The saga of the market stalls continues. Except that it doesn’t. They were supposed to be there in and around parliament house already, but they aren’t. At first the government blamed the redesign of the stalls, which is taking longer than expected (apparently) because it’s so very difficult to design a market stall. And now they blame their failing efforts at trying to squash all 75 stalls into that bit of Ordnance Street near King Shoe Store and the Ordnance Pub. Of course their efforts are failing: it’s impossible to fit them all into that small area. But then whose fault is this in the first place?

It’s easy to see what’s going on here. Back before the general election, when they promised the market traders that they would allow them to drape themselves all around parliament house, the Labour Party was in full spite mode. Joseph Muscat and his band of brigands really did believe their own propaganda that parliament house was an ugly thing, a waste of money, a pointless extravagance, a cheese-grater with a roofless theatre attached. Remember the hysteria, the hyperbole, the quacking and squeaking, the hyperventilating on Facebook? It seems so long ago, doesn’t it?

That was then and this is now. Now, parliament house is built; it looks grand, very impressive. People are crowding in to look. They’re taking photographs. The photographs elicit oohs and aahs on social media. And Joseph Muscat is thrilled to bits with it. So are his people. They’re excited. You can tell. Anglu Farrugia is practically shimmering and glowing at the thrill of getting to be the first ever Speaker in Malta’s first ever parliament house, and such a good-looking one too (parliament house, that is, not the Speaker).

Now that they like it, now that they feel ownership of it, they don’t want the market stalls dragging it down and bringing them down with it. It’s suddenly clicked with Labour: that gluing the market stalls to parliament house will not be an act of spite towards Renzo Piano and That Dictator Gonzi u dawktal-PN, but an insult to themselves. Neither Lawrence Gonzi nor Renzo Piano are members of parliament.

Parliament house is where members of parliament meet. The disparagement of parliament house is the disparagement of those who meet inside it – and that means them. Too late, they have realised that they are the ones who will be meeting among the bras and knickers, the nylon leggings, the yells and the jostling. So there they are now, hoist by their own petard.

Now, they want security around parliament. They want police. They want an air of grandeur, of importance and drama. It’s dawned on them, too late, that if they stuff the street between the theatre and parliament house with market stalls, they will have to push their way through them to get to parliament in the morning because their parking area is going to be near the Central Bank.

So how is the government going to wriggle its way out of this one? Perhaps it should convene its very best consultants – Shiv Nair, Paul Pace, John ‘Bahamas’ Dalli, Sai Laing Mizzi, Willie Mangion and Joe ‘Special Envoy’ Grima – for a Big Brainstorming Session. Such clever and imaginative people are bound to come up with the goods.

Meanwhile, prepare yourselves for the opening ceremony of the cheese-grater on Monday. I hope they have invited its greatest critics, who are also the government’s greatest admirers. Surely that’s not a coincidence. Execrable taste, I would say, in both instances.

 

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