So employment is up by 2.1 % over this time last year and ratings agency Fitch has reaffirmed Malta’s stable outlook, AAA country ceiling and currency issuer default rating at A+

And we have to listen to that Super One hack in his black suit, cufflinks and open-neck shirt, harangue his crowd of social benefits leeches and ladies with falsies, waving their strange mix of old and new Malta Labour Party flags, about not being afraid of going to hell on the 100% state matter of homosexuals entering into the very contractual relationship which so many others wish to avoid.

Once more, it’s down the rabbit-hole and into Wonderland, where all is not what it seems and the White Rabbit dashes past on his way to tea with the Queen of Hearts, who would have baked some tarts had most of them not been bouncing around at Ta’ Qali last Saturday rooting for Joseph, Joseph. Well, it takes all sorts, I suppose, but you can’t really expect the kind of people I see jammed up at the front of Malta Labour Party mass meetings to give two hoots about stability, triple A ratings, or good old Fitch. And it’s pointless telling them that employment is on the up, if Joseph tells them that dan il-gvern qeridna and that is what they want to hear.

The warning bells are ringing and all this talk of Mintoffian economics, by Super One Joseph and his old-time, old-style, 1970s-era ekonomisti should be lighting up the red bulbs in the minds of all those who actually have one. “The rating affirmation reflects Fitch’s view that Malta will maintain a general government primary budget surplus in 2012-2014. This would put public debt on a declining path from 2013,” Fitch said in a statement. “This implies that the incumbent government will take necessary action to ensure that the budget deficit remains below 3% of GDP this year and that any new government emerging from the elections will set out a credible multi-year fiscal consolidation programme that incorporates the impact of ageing.”

There you have it. The rival contender for the role of new government doesn’t even have an electoral programme, let alone a ‘credible multi-year fiscal consolidation programme’. That isn’t the sort of thing you can organise or plan by a show of hands (the 21st-century equivalent of pitchforks) at some farcical kungress. “This congress agrees that we will have jobs in Gozo for people who live in Gozo.”

Indeed – if life were that simple, then all any prime minister would have to do is point his magic wand and say ‘Let there be jobs.’ How long is the Labour Party going to carry on making a mockery of the concept of government? Every time they come in and have a go, it takes us years to recover. The two political parties are spectacularly different to each other in terms of attitude, ability, competence and fitness for purpose. The problem, the true danger, lies in the fact that there are legions of thoroughly uninformed electors who are literally unable to work out that difference, and then there are the ones who – and this defies belief – actually do think that a hopeless case plucked out of the Super One newsroom, with about as much depth as a puddle of rainwater, though plenty of smug self-satisfaction, will do a great job of running the country. If that were really the case, then you might as well walk into any old office and pluck some hapless individual from behind his desk, then tell him to have a go, and not to worry because Karmenu Vella will help him.

“The agency’s baseline assumes that the government will pass the budget and that there will not be early elections,” Fitch said. “However, its parliamentary majority is fragile and there is a risk that the budget will not pass. In the event of early elections, the fiscal slippage is likely to be wider than Fitch’s baseline. A fiscal slippage within 3% of GDP would be within the tolerance of the rating. A higher fiscal deficit could cause public debt to reach 76% of GDP in 2012.”

Well, there are only two nasty little men who can bring about this turn of affairs that we really don’t need right now (and when I say ‘we’, I mean Malta). They know who they are and so do we. Both of them are continuously being provoked and goaded by the Malta Labour Party into doing its bidding. One of them is out to lunch with Labour and has done its bidding several times already. The other one should have stuck to raising cockerels because his horizons do not extend beyond his village and the capital city where he plies his trade.

I imagine it will be yet another Maltese tragedy of spite, envy and ignorance: a thorough-going Lanzit Fest.