How I struck a tiny blow for democracy by refusing to get out of the Prime Minister’s way

There was a time, not so long ago, when Maltese prime ministers sat in traffic like the rest of us, and never used police outriders to clear a path through the cars like Moses parting the river, unless they were giving birth or were part of a convoy which included a visiting head of state, in which case the outriders were not for them but for the visiting dignitary.

But since Joseph Muscat was elected prime minister four years ago, he has gone nowhere without a police escort composed of two outriders and an unmarked car bringing up the very close rear, routinely using their sirens and blue flashing lights to create panic and clear traffic.

The habit is catching, and when Manuel Mallia was the minister responsible for the police, he did the same, in a blue haze of sirens and motorcycles. Anglu Farrugia, the Speaker of the House, barges through traffic with siren blaring, too.

And to add insult to injury, now even Mrs Muscat has begun to use police outriders to clear traffic when she’s running late for an appointment, or can’t be fagged to deal with the rush hour.

Yesterday I drove in to Valletta at around 8pm, and near the War Memorial I noticed blue flashing lights approaching behind me, with an increasing intensity that suggested I should immediately get out of their way.

“Bugger that,” I thought, working out in an instant that it couldn’t be anything other than the Prime Minister running very late for a party he himself was hosting at his office up the road.

I stuck to my position, came off the War Memorial roundabout and began driving up the hill towards Castile Place. The blue flashing lights turned into a frenzied remake of Axis nightclub, circa 1990.

I put the car into second gear and slowed down a little. It’s a dark road and I didn’t want to knock down any pedestrians who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and raced across. The blue flashing lights turned into Piccadilly Circus after dark.

One of the police outriders drew up alongside the window of my tourist-standard white hired car, expecting to find some visitor from Munich who doesn’t know that when she’s in Rome she must do as the Romans do and get out of the way of their emperors as they pass, escorted by a small contingent of centurions, through the crowds of plebeians.

I continued to look straight ahead while driving. One must never take one’s eyes off the road or allow oneself to be distracted. Out of the corner of my right eye, I could see the police officer making valiant gestures at me to move aside, his blue light blinding and swirling.

Fleetingly, I considered putting down the window and advising him, as somebody who grew up on the back of a motorbike, not to take one hand off the handlebar and both eyes off the road at the same time while still in motion, and certainly not with all those very distracting flashing lights. I decided against, because it would mean taking my own eyes off the road while driving, and I had no intention of stopping.

The outriders gave up, but they were clearly damned if they and the Very Important Prime Minister were going to drive behind me in my little white car for all of a hundred metres up the hill. So they took an executive decision to overtake me instead, which meant driving on the wrong side of the road.

The two motorbikes got past easily, as bikes do. The Prime Minister’s chauffeur whipped round me, just about making it. But the unmarked white police car which drives behind him nearly took the front off my car, missing it by just a millimetre.

I reached Castile Place seconds later, and the two police officers were off their bikes and waiting for me. They stepped out neatly onto the zebra crossing as I reached it and forced me to stop, signalling at me to pull to the side.

This time, I knew the law obliged me to do so (the law does not oblige anyone to get out of the Prime Minister’s way), and so I did. I could hardly do otherwise without mowing them down.

I couldn’t wait to see how they were going to deal with it (but you’d probably guessed that already). I didn’t think anybody wanted a liberal and progressive set of newspaper headlines the next day, saying I’d been booked or arrested for refusing to get out of the Prime Minister’s way when he was late to his own party. But they’re so mad that you never know.

Fortunately, the police seemed to be dealing with it on their own, because they were exceedingly polite and civilised. “Please would you explain why you didn’t move out of the way?” one of them asked me.

“Because this is not Uganda and that wasn’t Idi Amin in the car behind me,” I said. “European prime ministers don’t drive around routinely with two police outriders, sirens and flashing lights, moving people out of the way because they’re late for their appointments. Some of them cycle to work. Others go on the train. And the rest sit in traffic.”

“But if there is a police escort for the prime minister or the president, you have to get out of the way,” the police officer said, still very politely.

“No, I don’t,” I said. “Nobody does. We are only obliged to get out of the way of fire engines, ambulances and police cars giving chase or on their way to a crime scene. This is a European democracy and citizens are not obliged at law to pull aside because the Prime Minister is late for his own party. We are not obliged to pull aside to make way for him at all. He can try leaving in good time like the rest of us do.”

I suddenly realised what a fix those two men were in as they ran a quick, mental cost-benefit analysis of how to deal with this situation without generating PRIME MINISTER LATE FOR OWN PARTY: JOURNALIST ARRESTED FOR REFUSING TO GET OUT OF HIS WAY headlines. “Look, I know it’s not your fault and that you’re just doing your job. I’m not blaming you or anything like that. But the Prime Minister shouldn’t be using police sirens and flashing lights to clear traffic wherever he goes.”

I began putting the window back up. “Ma tergax taghmilha,” the other police officer said, pseudo-sternly. “Yes, I will do it again,” I said, “and so should everyone else. Nobody should tolerate this scale of abuse.”

I drove off to my appointment, quite late by then, but that’s what happens when you are delayed by police outriders rather than escorted by them.