Vote Joseph, get Lawrence

I can see the thesis abstract already: 'Labour proves that, yes, together everything really is possible: even throwing away a 12% lead when there cannot realistically be more than a couple of months to go for the election..."

But how? How on EARTH did they manage to turn such incredibly auspicious fortunes around so soon, and against all reasonable odds... with the result that a few people I know, who until yesterday were seriously considering voting Labour for the first time in their lives, are now just as seriously having second thoughts?

OK, but as usual I have raced ahead of myself slightly. For one thing, it is highly unlikely that any such PhD thesis (that's short for 'Pretty Huge... um... Dinosaur') will be carried out any time soon - or even any time at all - for the simple reason that... there are no students of political science at the University of Malta to begin with.

In fact there isn't even a course by that name on offer: which makes it simply impossible to obtain a degree (at any level) in political science from the University of Malta.

Oh OK, I am told there is some kind of 'diploma' course by that name, ensconced somewhere deep in the bowels of some other, largely unrelated faculty (Communications, or something equally irrelevant)... but nothing that actually qualifies anyone as an expert in that intricate science of how power is actually administered in any given system.

And this in turn explains so very, very much about everything that's wrong with our own political situation. It explains, for instance, why all those colourful brochures you will find in your letter-box today will provide all sorts of useful information - such as exactly where and at what time Mr So-and-So will be hosting a coffee morning for the residents of his constituency (very useful, of course, if you want to avoid accidentally bumping into Mr So-and-So and his coterie of canvassers and assorted henchmen). But they won't tell you what Mr So-and-So actually believes; what sort of political programme he (or his party) would implement if elected; nor will they answer that pivotal question: why is voting for this particular Mr So-and-So (as opposed to all the other So-and-So's who have also stuffed their own brochures under your door) such a good idea?

No, you will not find any of that information on any of the electioneering material currently in circulation... least of all the billboards, by the way, but I'll come to those is a short while... and, well, there was a time even a cynic like me used to find this strange.

It's a little like advertising a product, without giving any indication of what the product even is (still less whether it works or not, why you should want to own one, how much it costs, etc)... only with one crucial difference. If you tried to get people to part with their money with that sort of advert, the chances are (let's face it) you will fail.

Yet politicians do exactly the same thing... and oh look. Almost 100% of the population buys into their bullshit with great gusto every single time.

Like I said this used to mystify me somewhat. But not any more. After all, what's the point of trying to 'sell' your political vision, when: a) politics isn't even studied at University, which also means it is not considered something that merits further evaluation or explanation, and; b) you know from beforehand that everyone will buy your product anyway, without so much as asking what it even is?

Suddenly, from this perspective, it makes spectacular sense that a politician (or for that matt2er, a political party) would so egregiously expect unconditional support from an electorate without actually lifting a goddamn finger to earn it.

It also makes sense that the two main parties would unerringly evolve into such androgynous, featureless and spongiform entities, that you could literally switch their individual members around, and nobody would even bat an eyelid. How would people even notice, if they don't have any expectations of what a 'Liberal/Progressive' politician is expected to say, and how different it is meant to be from his or her 'Conservative' counterpart?

And that, I fear, is the mistake that may cost Labour dearly at the next election.

Right, now for that blasted billboard. Just this afternoon I was driving through what felt like the cataclysm prophesied by the Mayans for next week (though it turned out to be Msida circus during rush hour, and I was stuck behind a bendy-bus)... when I saw the entire pathology that is Malta's unholy political duopoly immortalized in one of the scariest images I had ever imagined.

You may have seen it also: on one side there's Gonzi with the words 'GONZIPN PROMISES'... on the other, Muscat with 'LABOUR DELIVERS'.

Sadly, somebody beat me to the obvious pastiche, and came out with his own photo-shopped version that had Gonzi as a chef, and Muscat as the pizza delivery boy. Funny? Oh yeah. Laughed my ass off, in fact... which might explain why I have difficulties sitting down all of a sudden.

But then, I stopped to think about the implications for a second... and my ass came crawling back of its own accord.

OK, let me try to frame the conundrum in the form of a rhetorical question. Excuse me, Joseph, but... who actually made that pizza you're delivering? You, or Gonzi? And what is your billboard trying to tell us... that it doesn't matter who wins the next election, because the same promises will be delivered anyway?

