The Joseph Muscat au pair service

Some headlines have become famous because they are actually ingenious works of sub-editor art in their own right. ‘NUT SCREWS WASHERS AND BOLTS’, for instance, was about a patient who had escaped from a mental hospital, raped several women in a laundromat, and then fled before the police arrived at the scene.

Others are noteworthy because they inform you of things you would almost certainly never have been able to work out for yourself. Things like (these are all real headlines, by the way): ‘STATISTICS SHOW THAT TEEN PREGNANCIES DROP OFF SIGNIFICANTLY AFTER AGE 25’… or… ‘KANGAROOS WITH LONGER LEGS JUMP FURTHER, STUDY FINDS’… or… ‘EXPOSURE TO LOWER TEMPERATURES INCREASES RISK OF CATCHING COLD’… and most famous of them all… ‘DIANA WAS STILL ALIVE HOURS BEFORE SHE DIED’.

The funnier ones tend to involve unfortunate (but rather revealing) misunderstandings: ‘TIGER WOODS PLAYS WITH OWN BALLS, NIKE SAYS’… Yeah, well, he wood, wooden he?... ‘MARIJUANA ISSUE SENT TO JOINT COMMITTEE’. High time, too. Or how about: ‘REPUBLICANS TURNED OFF BY SIZE OF OBAMA’S PACKAGE’? And hey! That was before they saw the motion of Michelle’s ocean…

My favourite, however, remains this beauty: ‘GIRLS’ SCHOOLS STILL OFFER SOMETHING SPECIAL – HEAD’.

Yes, that would explain why so many people still favour gender segregation in schools….

But then, there are those headlines which strike you because are just… well… weird: ‘STEPHEN KING IMPERSONATOR STEALS 500 LOBSTERS’; or ‘RECTOR WITH CROWBAR SEEKS TO LAY NUN’S GHOST’; or ‘FENCE NOT KEEPING DEER FROM WALTZING’; or ‘’POLITICAL LEADERS PARADE WIVES AND GIRLDFRIENDS ON XARABANK’. You know, stuff that just doesn’t make an iota of sense whichever way you choose to look at it.

In any case, the one that did it for me this week was… ‘KONRAD MIZZI MOST TRUSTED NANNY’.

Huh? What? Come again? Now that’s a sudden career change I hadn’t heard about. Things must be going hard in the Mizzi household, if the energy minister now feels he has to supplement his income by doing a little au pair work on the side. (Either that, or there’s something kind of sinister about the ‘fee childcare for all’ policy that we never really knew about before…)

Still, it’s refreshing to hear that Konrad Mizzi is actually considered good at his new job: so good, in fact, that he emerges in a nationwide survey as the Muscat cabinet’s most trusted keeper of other people’s children. And let’s face it: who wouldn’t trust Mizzi with his or her children? This is, after all, the same Konrad Mizzi we all trusted to build a new power station in Marsaxlokk (Remember? The one that was supposed to be up and running by March, but which will actually start functioning in July – assuming there are no further delays)? So he’s not exactly the type who would do anything rash or unpredictable… like, say, sell off your kids to the Chinese at the first opportunity, and then claim to have solved all your household budgetary problems to the bargain.

No, indeed. You can trust Mizzi to always do the responsible thing.

Having said that: I rather hope, for the sake of those children, that he doesn’t import too many of his old work habits with him to the new role. Raising kids and reforming Enemalta are not exactly interchangeable, you know. I mean, a six-month delay in finalising a power station contract is one thing. A six-month delay in giving someone else’s baby its bottle, on the other hand, is kind of asking for trouble.

Then again, I suppose it depends on the age of the children. With young teenagers it could work out swimmingly: “What time are we allowed to stay up to?” “Oh, until any time around next June…” Yes, I can see that working wonders at the Konrad Mizzi Daycare Centre….

But that’s the trouble with odd or whacky headlines. They get you to read the story, and suddenly a whole new dimension swims into view. It turns out that the headline left out a small but rather important detail (inevitably, I might add. It is pointless putting the whole story into a headline – there’d be nothing left to read).

It turns out that Mizzi is the Cabinet minister most Maltese would trust as a nanny, yes; but his actual trust rating is… 13%. And for all we know, that could just as easily mean that 87% would sooner entrust their progeny to the care of Charles Manson or Hannibal Lecter. Certainly, it means a large majority would not trust the present government with their children for one evening.  And suddenly, things start looking a little less hopeful.

What, the entire Cabinet of Ministers – the largest this country has ever seen – and not a single one could muster more than 13% in the scale of trustworthiness as a babysitter? Crikey. Houston we have a problem, and all that. This is after all the administration we trusted to run the entire country… less than two years ago. And who’s going to live in this country, if not the same children you’d rather keep at home? Like it or not, those children are already in the government’s care. So perhaps it’s time we all started learning to be a little more…  well… trusting with this much maligned minority in our midst.

Konrad Mizzi, as we already know, is the most trusted of the lot. But surely other Cabinet ministers deserve slightly higher rankings than the… oh, dear…. 1.7% scored by transport minister Joe Mizzi, for instance?

Come on, Joe Mizzi definitely deserves a chance to babysit your kids for an evening or two. Just look at the miracles he has managed to work In only two years in his ministerial portfolio. He took over the public transport reform, and… kazaam! All the buses suddenly turned from orange to white, without any other noticeable change to the service. Just think what he’d do with all your babies’ soiled nappies. That irritating blue hippopotamus? He’d be out a job in no time at all…

And what about Edward Scicluna? He’s been spoon-feeding the entire country its election results for the past 30 years. You’d think he’d know a thing or two about shovelling a little Gerber down a toddler’s throat. And don’t forget: he also spoon-fed us the last Budget… over four whole hours! Can you imagine him doing the bedtime story telling? They’d have to get Peter Jackson to serialise his version of the ‘Budget Grimm’, and turn it into an epic, six-movie franchise….

But if you ask me, the biggest surprise in that survey was former home affairs and national security minister Manuel Mallia. What, only 3.7% of you would engage him as a babysitter? You must be bonkers. He’s the most trustworthy of the lot by a clear mile. Think about for a second. Your kids would have an armed bodyguard escort at all times… and if anyone so much as bumps into their pushchair’s side-mirror: boy, oh, boy. They’ll  also get to watch a fireworks display for free…

And in case you’re worried that all this excitement might be harmful to your children’s health… never fear. First of all, it’s not as though firing guns in public places is actually dangerous, anyway. Just look at the USA. Happens in schools every other week, and they don’t do anything about their gun laws, now do they? So there: clearly, it’s as safe as houses. And besides, in the unlikely event that anything bad does happen to your child: Mallia will eventually be forced to take political responsibility for it, you know. After around three weeks. All’s well that ends well, and all that...

So enough with all this mistrustfulness, you sceptical nation, you. It’s Christmas, and I’m sure you’ve all got parties and drinks and dinners and things to abandon your kids for over the next few weeks. What are you waiting for? Show a little faith. Dial the Joseph Muscat au pair service… NOW!