Supermodel Silvio gives up on the old ladies

My Silvio left me for the youth vote

It looks like Silvio’s old ladies are dying on him by degrees. It’s true that as one old lady kicks the bucket another one comes on stream, but Silvio is taking no chances. He has written an article for The Malta Independent (oh my god, I have competition) called ‘Attracting the younger generation’, in which he displays his analytical skills and reveals himself to be the true strategist that Labour needs.

One of the conclusions that one can make regarding the last general election is that the younger generation played a very important part in it. I am personally convinced that the majority of youths wanted an alternative to the Nationalist government, but on the other hand the Labour Party was not convincing enough for them.

I don’t know where Silvio spent the electoral campaign, apart from handing out plastic roses at school gates and sucking up to old ladies, but from where I was sitting, it looked like the ‘majority of youths’ were at Nationalist mass meetings screaming ‘Gonzi’.

And while we’re about it, will you excuse me for delivering a mini hectoring lecture about the use of the words ‘youth’ and ‘youths’? Every time I see the way they are deployed like missiles in articles by politicians and other people with an agenda, I want to fling myself down and gnaw the carpet.
The word ‘youth’ has several meanings, and one of them is ‘young people’, as in ‘the youth of the country’. (The youth of the country does not mean an 18-year-old peasant from Rahal Gandab; it means all the young people of the country, as in state). So please would all you politicians just stop writing and talking about ‘the youths of Malta’ because that has another meaning entirely. It means the young men of Malta, and not young Maltese people of both genders.

Theoretically, the words ‘youth’ (when used to indicate one person rather than young people collectively) and ‘youths’ can be used to mean young women. In reality, among native speakers of English they never are. Even the words themselves are going the way of ‘bloomers’ and ‘perambulator’ and have long been substituted by the far more sensible ‘young people’. Say ‘youth’ and you immediately sound archaic. Say ‘youths’ when you mean ‘young people’, and you give yourself away as somebody who learned English badly as a second or even third language.
OK, hectoring lecture over and back to Silvio Parnis (but mind you slip on the Brylcreem). Here he is again:

Therefore, the main challenge that the Labour Party needs to work on is to attract as many young people as possible to the party. When I say young people, I don’t only mean the under 35s, but also the under 18s, who will be voting in five years’ time.

Well, our Silvio has come up with a new strategy for selling the Labour Party to those who don’t want to buy any (“just looking, thanks”). It’s called paedophile politics. Get them when they’re kids and groom them as Labour prey.

What happened to the Brigata Laburista, by the way? Maybe there isn’t time for it in between duttrina and private lessons. My god, no wonder so many Maltese adults are screwed up, having had their free time after school divided between political brainwashing, extra maths, and religious brainwashing. I’m so glad I escaped the lot. But back to brainy Silvio, who I’m told was once a duttrina teacher (“Issa, tfal, se naraw ghaliex Gesu Kristu ma kienx juza l-gel. Elfejn sena ilu kienu kellhom biss iz-zejt taz-zebbuga.”).

I have had worrying reports from various people where traditional Labourite families couldn’t convince their children to vote Labour, not because their children had any obligation to do so, but because even though their children knew we needed a change, the Labour Party was not convincing enough.

That’s what happens when you give the children of the working-class a decent education. With a few notable exceptions, they stop voting Labour. Some people believe that this is due to embarrassment. They don’t want to carry on being associated with anything as cringe-making as the shambolic Labour Party and see it as tal-hamalli.

I don’t think that’s the reason. The way I see it is that a good, sound education and exposure to different ways of doing things gives young people (not youths) the analytical skills they need to see things clearly and make sound judgements. And that’s why they don’t vote Labour. To get hold of the votes of these people, Labour doesn’t need to become less embarrassing (though that, too). It needs to become discernibly capable of governing without fiasco.

If the mountain won’t go to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain. Silvio Parnis has plans to stop young people escaping from Labour’s predatory claws.

The Labour Party needs to start making its voice heard in various educational institutions and other places which are frequented by young people. The party needs to listen to what these youths are saying, analyse all the criticism it receives and ask them what plans they have for the future.

As somebody with plenty of direct experience of ‘youths’, I can explain to Silvio that the persistent and creepy interest of ‘an old person’ (for which read anyone above the age of 26), and more so one who is dripping in hair-wax and keen to be thought of as hip or wicked (though he would say cool), is not going to persuade anyone to vote Labour. Both the boys and the girls will think of him as some kind of perv who is trying to pick them up. They will get a couple of drinks off him and then run off laughing.

And only somebody with no experience of ‘youths’ at all would classify people in their 30s as youth, unless they are themselves in their 30s and want to keep on thinking of themselves as young rather than on the outer cusp of middle age (desperate, desperate).

And what is Silvio proposing with his Labour infiltration of ‘educational establishments’? Maybe he thinks that it’s a good idea to send Labour ambassadors into the classroom to promote the Labour message of peace and love (“I’d like to buy the world a home and keep it company…grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves. It’s the real thing. Coca Cola is….”). Yes, sure – I can really see that working. “Ma, a strange man came to talk to us at school today. What’s a working class? Is it like a maths class? And his hair was really weird.”

Now here’s more of Silvio, back again with his youths.

If we want to earn the trust of these youths, we also have to start appealing to the middle class. While the Labour Party still needs to take care of the working class and those who remain at the bottom of the social ladder, we also need to acknowledge those who have made a success of their life. These people need to feel comfortable going to the Labour Party, speaking to its members and at the end of the day even voting Labour.

Well, what can I say? If you’re working class, according to Mr Greaseball, you haven’t made a success of your life. You can see where this man is coming from: success = money (and a snazzy electric-blue two-seater convertible with a SIL number-plate). I hate to be nasty, but somebody should tell Silvio Parnis that no matter how much money he makes and how many old ladies he sucks up to, he’s going to stay working-class until the lid is nailed down on his coffin. And probably even after that, because I can just picture him getting some metallic spoilers for his heavenly wings and a couple of strategic zips for his heavenly frock, though where he will get hair-wax in the celestial hereafter is quite beyond me. Perhaps he can have a little dig around his ears.

Silvio isn’t letting us go without some more good advice for drumming up the youth vote.

These youths should try to convince their friends and fellow youths who attend the same schools and places of entertainment, to look to the Labour Party for their future needs and aspirations.

Youths, youths, youths, youths….there I go, chewing the carpet again. By writing like this, Silvio reveals himself as somebody who has long left his youth behind him (which doesn’t mean that there’s a young man standing at his back). Any young person who tries to proselytize for politics or religion in the schoolyard will be classified as (1) a nerd, (2) nuts, (3) a perv, (4) the smelly bearer of dandruff, or (4) to be avoided at all costs. I wonder if that’s what happened to Silvio while he was growing up. That would explain a lot.