Last Thursday, members of the press were “invited” to attend a “meeting” between Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and the Gift of Life lobby group at Castille. I received the invitation on Wednesday by e-mail, and immediately resolved that I would go.

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For you see, I suffer from a unique and apparently incurable medical condition. It's called “naivety”, and one of its symptoms is the overwhelming tendency to take people at their word... When I heard that our Prime Minister planned to “listen” to the people, and to “discuss” the issues, I mistakenly assumed that he might also take the opportunity to actually field a few questions from the press. So off I hastened to Castille Palace... and not only did I go there armed with a list of questions, but I made an exceptional effort to look like a human being, too. I mean, I even wore a tie, for heaven's sake... a fact which also explains why I eventually got there a little late (for, while it takes an ordinary human being a matter of minutes to put on a tie unaided, in my case it can take anything up to an hour-and-a-half.)

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Anyhow, this is how the meeting went. Members of Gift of Life informed the government of their intentions... which we all already knew anyway. For his part, Dr Gonzi replied with a suitably gushing speech in which he reminded us all that his government is “pro-life” – big surprise there – and... well... that was about the extent of it. Which is why, the speech over, I made the fatal mistake of raising my hand to ask a question.

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Judging by the reaction, I may as well have drawn a six-shooter from a holster at my hip, and emptied the magazine into the palace ceiling.

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Outside in the corridor, I was informed by a very irate OPM official that it is the “height of bad manners” to open one's mouth before the Prime Minister without instantly falling prostrate to the ground, and rolling one's tongue all over his boots. What was I thinking? That the media were invited so they can ask questions? Didn't I know that the only reason the media are permitted to exist at all, is so they can send their staff photographers, and turn these “meetings” into stage-managed photo opportunities for our politicians to be seen engaging in a little fake discussion?

So I suppose the real question is: how long will the Maltese media allow themselves to be used as accomplices in these little self-aggrandising political stunts? Don't all speak at once, I can't hear you properly...

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Anyhow: here are the questions that I would have liked to ask our Prime Minister... but was prevented by our national system of censorship called “protocol”.

Dr Gonzi: what is your selection criteria when it comes to listening to lobbyists?

Ok, never mind that the whole thing was an exercise in PR. Dr Gonzi nonetheless consented to meet a lobby group in Castille last Thursday. So I just have to ask: why this lobby group in particular? Why not any of the several hundred other lobby groups which also exist on the island, but whose existence has been routinely and categorically overlooked for all these years?

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For instance: lurking somewhere in Malta's liberal underground, there is a small group of individuals who once had a bright idea (no pun intended). Wouldn't it be nice, they mused, if Malta were to gradually change all its street lighting with a view to decreasing light pollution? This way, not only would we be able to see the occasional star above our heads at night... but we would also save money, as these non-pollutant lights cost a good less to run. I remember thinking when I read this: what a good idea. It is practical, it is feasible, it will make Malta look more beautiful, and hey! It will even save us a couple of thousand quid in the process.

Naturally, the proposal went straight into a waste paper basket in Castille... leaving the Light Pollution Awareness Group to bang their heads against the wall in the dark.

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Another group has for years now been petitioning for a “marine conservation zone.” Apart from the usual environmental arguments (biodiversity, etc.) there are tourism considerations, too. Apparently, dive tourists who come to Malta like to see the occasional fish alongside all the car tyres, rusty fridges and discarded toilet seats that apparently lie strewn all over the bottom of our coastal waters.

Needless to add, this lobby group has also failed in its endless attempts to persuade the government of the validity of its ideas. In fact, one of the campaigners sent me an e-mail not long ago. Sadly, I have since trashed it along with an entire inbox full of other random expressions of disillusionment and despair. But I remember the wording almost by heart. It went: “Why can't we have a marine conservation zone? Why, why, why, why, why?”

