Trouble in Lilliput
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of reading about the shenanigans down at the Sliema Local Council. Talk about Lilliput: what is there in that story that might be of interest to anybody outside petty partisan politics?
It doesn’t even have the titillation factor.
Yet the newspapers run on and on with it as though the nation is galvanised by the antics of a mayor and his councillors. The nation clearly is not.
Yes, of course I think the mayor should resign – but not only for political reasons or because of alleged attempts at bribery and taking illicit commissions (though that also).
I think he should get out of the limelight and his public position because he clearly has personal issues which he needs to resolve. And he cannot resolve them beneath the full glare of publicity.
He has to go for his own sake, more than anything else. What’s more important – getting his act together and his life back on track or digging his heels in as mayor?
The only purpose this sorry mess has served is to illustrate how right the prime minister was to keep Robert Arrigo out of his cabinet.
The man got above himself on the strength of his electoral support and began to throw his weight around in parliament, demanding a cabinet position and sulking when he didn’t get it.
At least he didn’t do a Marisa Micallef and trot over to Labour when he didn’t get what he wanted, but still he behaved really badly and caused a lot of trouble for others through selfish reasons that were the opposite of the altruism that should be manifested by a representative of the people.
Last year, Arrigo achieved a sort of notoriety – or, if you subscribe to the thinking of Malta Today, fame – by agitating among a group of government backbenchers who went under the moniker of ‘the disgruntled MPs’. They were given much publicity by the John Dalli fan club over at Saviour Balzan’s stable.
But I always thought the prime minister knew what he was doing. I wasn’t at all comfortable with the messages I was picking up about Robert Arrigo and supposed patronage.
Perhaps I had the wrong messages; perhaps not.
He doesn’t come out of this fuss at all well, and it strikes me that if he behaved as claimed with a local council, then how would he have been as a cabinet minister?
So yes, the prime minister was right. I never liked those disgruntled MPs. The very idea of grown men sulking and stamping their feet because they don’t get what they want is anathema to me. It makes me wonder why they want it so keenly in the first place. Is it to be of service to the country? I hardly think so.
MISSUS CLEAN
Now it’s the finance minister and his maid, exposing what everyone knew already: that cleaning-ladies don’t pay national insurance and are not registered for tax.
You’d think the finance minister, of all people, would have the good sense to say to his wife: “Look, our cleaner has got to be a registered part-time employee of this household, or we’re going to use a cleaning service and pay them.”
But at the same time I sympathise with him because I know how impossible that is, unless you do what others do and put your household cleaning-lady on the company’s books, making her wages tax-deductible to company income. And the finance minister couldn’t possibly do that because it’s not above aboard.
You’ve got to employ somebody by the book, which is unjustifiably expensive because it is not a cost incurred in production and comes straight out of your disposable income. And most houses don’t need that level of labour between 9am and 1pm or 9am and 5pm every day, anyway.
Or you have to use the services of a cleaning company, something which I do to get the windows done and used to do to get the house cleaned. But that’s not practical on a regular basis because cleaning companies don’t always send the same people along and having strangers trawling round your house is not a good idea, and out of the question if you’re not at home yourself. And it costs quite a bit, too.
The third option is a Filipina maid brought in through an agency, which lots of homes here now have. But just imagine if the finance minister had one of those – a trip on a private jet and an imported maid. My goodness. What would Malta Today make of that?
It’s enough justification to make John Dalli party leader. At least he’d stop behaving like the ex girlfriend in the room.
The fourth option – finding a cleaning-lady who is registered for VAT so that you can ask her for a receipt – is not an option at all. Cleaning-ladies who are VAT registered just don’t exist.
So let’s be honest – what were the finance minister’s real options here?
1. Cleaning the house himself after getting home at 9pm, when we’d rather he saved his energy for the finance ministry.
2. Telling his wife to do it, which is completely unacceptable from an equality point of view because wives are not their husband’s servants.
3. Employing a full-time or part-time Maltese housekeeper, a huge drain on his salary and a total waste of money because no normal house needs that level of cleaning. And this is quite apart from the accusations he would face of living the high life with a housekeeper on a minister’s salary.
