Where have all the red flags gone?

A friend of mine, commenting on the aesthetic and cosmetic makeover that the Labour Party has undergone under Joseph Muscat, told me that nowadays one never sees any red-frocked peroxide blondes (loaded with gold bracelets) mobbing the Labour leader. Anyone who recalls the KMB and the Alfred Sant days know that this was a very common scene during electoral campaigns.

The big 2013 election campaign question is how Muscat has controlled the red flag wielding crowd at bay and is always seen surrounded with educated young people and whether all this is just a temporary campaign stance that will disappear when the socialist mob takes over again after a Labour electoral victory.

The retort to all this is that if one considers that the PN took eight years to reform itself after Mintoff's 1971 electoral victory, people are not justified when they react with incredulity to the idea that Labour has taken 25 years to reform itself, as if this could never happen.

Some aspects about Joseph Muscat's Labour that stuck out this week are yet another indication that the change might be more than cosmetic, after all. One is Labour's reaction to accusations - sparked off by Anglu Farrugia's interview on The Sunday Times - that it is cosying up too much to big business. According to Farrugia - who obviously has an axe to grind - several people who wield power in Malta were getting too close to Labour. Labour insists that its 'movement' is a coalition of workers and employers and there are a large number of businessmen who feel betrayed by the PN and who are now in this movement because they want to have a chance of moving ahead in a level playing field.

The PN reaction to all this is patently hypocritical. How can the PN adopt a stance of 'shock and disgust' at this new Labour way of doing things when in the past it accepted money from big business fed up with the Mintoffian policies that stifled all their initiatives? How can it be wrong for big business to support Joseph Muscat when two successive PN general secretaries are known to have taken holidays on the yacht of a well-known Nationalist entrepreneur and the Minister of Finance is known to have hitched a ride on a private plane to go and see a football match in Spain, with the 'lift' being given by courtesy of big businessmen? The contradictory message is that there is nothing wrong for big businessmen to support the PN but 'contractors' supporting Labour is an abomination. I cannot understand how the PN do not realise that all this loose talk about Muscat being at the beck and call of contractors - as if contractors are the devil incarnate - is continuing to alienate businessmen from the PN and is therefore a tactic that can dangerously backfire during the election campaign. 

Tony Blair, whom Muscat tries to emulate, was known to regularly hold breakfast meetings at 10 Downing Street with leaders of the City's financial institutions. On a particular occasion,  The Architects' Journal had run a story claiming that in one such meeting the insurance giant, Swiss Re, had complained about the delays with the processing of the building permit for its now famous 'Gherkin' and that Blair had replied he would see what he could do. Are these the sort of 'pleasures' that are yet to come if Muscat becomes Prime Minister?

And can Prime Minister Gonzi say that he was never lobbied for a building permit? Being lobbied is one thing; succumbing to undue pressure is another. Is Muscat being accused of succumbing to undue pressure even when he is still Leader of the Opposition? Whether there is a basis for this serious accusation (that Muscat denies) or whether the PN is simply touting innuendos as part of its scaremongering tactics is a moot point.

But it is not only the red flags and the red-frocked peroxide blondes that have disappeared from the Labour scenario. The term 'workers' movement' no longer figures in Labour's new language. Remember that movement made up of the MLP and the GWU tandem? Apparently it is dead and buried with 'employers' being considered as part of Joseph Muscat's 'movement' as much as 'workers' are!

This week, Labour has finally published its impressive electoral programme during an extraordinary General Conference in which the audience was swathed in blue light and Joseph Muscat spoke against a blue background while sporting a sky-blue tie.

My initial reaction to the extensive document - described by Muscat as a roadmap for economic growth, and containing 837 proposals spread over 20 chapters - is that Muscat is attempting to bite off more than he can chew, and that his commitment to do all he is promising to do in five years is not realistic. Even so, there are an amount of proposals that are very similar to ones in the PN electoral programme.

Muscat has no experience in administration and this, perhaps, may make him think that he will not encounter any problems with doing things that look easy on paper. However, he practically admitted that delivering the goods promised in his party's electoral manifesto (Labour still uses that word!) is a daunting task, when he announced that, once in government, he will be giving Deputy Leader Louis Grech the task of coordinating its implementation.

Comparing this manifesto with the skimpy GWU document in which the union put forward its proposals to the political parties is an interesting exercise, because it exposes the incredible ideological chasm between the mentality of Joseph Muscat and that of the GWU.

Speaking during a special session of the National Council of the GWU that met recently to discuss its document outlining its proposals to political parties, Tony Zarb, the union's General Secretary, said that the new government elected on 9 March will have to make amends for the injustices suffered by workers at the hands of the current administration. He insisted that the new government should reverse the decision on public holidays falling on a weekend and also expressed his hope that the Labour will take adopt more of its proposals.

Tony Zarb's speech was followed by Joseph Muscat, who ignored Zarb's pleas and simply said that Labour is only making realistic pledges while reiterating that Labour's plans are feasible and not overly optimistic. The plot thickened last Thursday, when the PN released a recording in which Tony Zarb was heard hinting that the union can influence the government tendering process if Labour is elected to power. Reacting to this story, Joseph Muscat disowned Zarb's words by unambiguously declaring that no one has the right to speak on behalf of the new (Labour) government.

Has Tony Zarb, and those whom he stands for, been abandoned and left alone practising his Marxist rhetoric and bragging of his political connections to no avail?

Only time will tell.