Even at the distance I still am (back soon, don’t miss me), Labour still make me shake my head in awe at the extent to which they can put their foot in it on a seemingly minute-by-minute basis.
I’m not talking about the way my young friend Owen Bonnici described someone as an unpublished author recently, because there were extenuating circumstances. Calling someone an unpublished author is tantamount to – say – calling me an uncapped international footballer or an unrecognised Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature, but, as I say, there are extenuating circumstances: Dr Bonnici is fighting for the abolition of the regressive and anti-diluvian attitudes to freedom of expression that seem to have become inherent in the national psyche.
No, what I’m talking about are silly remarks such as the one made by Joseph Muscat recently, as reported on this website.
In the context of the economic trials and tribulations Malta, as part of the world, is experiencing, the governor of the Central Bank made a number of points that certainly did not give great joy to anyone, especially those who benefit from the largesse the state makes available from your taxes and mine. Incidentally, the beneficiaries, of course, are not only the recipients but also our dearly beloved politicians, of both sides, who go about making sure their constituents get their sticky fingers on as much of it as possible.
Dr Muscat’s reaction to Mr Bonello’s remarks was thought-provoking but certainly not in a good way for Dr Muscat. The young whipper-snapper (as such would he like to be known, I’m sure, or as the feisty young iconoclast) shot back at Mr Bonello, very much in the manner of the schoolyard, “why don’t you see what you get paid?” following on with “and why don’t you take a pay cut while you’re at it?”
This sort of reaction has two very major flaws to it. To start with, it betrays the class-hatred background under which Labour labours (couldn’t resist it), having to pander to the (perceived) middle class aspirations of its grassroots but, at the same time, having to give them the comfort of tilting at the high and mighty.
To be going on with, it gives wags like me the golden opportunity to riposte “and what about your MPs, the ones who hardly ever show up at the House, shouldn’t they take a pay cut too and lead by example?” This could, of course, also be levelled at the PN chaps who have the same attitude towards their duties but that’s not the point.
And for the people who will comment below on the online version and point fingers at the salary increase ministers have been given, I’d simply invite them to look at the total package and consider, dispassionately, whether we still as a country have to continue to risk the peanuts and monkeys syndrome actually taking effect.
That having been said, it was perhaps a tad insensitive to take a pay hike just at the moment.
Moving on with the silly remarks, I used to think that Evarist Bartolo was a relatively measured chap who wasn’t prone to inserting his foot before having a bit of a ponder about whether he should or shouldn’t.
But, recently, he came out with a rather strange rant about how the government was going to close down a number of schools and was doing this clandestinely and without consultation.
To hear Mr Bartolo, you’d think Minister Dolores Cristina was about to steal off into the night and lock the doors of some schools, letting the poor little kiddies and their teachers turn up on a rainy Monday morning to find themselves denied entry to their much beloved establishment.
The Education Ministry came back with the perfectly reasonable point that when newly-built schools become available, older buildings will be phased out and business will carry on as usual, in fact better, because the people concerned will be in new buildings. This was not going to be done on an overnight basis, either, which surprises no one, considering that it takes weeks of planning to move office, so can you imagine what it would take to move a whole school?
And who does Mr Bartolo expect to be consulted? The kids themselves? Which, the ones who would no longer be attending the school when it is eventually closed? Or the ones who have still to get to school age? Perhaps that might be an idea, since out of the mouths of babes sometimes come better ideas, it is true, than out of the mouths of those who are supposed to be older and wiser.
No restaurants to report about this week, for obvious reasons: we’ve “eaten out” morning, noon and night (and points in between) for the last couple of weeks and there’s no way I’m going to remember the names of any of the places, quite apart from the fact that they’re on the other side of the globe.
imbocca@gmail.com
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