Funding Fundamentals

For my sins and for want of anything better to do in this snowstorm ridden evening I watched tonight’s edition of Bondi+. It’s been harder than usual getting down to write posts at the usual pace . There’s something about this campaign that is mind-numbing and I think that it is a combination of campaign fatigue and the shock of being constantly barraged with quips and propaganda that insult the average man’s intelligence.

I don’t know what Beppe (Fenech Adami) and Chris (Cardona) were supposed to be talking about and I suspect that Lou Bondi more than half hoped that the programme would be juicily concentrated on that new Nationalist protege and star Anglu Farrugia. Poor Anglu cannot help still being a political football and his repartees at Joseph Muscat have provided new fodder to the cliche-ridden PN campaign insofar as jibes at the Labour camp are concerned. What the two (and later three with the arrival of Arnold) did end up talking about was party financing and the links that each party has to big business.

Idiots – that’s you the voters – are supposed to be carefully measuring the different proofs of liaisons that each party has with big business and throwing onto their homemade scales the various calculations as to who spent how much and where the money has come. Idiots (that’s still you) will then be expected to vote for the lesser evil. That, I guess (but I’m no idiot myself), will be the one with less ties to business and less I.O.U.’s hanging around in the pockets of various contractors and other men who can practically foot a blank cheque in times of need.

You do have to be an idiot though not to see past the protestations of both parties. On the one hand you have the ridiculous nationalist party “barter” concept. You see, the PN barters with companies like MFCC and in return for the use of their tents it gives them…. erm… See I’m stuck there. What the hell could the PN be offering to barter? It’s not like air time on its debt-ridden stations is free? Allocating a million euros of air time (in exchange for a tent) would mean perforce that that air time is lost from other who might have actually paid for the service.  Cardona also presented Beppe with a court case – Europrint vs MediaLink. Now that’s sweet. MediaLink owes Europrint half a million. Where will they get that from?

Labour on the other hand also have a hunch that we are all idiots. Their campaign CANNOT have been funded by the telethons. Igloos don’t grow on  trees Chris and you can have many many volunteers with ideas that you think are great but you cannot barter ideas for material in much the same way that Borg Olivier is not bartering ideas for tents. And while we are at it enough with this bullshit about the parties publishing their accounts. First of all Labour walked out of the committee for democratic reform that not only put an end to the hope of electoral reform but also to any issue on party financing.

If you really believe that either the PL or PN will ever actually enact a law that shoots both of them in the foot then you are a prime idiot. Lawrence Gonzi was unable to answer questions about Paul Borg Olivier’s barter methods – it might after all be a trade secret you know. Labour has been known to hide behind sensitive commercial interests too. As for publishing expense accounts – how about we don’t wait till the end of this election and simply ask the PN to publish the expenses of each candidate for the European Parliament elections. They actually swore about that on oath you know…. and some candidates went on record about how ridiculous the whole business was (was it Georg Sapiano? – it’s a genuine query).

Which brings me to the matter that Arnold Cassola brought up. We had been regaled with a crossfire of bull between exponents of the two parties and an impartial show host then Arnold asked a simple question about something they could not really wriggle out of with lies. He asked a question about our money. My money. Your money. Everybody’s money. Taghna Lkoll as some would fart out robotically. He asked how the whole parliament – that’s 67 members from both sides –  unanimously approved a land concession to Nazzareno Vassallo’s MFCC while removing a guarantee clause that amounted to over one million euro. That’s your money. My money. Everybody’s money.

They voted it away. Vanished it. To help a businessman. They are the parties who either barter or spend their way to kingdom come safe in the knowledge that they cannot be caught by the laws they refuse to write. Safe in the knowledge that they will be back whether in government or in opposition.

Why will they be back? Because they count on a bunch of idiots voting them into parliament after having paid their bills to get in there.

Reap. Sow. As the hilarious Times headline went – PL/PN to give the people what they deserve. (I added PN for par condicio).