4. Using a cleaning service which invoices clients and sends random cleaners over to your home to do the work, which is very expensive when used on a regular basis and not ideal because you cannot allow strangers into your home when you’re not there. People build a relationship with their cleaning-lady. You cannot build a relationship with a contract worker who is there one week and not the next.
I sympathise with the finance minister because I know that he had no choice at all, really, but to do what he did. I don’t sympathise with him for being so silly as to speak about it at a conference covered by the media, for all the world as though he was at a dinner party with friends.
Tonio Fenech was naïve and simplistic when he spoke about maids and national insurance. Of course no cleaning lady is going to pay national insurance. For a start, there’s all the paper work involved – and if you can deal with the paperwork then you’re unlikely to be aiming for a job washing floors.
But beyond that there’s the question of money.
Which cleaning lady can afford to pay around €100 a month in national insurance when she’s living from hand to mouth? Why would she be cleaning other people’s houses, then going back to clean her own after an already exhausting day, if it were not because she needs every last cent that comes her way?
Perhaps it’s because he has never had to live from hand to mouth, but the finance minister doesn’t know how when you’re in that situation, you don’t think about the future because there are too many problems in the present.
Every day you wake up feeling like there’s a mountain to climb.
Thinking about the future, when you’re living from hand to mouth, means worrying about how you’re going to get food onto the table for supper and settle the phone bill before the line is cut off.
Yes, cleaning ladies don’t have to pay tax or collect VAT because their earnings fall beneath the minimum threshold. But they still have to register for VAT and they still have to fill in those pesky returns, failing which they are fined several months’ earnings.
And they might not have to pay income tax but they still have to fill in an income tax return and that’s a problem too – a huge problem. Also, they only fall beneath the income tax threshold if they are not married or if their husband is unemployed. If their husband earns a halfway decent amount, most of what they earn polishing furniture and sweeping steps is sucked up in income tax.
And so it’s just not worth the while and most of them stay in the grey market.
The finance minister knows that clamping down on this situation would be utter insanity. It would be pointless and extremely damaging.
There is little tax to be collected but the shocks to the system would be enormous. You cannot on the one hand try to encourage women into the work-force while at the same time depriving women who work cleaning homes out of their jobs and making it more difficult for the women who use cleaning-ladies, because they’re at work all day, to stay in their own jobs.
Quite frankly, the system shores itself up: the women need the work and the households which employ them need to have the work done. If they can’t find Maltese women to do it, they will engage Filipinas or illegal immigrants and proceed as before. Cleaning-ladies are an immediate priority in the work-force. Before you clamp down on them, you have to make sure the system can keep going, otherwise things will collapse.
If the finance minister wishes to contribute positively to the situation, rather than making things stricter he should make them more lax. It is wholly unrealistic to expect a cleaning-lady to fill in returns for national insurance, VAT and income tax, or to pay almost a quarter of her earnings in national insurance.
Cleaning-ladies don’t earn much, but as self-employed persons they would have to pay national insurance at the minimum rate regardless of how much they earn.
I can’t see how the problem can be solved, or even why it is a problem in the first place, rather than a solution to many problems. And that’s almost certainly why the situation has been allowed to go on.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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2. Telling his wife to do it, which is completely unacceptable from an equality point of view because wives are not their husband’s servants.
No! But it’s her house too? What’s wrong with cleaning your own house yourself? He’s the Minister, so he has to save his energy for the nation. She’s the co-owner of the house, so she can use her energy to clean her one-half undivided share of the house.
With regard to the other one-half undivided share belonging to her husband, she gets the perks of being a Minister’s wife, so she can very easily clean that his share!
Don’t quite get your logic here, sorry!
[Daphne – She works, too. And there are no perks to being a minister’s wife, but only problems. Most minister’s wives that I know would rather live in peace and privacy.]
I agree. But still she agreed (or did not veto) his involvement in politics.
