Labour in Government had to transform Malta from Whatever-It-Was into the “Best in Europe” before the intermission, then into the “Best in the World” after the intermission. The former was Joseph’s grandiose dream; the latter, Robert’s unfocussed attempt to outshine his predecessor.

Let’s see how this show unfolded.

Treating people like cattle I: public works

Labour takes everybody for granted. The Government not only seems clueless when it comes to project management – it also has a cavalier disregard toward people’s right to live serenely and plan their lives.

People understand that public works are a necessary nuisance. What people can’t understand is why the nuisance has to be so cumbersome. They can’t understand why the Government and its satellite entities don’t give two hoots about reducing the inconvenience caused by public works.

Just look at this photo taken on a site where public works are being carried out in Mosta. Apart from the failure to indicate the permit number, what really offends people is the absence of “Commencement Date” and “Duration of Project”. Don’t people have the right to know when the works are scheduled to be finished? Don’t people have the right to plan their lives?

Treating people like cattle II: traffic

Traffic management has become worse than a nightmare.

It has been made worse by the same lack of planning characterising public work projects. It’s compounded by the abundance of foreign taxi drivers, who either hail from left-hand-drive countries or else from chaotic, densely-populated countries where life has no value.

I’m not aware of any local study on the impact of marijuana use on driving. (If such a study does exist, I would be grateful if readers would draw my attention to it.) But I have looked up information published by foreign governments on this subject, and found what any reasonable person would expect. For example: “Marijuana use can impair important skills required for safe driving by: slowing your reaction time and ability to make decisions, impairing coordination, and distorting perception.”

This Government treats people like cattle. It feeds them grass, and then couldn’t care less about what comes next. What’s important is that, come election day, the herd votes Labour.

Denuding people of property value

True, Muscat managed to monetise airspace. One has to admit that he demonstrated insight – insight yes; foresight no.

Some people have made a killing, just by building additional floors in airspaces. But this was done at the expense of general aesthetics and neighbour rights.

Entire neighbourhoods have had their character scarred, probably for ever. Villa and maisonette neighbourhoods have been ruined with the mushrooming of apartments; ditto, townhouse areas.

Huge blank walls have sprouted wherever you look, which not only kill the beauty of the surroundings but also denude neighbours of light and air, and the view. The view enjoyed from the roof adds to the value of a house. When the view is taken away, I argue there’s an expropriation of sorts.

One could argue that these properties did not enjoy the easement of being protected from high-rise buildings (altius non tollendi). But I would counter-argue that people didn’t negotiate such easements because nobody could reasonably foresee Muscat’s crazy multi-floor revolution.

The shadows created by high-rise buildings also impacted people’s enjoyment of solar energy. Muscat’s revolution ignored this aspect – Muscat was all about short-term laissez-faire, not long-term holistic planning. In this too Abela is a faithful disciple.

Not to mention the reckless wastage of natural resources: structurally sound buildings were pulled down and most of the resulting rubble was dumped into the sea. It’s so reckless it’s almost criminal.

Medicines

I wonder how many medicines other EU citizens can acquire which we Maltese cannot. For instance, one can buy the 100mg dose of Cardioasprine in other EU Member States, but it’s not available over here. In Malta, you find 75mg but not 100.

I wonder whether that is the only instance – or whether the Maltese are denied access to the same range of medicines available in other EU Member States.

Justice denied

It’s not that we have many courts of law in this country. There’s a seat in Valletta and a minor one on Gozo; other countries have numerous. And yet, Malta manages to mismanage this sector. Just a few days ago, a judge took the authorities to task over numerous instances of mismanagement in the courts administration, indicating staff shortages as probably the number-one cause of delays.

We were promised the “Best in Europe”... the “Best in the World” even. And yet, the Government is unable to solve this problem.

In the light of no electricity supply...

In theory, if the Government did its job properly, this very small country of ours shouldn’t face power outages.

In practice, however, lack of foresight coupled with the authoritarian notion that people can be treated like cattle mean that we have to contend with a highly unreliable power distribution system.

All that was needed was the foresight to make the necessary investments to upgrade the system. Not only was this not done, but the Prime Minister had the gall to blame climate change! As if climate change is some bolt out of the blue! Scientists have been talking about climate change for decades. Greta Thunberg has been harassing us since 2015. Why has there been no investment in upgrading the system to counter climate change, if indeed the outages were due to this phenomenon?

