We need to again highlight their situation.
Many of the UK services pensioners who in the seventies decade of the previous century lost their job, have left us since. But a number are still with us.
They spent years insisting that the pension they worked for when in the service of the British government had been unfairly factored into an equation by which to reduce the pension due to them for other work they had done previously or later.
In between 1996 and 1998, we established a scheme by which over a period of three years, they would have achieved in full the two pensions they had worked for. Later, the Fenech Adami administration simply abrogated this arrangement.
Today, when the economy is growing strongly, it is proper that ex-UK services employees who are still with us be given satisfaction over at least a substantial part of their pension claims.
Such a measure would provide them with needed moral and material support.
***
Jobs in Malta
It makes sense to analyse in detail the employment scene in Malta. We know that it has been a long time since we had so many people in jobs and such a low level of unemployment; that the rate of female participation in the job market has been rising regularly though it still is well below the male participation rate; that Malta has a substantial number of foreign workers without this apparently affecting Maltese workers negatively; that precarious employment has continued to rise.
The labour market is passing through a dynamic growth phase that is generating quite some feel good. We should not however ignore the imbalances and deficiencies that the same positive dynamic is perhaps screening.
We get for instance the public complaints of employers who cannot find workers for workplaces they are offering that require academic and technical accomplishments, as well as for other openings which require no skills. And then there are Eurostat tabulations which show how the unit cost of labour is on average, decreasing here.
Without our noticing, today’s good fortune could be driving us towards tomorrow’s misfortunes. That’s why we need to analyse thoroughly the situation as it is.
***
Three Musketeers
I read it for the first time decades ago and have just revisited it. “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas is a top class historical romance. I had forgotten many of the zigzags in its story line; they came alive once more, despite the exaggerations which litter the plot as it unfolds. It’s also true that for some part of them all, the characters in the novel are made of cardboard. However, the action runs so fast that this almost never counts for much.
One problem is how to establish who the real “hero” is: The young d’Artagnan who arrives in Paris to join the King’s Musketeers? His friends the three musketeers? The Cardinal? I’m tempted to conclude that as he wrote, Dumas got so fascinated by Milady as a character, that effectively the novel got wrapped around her exploits. She is projected as “the devil”; how and why she became so, remains somewhat vague.
The scenes at the beginning and end of the novel are excellent.