[Daphne – How do you know? I know of several cases where the wife does not agree with her husband’s involvement in politics, but cannot veto it because he is a free agent and not her minor child. The only route there is separation, which is drastic. And I know of at least one case where the marriage broke down because the wife refused to support her husband in politics because she did not agree with his involvement. The tragedy is that he eventually got out of politics in any case, at his girlfriend’s request. That’s how it is with some men – they make all the mistakes under the sun with their wives because they take them for granted, and bend over backwards for their mistresses.]
So now she has to make some sacrifice to help him in making a success out of his chosen path. Cleaning the house would not therefore be a reduction to servant status, but being an equal partner in his (their) project of being a minister and his wife.
[Daphne – I’m sorry, but that’s not how it is in real life. The person who does the cleaning is always reduced to inferior status in the perception of both spouses. The one who does the cleaning feels like a servant and the one who doesn’t do the cleaning ends up treating the other like a servant. The only workable solution, and it’s worth every penny, is to pay somebody else to do all the cleaning.]
“I’m sorry, but that’s not how it is in real life. The person who does the cleaning is always reduced to inferior status in the perception of both spouses. The one who does the cleaning feels like a servant and the one who doesn’t do the cleaning ends up treating the other like a servant. The only workable solution, and it’s worth every penny, is to pay somebody else to do all the cleaning.”
I don’t think that cleaning the house should make you feel inferior, because cleaning is just another task. Just like paying the bills, fixing the car, painting a room and so on.
[Daphne – Not so at all. Cleaning has always been in the realm of servitude and performed, in all households which could afford it (even when the wife doesn’t work) by servants. When households came to be unable to pay for servants, the wife began to do the work instead, and so was cast, consciously or subconsciously, in the role of servant.]
The most ethical solution is that both husband and wife share these tasks, including cleaning. They could alternate, this week the husband does the cleaning, next week the wife does the cleaning. It would be fair enough I think.
[Daphne – Dream on. Most women know that it is a lot easier on the nerves to do it themselves than to try to get their men to do it. Men will generally perform the task badly and then say that they’ve done it to the best of their ability even if it means that the wife has to do it all again herself. And on average, men can live with dirty floors but dirty floors drive women nuts.]
I agree with your statements, also (but not only) because we do not know her stance vis-a’-vis his political involvement.
“And on average, men can live with dirty floors but dirty floors drive women nuts.”
You nailed it!
Having a clean floor is overrated. Yes, it’s pleasant to have a clean floor every now and then, and feel a bit “floor proud” for a few hours, but then if it were to be always clean there would be nothing special about it.
Also, cleaning a clean floor isn’t as satisfying as cleaning a filthy one.
Then there are alternatives that nobody ever mentions, such as actively avoiding dirtying it.
To clean my floor, something catastrophic has to happen, like dropping an egg or something of the sort.
[Daphne – I have the solution: just clean the bit where the egg fell.]
There is no need to clean the house every single day so what’s so wrong and degrading with a wife cleaning the house?
For the past 21 years of married life, I did all the maintenance jobs; wall scraping, filling cracks, repairing small household appliances, painting, plumbing, repairing and changing leaking taps, water heater installations etc.
Household chores that no woman would ever dream of doing.
And you talk about sharing!
[Daphne – Actually, Herman, lots of women do those jobs. All the painting in our house gets done by me, for example. I find it relaxing. If I didn’t find it relaxing, rest assured that I would pay somebody else to do it. My approach to DIY is exactly the same as it is to cleaning don’t DIY. Pay somebody else to do it and use your own time more constructively or just take a nap.]
Daphne: “And on average, men can live with dirty floors but dirty floors drive women nuts.”
This explains a lot.
The world was a better place when the woman of the house performed her normal duties which are Cooking,Cleaning and bringing up the children in a correct manner.
Now they leave the house to someone else or leave it filthy just so they can be independent (Selfish).
Return to base and stop trying to be something you are not unless you grow a pair of balls.
Mario farrugia – I hope that your comments were made in a humorous manner, ghax tqajjem rewwixti shiha.
