Non Sequitur no. 88

Gladstone booted from office

In 1859 William Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer (Liberal Party). In the following year rather than abolish income tax as was widely expected, Gladstone proposed to increase it and abolish duties on paper. The duty on paper was a very controversial issue because the duty was the cause of highly inflated costs of publishing that was preventing the spreading of radical working-class ideas. The duties bill narrowly passed in the Commons but was defeated in the House of Lords. The refusal of a money bill had not occured for 200 years and caused quite a commotion. In the following year (1861) Gladstone packaged the abolition of paper duties together with other financial measures in what was termed the Finance bill. Thus, financial measures would now be accepted or refused as a whole. In fact, Gladstone had inadvertently (or rather unwittingly) invented the modern-day budget.

During the Budget speech of 2008, Minister Tonio Fenech made no mention of the new utilities surcharge. In a reversal of the situation in the mother of all budgets years previously, an unpopular financial measure was not included in the “Finance Bill”.

Non Sequitur no. 87

Jesus, what a crisis!

Crisis? What Crisis?

Joseph Muscat calls the immigrant situation a “national crisis”. Daphne Caruana Galizia comments on this in her Thursday column on the Malta Independent (and on her blog):

“Joseph Muscat’s Labour Party has seen fit to describe as a national crisis the fact that a few hundred African immigrants are penned behind bars or living in open centres while doing the jobs that no Maltese wants to do. (…) National crises don’t have to be announced by the leader of a political party that is not in government. National crises make themselves felt. Nobody announces their presence. If you have to announce a national crisis, then quite clearly it is not a crisis at all.”

The CFKAB (columnist formerly known as Bocca) has his tuppence worth of thoughts in his own online “blog” on the Times of Malta electronic version. Speaking to his elvish readership he states the following:

“This might come as a bit of a surprise, but from my perspective Joseph Muscat and Michael Falzon are right: Malta has to take a stand against M. Sarkozy’s proposals about illegal immigration and make it clear to the EU that we will not sit idly by and be expected to take more of a burden than we can carry. (…) Now that I’ve surprised everyone by agreeing with the MLP and the AD, I will go a step further and acknowledge that the MLP has shown signs of political maturity by not making overt political capital out of what is, at the end of the day, something of a crisis for the country, though nowhere near as hysterically critical as the revoltingly rabid racists who infest the comments and letters sections of the media wish to have us believe.”

Crisis, no crisis… that is not really a question. Meanwhile the government is busy doing the right thing putting its foot down and will only sign Sarkò’s immigration pact on its conditions. Bravo!

Non Sequitur No. 86

 

Cutlery vs Chopsticks

You do not sew with a fork, and I see no reason why you should eat with knitting needles.” - Miss Piggy, ‘Miss Piggy’s Guide to Life’ (1981)

Non Sequitur No. 85

”Icaro credeva di essere un uccello, invece era un pirla”

Non Sequitur No. 84

Ad captandum vulgus