Lights are out or returning back on this morning in Malta. It’s long past being a funny situation – the power station business that is – and the blackout will ironically throw more fuel into the incandescent fire that is every discussion about power stations, government contracts and governmental mismanagement.
While Malta floundered around in the dark UK Deputy PM Nick Clegg was busy reassuring his voters that the forthcoming government programme will include “the “biggest shake-up of our democracy” in 178 years”. This includes fixed-term parliaments, a fully elected House of Lords and a referendum on electoral reform.
The Liberal leader is in charge of the reform plans and has stated that he wants to “transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state”. Centralised states were on the mind of Clegg throughout his presentation and at one point he stated:
Britain was once the cradle of modern democracy. We are now, on some measures, the most centralised country in Europe, bar Malta.
Now that’s a bugger innit? The contrast being made is obvious. Britain has relinquished its past as a “cradle of modern democracy” and having done so has approached – what? – Malta. Ouch. That hurts. It’s painful. But there must be a reason why Nick’s first thought when thinking of a decentralised (and consequentially distant from being a cradle of modern democracy) country leaps to Malta.
- Image by UK Parliament via Flickr
My bet is that if any repercussions will be had in Malta all blame will fall squarely on the nutjobs at the Alleanza Liberali who have carried the “Liberal” name for quite some time now – with dire consequences on any chances that name might have if taken up by normal minded people. There might even be a photo of Nick with John Zammit (who is currently busy working on www.freewebs.com/mintoffjani) as part of his Mintoffjan/Liberal project.
It would be too easy though to blame it on the nutjobs though. Nick Clegg, deputy PM of one of the largest political realities in Europe does not think highly of our political system – were it just a voice out of the blue it would be something we could easily ignore. Instead, Clegg is simply confirming what this forum has said for ages – the PLPN duopoly has much to answer for in this respect.
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6 replies on “Paragon of Democracy”
The Malta thing was just a joke. Of course Malta is the most centralised European State, presumably followed by Cyprus and Luxembourg – they are centralised because there is no physical space to decentralise.
PS If it weren’t a joke, it would be a huge diplomatic faux pas, in which case I think that this is what we should kick a fuss about, rather than anything to do with Clegg’s views of PLPN.
On which note, I doubt he has any views re PLPN – the Tory-Labour first-past-the-post-with-different-sized-constituencies system is far worse than what we have in Malta.
Back to the drawing board Jacques. Daqshekk.
Well. Not too sure about the joke. Doesn’t make sense in the context – right after the “cradle of democracy” bit. Of course we could ignore Clegg’s views on the state of Maltese democracy viz PLPN still does not make our assertions on the flaws of PLPN any less valid.
back to you ju.
He has no views on the state of Maltese democracy, and if he thought that Malta was the most centralised Member State he would probably be wrong anyway. If he had been serious the British newspapers would be spinning a story about inexperienced Liberals and their diplomatic inadequacy.
And onto the bigger picture: yes, the duopoly needs shaken. We’re all fed up of the political equivalent of a choice between Catch and Deserta. Still, people seem to just get on with their lives. Civil society in Malta is a bit of a joke, and this has little to do with PLPN, and everything to do with beaches being more enjoyable than piazzas.
Looks like Clegg is already trying some damage limitation. His article in today’s UK Independent:
… unless, that is, the Deputy PM of “one of the largest political realities in Europe” (funny way of designating the UK) thinks that in democracy size does matter (wouldn’t be surprised: he seems to think his constitutional tinkering is more important than women being given the right to vote).
Dear Jacques, thanks you for your comments. If you do not know most of the Liberals in the UK and even in Malta and other countries came out from Labour and other left leaning political parties. I remember when I used to work in Malta with the Malta Labour Party in the 1960’s at the Freedom Press with “Il-Helsien” and in the 1980’s with the British Labour Party in London with “The Labour Weekly”. After I began realizing that it is better to go in the centre and try to get the best policies of both left and right because the people were getting fed up and wanted a new type of politics and that is why I founded a Liberal Party in Malta. Now I remember several persons who used to tell me that we are going to get no results and even the Lib Dems in the UK were hopeless. After persisting that one day we were going to see the change in the UK in fact it resulted at last and that is my hope now that in Malta we will do the same. There are 74,000 voters who did not vote in the 2009 European Parliament election and if these will open their mind and think European as I said on Xarabank and other political talks I gave, this can also happen in Malta and we will have a difference and a change of the mediocare situation we are in. As regards to “Mintoffjani” I was invited to write articles for the website and I found several support from them and even are getting closer to Alleanza Liberali and some also joined us. That is why I don’t find difficulty between the Alleanza Liberali and supporters of Dom Mintoff.