Dear Sir,
You are, of course, completely correct in all you say. I have seen the error of my ways and shall humbly ask pardon of my family for having wasted the last 26 years of my life earning a salary.
I am guilty of cruel neglect. No more! No more shall I pay school fees and bills.
No longer shall I torture them with birthday treats and long weekends in Gozo. I am overcome with shame and remorse.
It’s my employer’s fault!
When I applied for the job he only asked to see my paper qualifications. The bastard never told me balls were necessary.
I shall now crawl off and Cook and Clean.
Don’t forget to greet your husband with his bedroom slippers and pipe when he comes home.
And the subtle spin of the opposition on this gaffe tells me that most if not all do the same.
Also – let us be a little practical here – there would be many canvassers who would clean their house for free…
[Daphne – And do you think that this is somehow better and more ethical than the current situation?]
Perhaps slightly ethical – since (I stand to be corrected on this one) you do not pay NI contributions on voluntary work.
Female canvassers who clean his house would be indirectly contiributing to his electoral campaign.
[Daphne – Oh, I don’t mean ethical in that sense, but the various implications of making use of adoring female fans to clean your home. Wasn’t some religious leader infamous for doing this, getting his followers to weed his garden with a teaspoon or something? The name escapes me. There was a mini-craze for his ‘philosophy’ among smart housewives in Malta in the 1970s. They would leave their own homes in which two maids beavered away (one upstairs and the other downstairs) to go and clean some cult-leader’s house. I hope somebody can help me out here otherwise I’m going to spend the day fidgeting around for the name.]
I wouldn’t know about this cult-leader. Sorry but never heard of him.
My point is that people do help politicians with sending copies of PQs to constituents, organizing parties, preparing mailshots prior to home visits, phoning constituents to arrange appointments, keeping a database on constituents’ cases, and a million other things. Can’t they also help him with housekeeping?
They need not necessarily be females. They might be males. They might be trans. Point is: the work is done with breaking any (ass-like) law.
I think rules and regulations should be changed to cater for this necessity of having “cleaners”. Why not keep everybody happy?
Tonio Fenech can be brilliant at times and all too naive at others. Honesty is not always the best policy especially if you wish to make a career out of politics.
Daphne, this is the best article ever! I thought you were a consummate Randianist or whatever those wealthy teenagers are called nowadays.
[Daphne – I am neither wealthy nor a teenager.]
[Daphne – I am neither wealthy nor a teenager.]
You’ll be in a few years’ time … sweet sitTEEN :)
[Daphne – Ghad baqa.]
Some people make a shrine to their adolescent idealisms, whether on the right or the left of the political spectrum, and keep at it until they give up the ghost.
It’s not the first time that I’ve seen members of parliament or ministers doing the shopping at the supermarket. Who knows if at home they perform housekeeping?
[Daphne – Apparently, they do. A journalist I know has been door-stepping MPs for a feature about the subject and most of them have responded that they clean the house themselves with their wives, or that their wives do it. Joseph Muscat is one of them. I don’t know how he manages with that leg, miskin.]
I was recently talking to a cleaner who makes 60 euros a day (working morning and afternoons at different homes) 5 days a week and claiming benefits.
[Daphne – Yes, that’s about what they earn on average: EUR25 for four hours plus transport costs and refreshments.]
A short comment about the cases in which Robert Arrigo has been mentioned.
I am not going into the merits of the case per se.
You say: “He doesn’t come out of this fuss at all well, and it strikes me that if he behaved as claimed with a local council, then how would he have been as a cabinet minister?”
The case highlights the dangers of MPs getting involved in matters which are not their business in the national sense.
It shows that persons of high office should not get themselves involved in matters not of their competence.
Our MPs are elected to be part of the legislature, not to interfere in local politics, or, as is often alleged, in other branches of the executive.
Besides, interference by an MP in local politics is democratically dangerous, since MPs will be exerting power where they have no right. The consequence of which is undue pressure on the local councillors involved.
I hope that after this case, a clause will be inserted in the Code of Ethics of MPs so that they are prohibited from interfering with local councils, their elections and their running.