GUEST POST: Government by hamburger

One of the last things the Opposition leader did before abandoning ship for his wine holiday in Asti was make a quick stop at his party radio station in Marsa.

From that pit-stop, we have the following gem:

“Jien nippreferi nirraguna kif jirragunaw in-nies.”

To those who prefer to use their brain rather than their hands to clap for ‘il-leader’ on Sundays, this statement is very, very worrying.

Hiding behind the populist ‘I am one of you’ rhetoric is a man who has not even begun to understand what it means to run the country. And that is quite apart from the fact that ‘in-nies’ do not take wine-tasting trips in Asti and that many of us will not be going on holiday this year at all, prefering to save our money for the rainy days we know lie ahead with Labour in government.

A prime minister worth his salt always focusses on doing the right thing today so as to secure a better future for all tomorrow. That is his 24/7 job, even if it means going against the grain or making himself unpopular.

If Lawrence Gonzi ‘irraguna kif jirragunaw in-nies’ when the international price of cereals increased or when that of oil skyrocketed or when Europe went into financial meltdown or when the price of gas rose, Malta would be a basket case like Greece, Cyprus and other countries by now.

Being this country’s PM is not about hitting tonight’s headlines for political titillation. It is not about giving ‘in-nies’ a false sense of security by cultivating a ‘kemm hu orrajt, qisu wiehed minnha’ cult.

A prime minister who coyly tries to ingratiate himself with ‘in-nies’ by bragging that he prefers a hamburger to a state dinner will almost certainly be the prime minister responsible for – literally – taking away the food from the tables of those same ‘nies’.

And that’s another thing, isn’t it? The sheer, blatant falsity of it all: Joseph Muscat boasts in public that he would rather eat a hamburger than go to a state dinner, but then secretly whisks himself off to Asti for a bit of wine-tasting and hopes the press won’t find out.

Well, too bad: the press did.