?) both in the physical and in the intellectual sense. On the occasion of ’Er Indoors completing 31 years of her life sentence, we had dinner at the Blue Elephant and you will not be surprised to learn that it was as sublime as always on all fronts – it is almost redundant of me to tell you that it is well worth a visit.
Equally worth the trek north, or south in my case, as a boys’ night was more attractive than a sarnie and telly alone in Gozo, is Ġużeppi’s in Mellieħa. They do things with ingredients there that are the subject of fantasy and there’s no two ways about it; it’s a place that repays a visit every time.
On the intellectual front, I went along to the symposium about cart ruts that was part of the Festival Mediterranea being organised in Gozo, led by David Trump and illustrated by Daniel Cilia’s wonderful shots, with fascinating interventions by a number of worthies. Next door, there was, and still is as you read this, an evocative show of Mario Cassar’s art, using iconic scenes from our political memory. It’s part of the Victoria contemporary art tour and very well worth some time, if you’re in Gozo.
And now, if only in Gothic fantasy, I’m going outside to confront the moron who thinks that blasting on his horn at seven in the morning is a good idea.
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