Doink! That awful moment when the penny drops, you realize it's your last one, and... ouch! It's just rolled down the nearest gutter. Or wait. Hang on, something just occurred to me. Maybe it's actually a little subliminal genius silently at work at the Stamperija. Maybe that was actually a Nationalist Party billboard telling me that their budget is so damn good - so very ingenious, and so nonchalantly generous with other people's money - that not even Labour will be able to resist delivering on its many, reckless and quite frankly economy-threatening promises.

Brrr! How scary is that? Either way, you can't really run away from the general idea that, by committing itself to delivering on the measures suggested in that budget document - and not just by means of that billboard, by the way; but by actual saying so in as many words: "We will implement the budget", for crying out loud - the Labour Party has actually reduced itself to an extension of the very Nationalist Party it is theoretically meant to oppose.

And this raises a couple of questions that would be unusual, if raised as part of a non-existent PhD Thesis in Political Science. If Labour plans to implement the Budget anyway: why does it also intend to vote against the same budget in parliament next week?

Oh, Ok, they have an answer to that one... because they are using the budget vote to signal their lack of confidence in 'GonziPN'. But this only modifies the question slightly: if Labour lacks confidence in GonziPN... why commit itself to making good on the same GonziPN's promises? What exactly is the message here? That it will implement measures even if it doesn't have faith in them? Or are they telling us that they have faith in the measures. but not in the people who came up with them... in which case: I'm sorry, but why mistrust the PN at all, if you're so impressed with its handiwork? 

Before going on, here is why I think Labour should vote AGAINST this irresponsible budget, and should certainly NOT implement its promises once elected. We're not Monaco, folks. Nor are we Switzerland, Las Vegas, or the Sultanate of Brunei. And no, we're not exactly the Emerald Forest, either... or that part of the Bible where the wolf gets jiggy with the lamb, and all that X-rated stuff.

No indeed. The reality is that we are a country with the GDP of a small agricultural community somewhere in the American Midwest... yet which has somehow managed to engineer a national debt of around €6 billion.

Yet last Wednesday's budget promised to increase government expenditure across the board, while simultaneously lowering tax revenue and 'formalising' previously illegal tax evasion strategies (I refer specifically to the changes to the succession duty law, which are perhaps better explained elsewhere).

And what is that, if not a carbon copy of the economic and fiscal strategy that so recently buried Greece and Spain under a landslide of debt?

Well, Labour intends to implement those measures. And of course so does the PN, if the wolf really does get jiggy with the lamb, and the age of miracles is thus rekindled once more.

And that really puts us all up excrement creek without a paddle, doesn't it? Because at this stage it doesn't actually make a difference if Labour or the Nationalists eventually win the election. Either way, the whole shithouse goes down in flames... and unlike Jim Morrison, we won't be able to afford getting any kicks.

Anyway: I will leave it to the economists to battle this one out, even though what little I've seen of their arguments so far does not exactly fill me with the sort of confidence Joseph Muscat now has for GonzPN's way of doing politics. There is, however, another complication of a less overtly economic (and more political) nature.

It works like this: if Joseph Muscat is willing to enact the Nationalist Party's electoral manifesto (for last Wednesday's exercise was precisely that, and not an annual budget presentation at all) then... excuse me, but why not just stick with the Nationalist Party? It's not as though Labour is offering anything different, now is it?

That last remark applies to more than just the budget, by the way. It did not escape notice that the Labour Party was the only European Socialist party to lobby for the PN's arch conservative Commissioner nominee earlier this month. Labour also helped the PN pass an outrageously conservative piece of legislation to regulate IVF, which (among other things) will ban sperm donation, embryo freezing and surrogacy, while simultaneously permitting (in exceptional cases, granted) the implantation of more than two embryos.

In other words, the resulting law is perfectly willing to increase health-risks to prospective mothers, simply to make sure that certain practices that are anathema to the Church will be off-limits to local practitioners.

Now: I can understand the PN legislating in this way. They're the ones with the 'Religio et Patria' motto, remember? But Labour? What interest could the Labour Party possibly have in restricting medical technology to the detriment of the patient, in order to curry favour with a religious lobby that frowns on the entire practice anyway?

I know it's a tired cliché - even though the original slogan was little short of genius - but every which way you look at it, the conclusion remains the same: 'Vote Joseph, get Lawrence'. And vice versa, of course. Now how's that for the basis of a horror movie?