While Net TV is busy trying to stir things up by poking microphones in the faces of Labour politicians, asking them what they thought of Jason Micallef’s resignation, most people I know have given up trying to keep up with all these political shenanigans altogether.

Do they care that Marisa Micallef is now in the Labour fold? The response by many of them is a puzzled, Marisa who?

Those of us who work in the media and are immersed up to our ears in news and current events all day long tend to forget that there is another world out there – a world where people have simply turned off and logged out, especially when it comes to local politics.

They are alienated, indifferent and apathetic and prefer escaping into the television stations of other countries rather than having to deal with what’s happening here, where nothing ever changes, the country never improves and their voice does not count.

Without a moment’s hesitation they can tell you who is winning on Rai Uno’s X Factor, what Berlusconi is up to, and about the latest swine flu

statistics in the UK.

But if you ask them what they think about the Nationalist backbenchers who are openly voicing their disagreement with Lawrence Gonzi, they will look at you blankly. At most they will scowl and mutter “who gives a ...”

A human-interest story in Malta will capture their interest (such as the woman who has forgiven her ex-boyfriend for killing her mother), but anything labelled Nationalist or Labour will make them switch off.

I remember a time when I was like that myself, so I cannot really blame them. It’s easy to switch off really if you want to – just don’t watch Maltese TV, don’t read the papers and don’t hang around anyone who talks politics. I can see the advantages. Soon you become blissfully unaware of all the hogwash and hot air and you can just float through life not caring whether they all end up killing each other in a back alley like those two rival street gangs in West Side Story.

If you remove the chunk of political fanatics, canvassers and assorted hangers-on who stand to gain something if “their” party wins, you have a swathe of people who have become as indifferent to Maltese politics as they are to what happens in Indonesia. Who can blame them really, when we keep going round and round in circles, and Malta is still stuck in a quagmire of inefficiency, cross-party squabbling and dire shabbiness?

The country is so dysfunctional that when something governmental actually works as it’s supposed to, we are astonished.

There is an upside to this of course. So many people have become disenchanted that they cannot even be bothered to argue about politics as heatedly as they used to. A few former Labour and Nationalist supporters have even been known to share a beer. To them, both sides are the same, no party is offering them anything concrete and all the clichés and slogans have worn so thin you can see right through them.

The real tragedy is that in this eternal tug of war over who will govern Malta, we seem to be doomed to live in a country where we pay exorbitant taxes surrounded by Third World infrastructure.

Father knows best... if you

can find him

It’s no surprise that the priority of the average family is not petty politics but how to find a work-life balance, how they’re going to pay their bills and how they are going to save up for their kids’ future (assuming they can afford to have kids in the first place).

So it is pretty easy to understand why John Dalli’s hand-wringing and plaintive cry of “what should we do?” about all these teenage mothers claiming “father unknown” has been met with such an outcry by those who see their hard-earned taxes being squandered on other people’s “mistakes”.

I think the last straw was when he mentioned something about a think tank. The collective groan could be heard around the country and was finally released, as it tends to be these days, over the Internet.

I hope Mr Dalli has someone briefing him about what people are saying online, because he can dispense with his silly idea of a think tank and find all his answers right there. Most of the solutions put forward were just a matter of common sense, even if a few were downright drastic (“No father, no benefits”, one ruthless reader recommended).

The one I tend to agree with the most is the “benefits for one child only” rule. We can all make mistakes, yes, and the child should not suffer for the parent’s lack of judgment, but when the same unmarried mother starts presenting herself in front of Social Services for handouts with baby No. 2 and baby No. 3 in tow (with no fathers in sight), well, then this goes beyond social justice.

If a teenage mother is bluntly told that she will only be entitled to benefits for one child with “father unknown” on his birth certificate, the word will soon spread that Papa Government is no longer issuing cash for babies. It is obvious from the statistics that the system has became way too lax and that there are no deterrents to make young girls think twice about getting pregnant by a guy who may or may not stick around.

Keep your knees together, or use contraception

Watching Miriam Dalli’s first edition of TX this season on this same topic, there was the inevitable clash between Catholic and secular thinking on the use of contraceptives.

Of course, I expected Fr Savio, speaking in the name of the Church, to advocate total abstinence as the only foolproof way to avoid pregnancies and STDs.

On the other hand, the Church’s stance against contraceptives would hold more water if people were still having 10 or 12 babies per family.

The irony is too rich: those who should be using contraceptives (teenagers) aren’t, while those who technically shouldn’t have to (married couples), are making darn sure they don’t get pregnant EVER AGAIN.

I find it hard to believe that the only method they’re using is the Church-approved natural rhythm method or – as someone I know likes to call it – Russian roulette.

About time too

I heard Peppi Azzopardi speaking on a breakfast show this week about his favourite topic: how politicians are on a mission and how the public do not appreciate what they do for the country, blah, blah, blah.

I, on the other hand, say that politicians are getting their just desserts. After decades of looking at their constituents in terms of the number of votes that can be used and manipulated to give them that coveted, powerful seat, MPs are finally realising that the electorate is no longer as in awe of them as it used to be.

There’s hope for us yet.

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