Your Correspondent K.C., que no! Down the rabbit hole
I’ve just finished my latest bedside read, great five-pages-and-snooze stuff, in a small edition to avoid being assaulted by the tome as I doze. It was Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass*. Suddenly, Alice’s stories seem more coherent than many of the events that have been floating past us on our screens and in Main Street murmurings.
Off with whose head?!
Certainly, there’s no chance of nodding off on what must be the most eagerly watched set of New Year broadcasts for some time.
At this critical time, when nothing has been clear for a while, we surely have an obligation to try and get the best minds and ‘movers and shakers’ in our community looking towards a harmonised, motivating approach to our future. Not the old ‘unity’ chestnut - that would be great but never happens - but at least some positive engagement.
Our two leading political figures, Picardo and Azopardi, both KCs, both very hard-working and both very bright people have somehow managed, through their very different personalities, to ensconce themselves in ivory towers. You might think that, from such towers, the bigger picture would be easier to see. But I wonder.
People want more than slick presentations on the one hand or platitudes on the other.
THE TIME HAS COME….
The dam containing public discontent may hold for the Treaty, but will no doubt release thereafter in streams and torrents.
There is no question that any serious opposition politician in Gibraltar would bang on about the negative views expressed about the Chief Minister, as has happened with the Openshaw report. That’s politics.
It’s a chance to shake the tree.
LOOKING GLASS HOUSE
Just looking at the trend in results in the past few General Elections it is clear that the October 2023 General Election was for the taking. But no one gifts a win. The leadership has to be earned by a party machine and a leader spending at least a year working full time on creating a vision for which people will eagerly vote.
It’s a moot point but I suspect that the GSD, spared the ‘el Hana’ issue, would have slipped into the House. It was a slack misjudgement that with just a little graft, due diligence and clear thinking would have been avoided.
People are unhappy, but not the sort of unhappy that is simply cured by changing the players and hoping for the best. Had the GSD used the time it has had (think about the energy that went into the campaigns of 1988, 1996 and 2011) the mood in the street would be different, excited and probably pressing for change.
We need to see forward thinking. People want to know the plans to deal with post-Treaty Gibraltar (nb the ‘if the Treaty’ that Joe Bossano used this past week). Auditing the past and espousing abstract ideals isn’t enough, just ask Keir Starmer!
Equally clear is that Picardo wants to see the Treaty over the line and then step down.
Azopardi rightly says he needs to study the Treaty, but he and we all know, that if he found himself in the No.6 hot seat today, a technical and political verdict on the Treaty would not in itself be enough. ‘What next’ is the question most people are asking themselves, half aware that far from reaching the end of the journey we may just be arriving at Clapham Junction or Bobadilla.
POOL OF TEARS
Unless the Opposition focus and make a real effort they still run the risk of losing another election.
Despite the gloss of confidence, the governing party must know that even their re-branding exercise would require major changes of their own to make headway. Again, the electorate is more interested in progress and good leadership than it is in the fact of who wins and loses. The political assertion that once you’re in you do what you want until the next election, is what allows Donald Trump to do what he is doing at present. That’s not good democracy or good governance and this is truer in a Parliament which is really a Cabinet v Shadow Cabinet and where just one man secures full power.
Mantra: just because something is legal doesn't make it right.
Every government we have uses its power to reverse and overturn the best as well as the worst of opposition arguments. Every Opposition does the same when it gets into power.
Trump obviously wants to get rid of it but the two term rule for limiting one person in the presidency has its logic in realpolitik. So, accepting that Picardo genuinely wants to move to his next personal chapter, the line that he will be serving his ‘last full year’ is deceptively meaningless other than indicating no intention to stand down before that.
And what is the vision of the Government? Yes, it has some good and experienced candidates vying for the crown, but the political tide is against the governing party(s). When people want change they also hope that the top of the wardrobe and under the carpet get a clean.
HUMPTY DUMPTY
As an old sea dog, however questionable some of his views and actions, Bossano knows how to get a ship and its crew through a storm to safe land. Or, put differently on his forte which is economic thinking, he takes good care of the Goose, whatever we may think of the use he puts to some of the Golden Eggs.
It will make me unpopular with ‘men of a certain age’ to say so, but the electoral bait of lowering the pensionable age for men to 60 as ‘equalisation’ with women is not good economics or real forward thinking. Even a halfway house of both moving to 63 would be questionable.
For ‘Spanish pensions’ reasons rates have been frozen many years. Even with additional support, the Gibraltar pension is lower than most in the EU.
Working to 65 in a world where life expectancy is good at just over 83 surely makes sense and is probably healthy. In pension systems, barring the impact of a major disaster, the cost always rises.
There may be some balancing of books but I can see why Sir Joe is taking it slow on this one. It may not be easy to put the pieces back together in the future.
Electorally, lowering the age will be popular, but not sound.
NUMBERS
Of all the things said in the salami sliced ‘Auditor’s’ debate in which both Government and Opposition had some very strong points, it was the phrase ‘democracy is a game of numbers’ uttered by the Chief Minister that drew particular attention.
Yes, numbers - just one at present - give a huge power to the winning side. But responsibility too. The idea that the public have signed up to a four-year book of blank cheques is not true or acceptable.
With under two years max to go for an election (I think May 2027 likely) the people wanting to be in No.6 need to start telling us where they are taking us.
Believe it or not, most of us know where we are.
Beside read: Ben Okri Tiger Work
*I started before the Adam Wagner remark!
