So what’s new about it?

About five years ago I was enjoying a beer with a friend in a bar in my village, when he came out with the following assertion: “Bloody politics! What passes for politics in this country is broken, knackered… finished.”

Isaid nothing because he was obviously about to elucidate. He did: “It’s the twoparty thing that’s to blame. There is this insular mindset here, where you are either with Labour or the Nats, nobody else gets a sniff. So, I have it in mind to form a completely new party that would blow the whole system out of the water and change the way we think about politics.”

I again said nothing, but I could have said: “Dream on… and what makes you think you’ll have any more success than all the other altruistic but misguided patsies who have tried that – unsuccessfully – so many times before you?”

My friend was convinced that if someone (he meant himself) came up with the right policies, the Maltese public would rally round them and dump the present incumbents out of the local political scene for good. No chance! I thought. However I had to admit, his enthusiasm was infectious and started me thinking. Are we really so entrenched in our ways of thinking that a well constructed new political party wouldn’t indeed be what we really need to shake things up for the greater good of everyone?

At the time that my friend and I had this conversation, we in Malta were mired in those infamous Panama papers and other mega corruption scandals, so an overhaul of the whole political structure would not only have been timely, it was seen by many as essential. Labour were the party in government, so they were far and away the most in need of reform or, as my friend put it, abolition. But the Opposition too had had its own share of scandals, so the time could be right for wholesale change. And we all know what happened, don’t we… bugger all!

In 2017 the PL were re-elected with another huge majority and everything stayed the same. The Maltese electorate simply held their collective nose and plumped for the man voted the most corrupt on the planet and his merry band of cohorts.

My friend reasoned that to form a political party based on strong moral principles would be a complete waste of time. No, in order to get elected into government his new faction would have to appeal to the baser instincts of the electorate. Promise them anything – (OK so that’s kind of what’s happening already) – but be quite up front and blatant about it. “Vote for us and we’ll make all of you into millionaires!” That sort of crap.

But he didn’t stop there: “The population have become greedy. I mean, look at what’s happening with all the dreadful building development getting sanctioned by MEPA. We would have to feed that greed. Make the people believe that if they vote for us they really will become rich.” The obvious question: How do you propose to pay for all this largesse? He had an answer for this too: “Not difficult. There is a hell of a lot of money in this small island; but it’s owned by just a few people. Gather them together and tell them that they are each going to make a donation of €1,000,000. This will be voluntary… but if they refuse… watch out!” He called it Mintoffian diplomacy. And I think I know what he meant.