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I didn’t have the heart to write back with the answer: “Because there's nothing in it for the Nationalist Party, that's why.” Unlike the abortion proposal, a marine conservation zone would do little to bolster instant support among the PN's fundamentalist grass roots. It would not drive the Labour Party or AD into a politically difficult situation. Neither would it serve as “the mother of all smoke screens”, to conceal our Justice Minister's evident inability to effectively tackle any problem whatsoever (read: immigration, crime, drugs, etc.)

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But then, after years (if not decades) of persistently failing to listen to any lobby group or campaign whatsoever... along comes a small group of individuals under the name of “Gift of Life” (who are, at the end of the day, campaigning for something we already have anyway)... and, well, what do you know? The red carpet comes rolling down the steps of Castille, and suddenly our Prime Minister has ears the size of interstellar radars.

Which brings crashingly me to the next question:

Dr Gonzi: when are you going to tell these people that your government is actually exploiting them?

Never mind, I'll tell them. Dear Gift of Life people: have you not yet realised that there is a somewhat glaring discrepancy between the Constitutional amendment put forward by Justice Minister Tonio Borg, and the amendment you yourselves originally proposed last January? No? Then perhaps I'd better spell it out to you, hadn’t I.

Gift of Life: your original proposal was that our Constitution be amended to enshrine the general principle that “Life begins at conception”... (a view which, incidentally, enjoys the support of a staggering 96 per cent of the population). And yet, nowhere in the government's proposed amendment is this principle actually mentioned. Instead, all it does is transfer to the Constitution a law which has been languishing in the statute books for decades, but which has never been enforced.

So here is a question for the Gift of Life lobby group. Have you paused for even the tiniest of moments to consider why they did this? Have you asked yourselves why it is that your original proposal has been so thoroughly cannibalised, resulting in... this? An anomalous compromise, which will only saddle our Constitution with an unenforced and unenforceable law, while doing nothing to protect life in practice?

I'll leave you all to think about it, while I ask our PM another, totally unrelated question.

Dr Gonzi: how's the new IVF legislation coming along?

Ah, yes, in vitro fertilisation. Touchy subject, I know. For one thing, the Catholic Church does not approve. For another, neither does our National Commissioner for Children, Sonia Camilleri... who, being the wife of our National Commissioner for the Family, Andre Camilleri (a man who seems to think that assisted reproductive technology should be limited only to married couples who say the Rosary at least three times a week) has gone some distance towards confirming my darkest suspicions about the effects of the Gonzi administration on this country. In order to hold any form of public office, or to enjoy any kind of success in your career, you have to publicly proclaim yourself a Catholic hardliner.

But back to IVF. The technology is already available in Malta, as many previously childless couples can confirm. However, there is as yet no formal legislative framework within which it can operate... although I understand that the government (behind closed doors, and only after the room has been scanned for bugs) plans to “discuss” the issue soon.

What a coincidence, then, that this “discussion” will take place only after this precious amendment has been duly hammered into our Constitution. And what a coincidence, too, that the same “pro-life” clause fails so spectacularly to offer any form of protection whatsoever to human embryos which may be created outside the womb... for instance, in the course of IVF therapy... and whose termination cannot be described as “abortion”, because there never was a pregnancy to abort in the first place.

Seen from this angle... well, can anyone still be surprised that the government has so thoroughly resisted the demand to enshrine into our Constitution the principle that “life begins at conception”? Wouldn't that slam shut both the front door and the antiporta in the faces of the advocators of IVF?

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And there you have it. Looks like Gift of Life is not the only lobby group to have arrested our government's attention. For IVF, too, has its lobbyists... and these are not well-intentioned (if somewhat misguided) individuals on a mission from God. No, these are global bio-technology multinational giants, all willing to invest billions upon billions of euros to bring their precious technologies to a clinic near you.

So much, I suppose, for Tonio Borg's precious Constitutional amendment. After all, nothing like a few big-league, big-spending international lobby groups to alter one's views on the value of human life, now is there?