How on earth can the MLP sustain its “Paint Malta Black” campaign in the face of one of Europe’s largest job creating enterprises? Smart City Malta is just that, it will not only create thousands of well-paid jobs in a clean environment, but it is being sited in the south of Malta, Labour’s traditional stronghold.

How can they be seen to genuinely welcome this project while continuing to rubbish such a massive foreign investment? This must have been the conundrum faced by the news staff at SuperOne. Someone had a brainwave, casting doubts about the actual percentage of ground being used for direct use by Tecom. This ploy will do as a stopgap measure, until the public realise the true extent of this development and the environmental embellishment that will surround it. Such false propaganda is fraught with danger. It will eventually hit them like a boomerang. They know full well the adage, attributed to Abraham Lincoln that, “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.

Soon enough, people will begin to realise that this is no ordinary investment; it will solve our problem, created by globalisation, of becoming uncompetitive in traditional manufacturing jobs. Our young people will have opportunities to work in a first world environment that were not available to them, unless they emigrated.

The transition from blue-collar employment, usually performing unskilled repetitive jobs, to middle class, white-collar office work, worries the MLP. They know that with unfettered access to university education, from which thousands are now benefiting instead of being limited to 600, as it was under previous Labour administrations, the social composition is changing perceptively away from the Labour Party’s core support. This, coupled with the disarray so evident in the GWU, gives them a lot to ponder about. Their euphoria of thinking that they cannot possibly lose the next election is fast dissipating.

When more new roads are built and the new hospital becomes operational, Smart City will become the cherry that might choke the MLP Jeremiahs. They know that while they were wasting their time tossing muck about and busy painting the town black, the government got on with its work of job creation, improving education, caring for the sick, and the young and elderly. On the other hand, Dr Sant seems to be unable to avoid one blunder after another. His latest is the MLP response to the pensions reform. They must know that the public who elected them expect them to participate seriously in the pursuit of a sustainable pension scheme; all Dr Sant could offer was procrastination.

It is no surprise that people are already saying that the MLP will have to get used to being pipped at the post.



David Agius

www.davidagius.org