I don’t know if the idea was to switch the debate away from the way he seems to be losing his grip on the party but Joseph Muscat has had a pretty good stab at achieving just that by reworking the old one about a living wage being the right of all workers and such-like.

I don’t know why it is that Dr Muscat is giving the impression he’s not up to the mark in the steady hand on the party‘s tiller stakes. I mean, he’s young, fit (well, up to a point, that ankle will be troubling him from now on – I know, my old rugby and soccer ankles are like overcooked noodles sometimes) and personable enough, especially now that the facial fuzz has been Micallefised. For the more pedantic among you in the linguistic field, Micallefised is a word that I’ve just invented, brainy cove that I am, to refer to the process of rendering the Labour Party acceptable to the ladies who lunch, this being the reason, it is said, that Ms Marisa Micallef was engaged in the first place.

But for all that, and for all that he’s perceived, at least by those whose perceptions are driven by the maltastar.coms of this world, to have a modicum of grey matter, there are those who are wondering whether he’s quite got what it takes to lead the PL onwards and upwards from its fourth electoral defeat in what would have been a row had it not been for the blip caused by those ladies who lunch and their consorts.

Whatever, as the youf of the country might be tempted to intone if it was capable of speaking a language approximating English, it’s up to the PL to run its own affairs, so far be it from me to wonder why the leader abdicated his position so often, sometimes to his lady wife, sometimes to his deputies, this last summer.

Now he’s trying to come back strong and kick the debate into one about poverty and economics and other torpor-inducing subjects. Maybe it’s the Brussels influence that has started to turn him into a politician that gives off a grey aura, notwithstanding his brightly coloured neck-wear.

I happened across a piece of information recently, imparted by Ms Vanessa McDonald, who can’t be accused of being a government mouthpiece, even by one of Labour’s babes, which was that electricity bills account for less than two per cent of a household’s average running costs while the water element is less than one per cent. Now don’t shoot me, I’m only the messenger, but if this is the case, aren’t the people who are making such an all-fired fuss about those bills doing the people a bit of a disservice?

It would be interesting to compare an average household’s expenditure on, say, mobile phones and enhanced telly services, none of which are absolutely necessary for the continuation of life but both of which seem to be staples, with its expenditure on essentials.

I’m no economist, in fact, numbers give me something of a migraine but the exercise might be useful in establishing where the country’s priorities really lie. And whether we really have to debate this living wage thing, not to mention defining the word “innovative” for the benefit of the people at maltastar.com who seem to think that Dr Muscat’s idea is that.

While on the subject of wages and such, is it only us running dog lackeys of the Nationalist Party that have seen that this is yet another dichotomous attempt by the PL to have their cake and, as commanded perhaps apocryphally by Marie Antoinette, eat it at the same time?

Showing themselves to be valiant defenders of the working-class in the face of unashamed exploitation of competitiveness by the bloated plutocrats, they don’t miss a beat in switching the Halloween mask around to become the party of the middle class, even, Heaven help us, trying to convince that their new hero, Dom Mintoff, was the one who empowered (as opposed to enslaved) the middle class.

Verily it is wondrous how the aspirations of all the bright young things who suddenly have populated the ranks of the PL have come to be reflected in its policies.

Without a hint of irony, I’ll report on a truly excellent meal we had last Saturday. We were invited, most kindly, by a couple of good friends to Ta’ Frenċ on the Marsalforn road. Not to put too fine a point on it, this place is a cut above the rest. It is in a class of its own, from every aspect: service, quality and ambience, though I have to slap a bit of a health warning on it: Order wisely because the portions are copious and rich.

And so to take in the ManU match, having enjoyed Chelsea’s win already.

imbocca@gmail.com

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