We don’t need “No examination”

Even in education the “Best in Europe/World” Government is overseeing a decline in standards. Four out of every ten students have failed their O-Levels. I must admit I’m impressed by the Education Minister’s out-of-the-box thinking. Instead of coming up with a plan on how to improve teaching methods, this Minister – an alumnus of the Joseph Muscat Academy of Political Brightness – promised that the “government is working to change the way students are assessed, with less focus on exams”.

Genius!

This reminds me of Alitalia’s strategy to achieve punctuality. You’ll remember the quip that Alitalia was “Always Late In Take-off; Always Late In Arrival”. Alitalia couldn’t overcome its time management issues – so they made their flight durations longer on paper. A flight that previously took two hours now became two hours thirty minutes long. And hey presto!, Alitalia became the most punctual airline in the industry – on paper, that is, because in reality they still faced serious punctuality problems. I reckon Ryanair uses the same trick.

The Education Minister is now proposing the same stratagem. Candidates can’t pass exams. Therefore, let’s change the mode of assessment.

Connectivity

One of Malta’s perennial problems is its insularity. The British colonial administration did not really care much about this – ultimately, the Empire was also an Empire of Islands. Furthermore, an empire always looks at how to exploit its colonies, not at how to allow them to develop. This is the great evil of imperialism.

Upon attaining independence, we had every incentive in the world to reduce the connectivity problems deriving from our insularity. To my mind, there’s still a long way to go before we overcome this handicap. And, frankly, I’m not seeing how this phoney “Best in Europe”/“Best in the World” government is actually addressing the shortcoming. Transportation costs for raw materials and for manufactured goods remain exorbitantly high – even after 10 years of Labour at the helm.

Now, we’re also experiencing delays in inbound and outbound flights. Until August 6, only Moldova fared worse than Malta in Europe, and in the European Union Malta has had the highest number of inbound flight delays so far this year. Malta ranked second worst for outbound flight punctuality.

The connectivity handicap is also reflected in the very expensive postage system we’re saddled with. If a Maltese consumer places an online order to purchase an article from another EU Member State, he or she pays much more than consumers who live in other EU Member States. The Labour Government seems completely oblivious to this, and unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

Foreign affairs

Yeah, I know that this is a liberal government, but I don’t mean that type of “affair”. I’m talking about politics.

Again, Labour seems to labour under the impression that we are still a colony. When Malta still formed part of the British Empire we had a system – introduced in 1921 – called “diarchy”. The Maltese were responsible for internal affairs; “foreign affairs” were reserved to the imperial authorities. The present Government seems to be guided by a similar mind-frame.

I can see no vision in the way this Government is tackling foreign affairs. There seems to be a complete lack of interest in our international policies, in our role in the global economy, in a long-term plan for the Nation’s international profile.

Similarly, there is no discussion about our role in EU politics. The Government seems unaware of Poland’s ascent in the EU, say, or other developments in the bloc. Not only has Poland increased its military spending; it’s also working on a network of EU Member States that share, or are inspired by, its vision while arguing that its constitution supersedes EU Law. These are all extremely important developments for the EU. The recent local court judgment on article 6 of the Constitution and EU law supremacy might even be a reverberation of what’s going on intellectually in Poland. But the Government is sound asleep.

There is no discussion on how individuals and individual businesses can benefit from EU membership, apart from grants, no discussion on the brain drain, and no discussion on how to attract talent from other EU Member States.

It’s as if those were matters reserved to the Others, as if Government were guided by a child-like worldview in this sector.

Planning the future

The Government seems unable to plan the future. I don’t mean the future of the Party-in-Government, but the future of the Country.

I am not aware of any study on Malta’s carrying capacity.

I am not aware of any study on the fertility crisis our country is facing, on replacement levels, and on the implications of population substitution. If we are to keep our pension system going, we need more workers. If these workers are going to be imported from Third World countries we need studies to forecast the implications, the changes in power balances, the possible political tensions, the cultural shifts.

Instead, we are being flooded by foreign, third-world workers, who come here looking for El Dorado but instead find a society that has little sympathy for them. These are all time-bombs, but this incompetent Government is only concerned with internal party squabbles and petty power games.

Decline in standards

Many of the problems the country is facing are due to the relentless erosion of a sense of community. In part, this is the nihilist philosophy underlying globalisation. In part, it’s the result of ten years of Muscatism. The devil-may-care laissez-faire attitude ushered in by Muscat and passively nurtured by the clueless Abela, has eaten away at the social fabric of the country.

The country needs a return to political morality. I’m not talking about prudishness and “Puritanism”. I’m talking about a return to a sense of decency and honour in politics. And in society. We have to put the brakes on the decline in standards. We have to abandon Machiavellism in favour of political morality.