“I remember many years ago on a visit to Sicily, my host introduced me to the hotel receptionist as an ‘onorevole’, a title that some strangely seem to crave here. If my host thought he was doing me a favour, he was quickly confounded. The cheeky answer was ‘noi siamo tutti onorevoli’, a reference to the prolific use of titles in the Italian/Sicilian culture. I was handed the key to my room and that was that; but I couldn’t help laughing over the incident, more so because in Malta we are familiar with the Italian love for show and status and, rather strangely, like to think that we are different”

The only real honour a politician should aspire to is to be remembered for the good he left behind him, and sadly that is not an easy category to join.

U-turns are remarkably common in politics, but in the UK at least, John Prescott’s entry into the House of Lords will be a hard turn to beat. The old Labour war-horse, the republican and fervent union man who prided himself on his working-class background, who was a class warrior forever ranting against those he considered as privileged, which included the Monarchy and the membership of the House of Lords, has not hesitated to adopt the lifestyle of those he derided all his life once he could afford it. The two-Jag man, so-called because he owned a jaguar and used another one as his official car, is now officially Baron Prescott of Kingston-upon-Hull, a member of an institution for whose abolition he once campaigned. That he did not dare publish the official picture of himself wrapped in the traditional scarlet and ermine robes of the Lords says a lot.

Of course he will find congenial company in the Lords. It is a known fact that some in that August Chamber paid huge sums for the honour of sitting there. Well the truth is that there is more than honour at stake, for the financial Lords wanted the title more to push their business interests then to debate the laws of the land. In fact some hardly ever attend and at the moment the question being asked is whether people sitting in the House of Lords should be resident in the UK and pay tax there rather than living in tax havens abroad and occasionally condescend to do their duty in the House. People are actually asking whether in this instance, they should be allowed to be members of the Upper House at all!

This underscores the fact that undoubtedly there are those who go into politics for reasons other than the furthering of their country’s interests. The British are learning, and they may be among the last people to do so, that the old idea of serving ones country first and foremost is no longer valid. In the days of party democracies, the considered duty of every politician is to serve the interests of the party. It is inside the party that decisions are reached and Parliament really ought to be called by a different name for it is no longer the debating chamber of free spirits it once was. No wonder so many MPs see time there as time wasted.

The devil is still at work

Lord Mandelson, the aptly named Prince of Darkness, is publishing his memoirs. He paints a clear picture of the last days of Labour in government, saddled with a Prime Minister that the nation no longer wanted. The needs of the party and Mandelson’s own private agenda – for by propping up Gordon Brown he was propping up himself as his chief advisor – dictated that it was better to drown with Brown at the helm then try and win without him and risk the party splitting up. Brown was not willing to commit hara-kiri and we all know the end result of that decision.

Perhaps this explains why so many politicians are eager to plant monuments and busts and portraits of themselves all over the place. Some, like Prescott, are actually in love with the titles and the power that they hanker for. They yearn for honours that at some point in their lives looked so unattainable that they actually wanted to abolish what they felt they couldn’t ever get their hands on. Communism pretended to look upon all men as equal, but the word comrade was as good a title as any aristocratic one. The only real honour a politician should aspire to is to be remembered for the good he left behind him, and sadly that is not an easy category to join.

The onorevoli and others

I remember many years ago on a visit to Sicily, my host introduced me to the hotel receptionist as an onorevole, a title that some strangely seem to crave here. If my host thought he was doing me a favour, he was quickly confounded. The cheeky answer was noi siamo tutti onorevoli, a reference to the prolific use of titles in the Italian/Sicilian culture. I was handed the key to my room and that was that; but I couldn’t help laughing over the incident, more so because in Malta we are familiar with the Italian love for show and status and, rather strangely, like to think that we are different.

I attended Shakespeare Revisited by the MADC at Palazzo Parisio; it was a very pleasant night of Shakespearian lollipops that took me back to my school days. One of the items was the gulling of Malvolio from Twelfth Night. I couldn’t help thinking that not only does basic humanity not change much; it never changes at all. That is the tremendous appeal of the Bard who wrote so eloquently about what drives humanity. The language has changed but the problems and the challenges that assail us in each era and our individual response to them haven’t. So, an episode which sees Maria, the lady’s maid, setting her cap at a drunken knight with an eye to social advancement while at the same time ridiculing Malvolio for daring to think he could do the same by marrying his mistress, is extremely instructive.

Henry V is upset on the eve of battle to hear that some of his soldiers blame his ambition for the death and mutilation they might suffer. Does Tony Blair feel any pangs of conscience for taking the country to war in Iraq and Afghanistan? We’ll see what his coming memoirs will tell us, but nobody should expect much. Caesar is murdered by an idealist, Brutus, who is recruited by men driven more by ambition than idealism. Yet at the end it is Brutus who is acknowledged as the noblest Roman of them all.

There are many Malvolios and Marias among us and John Prescotts ditching of principle for personal aggrandisement at the end of his political career is not the first of its kind and will not be the last either. There will be many who will applaud his pragmatism; as it is called.