This is indeed a funny place to live in! As the bus strike, or whatever you want to call the thuggery that took place on our roads, was in action, many screamed, asking for an immediate stop to bullying tactics and to find solutions around a table. As soon as a solution is found we had the same people together with a few columnists screaming blue murder because some compromise was found!
This has been a lost battle from the start for the hearses and their bus driver friends and they lost it heavily whatever a few might say. First of all the hearses lost their main argument: that of maintaining a monopoly over the sector.
In fact, a few hours after the strike was lifted Karm Mifsud started operating his four new vehicles, obviously to the detriment of the other hearses!
On their part, these people asked the minister to do the same as he had done with the pig rearing farms and give them a small sum of money to help them face the inevitable losses! Let me make it clear: I am all out for market forces and, therefore, disagree, in principle with such grants no matter how small the sum might be.
But I do happen to live on planet earth where "negotiations" are just that: you take some and you give some! The hearses gave up their monopoly (which, let's face it, they will do their utmost to cushion through their association) and the minister offered this small amount of money (less than the Sliema front project) to cushion some of the immediate effects of liberalisation!
It's called negotiations and it's what, if memory serves me right, Joseph Muscat asked for!
The other pathetic argument doing the rounds is that Lawrence Gonzi kept quiet and, therefore, not supporting his minister!
What's the use of the Prime Minister electing new ministers and changing their roles (I'm sure there was a very valid reason for giving Austin Gatt the Transport Ministry) if he has to come to their rescue every time there is some kind of strike?
Why should the Prime Minister have come screaming out of Castille to support Dr Gatt if he, together with the rest of the Cabinet, had given the go-ahead to the minister himself for the hearse liberalisation?
I really do hope we never witness the sights we had to endure for four days again but if we do, I hope that some decide what they want: confrontation or negotiation?
A strong minister who can deal with "bullies" on his own or a "marshmallow" minister who needs his mummy to come and save him from the big bad boys?