Azopardi’s empty rhetoric doesn’t stand up in the real world
Over the last few days the GSD have issued a number of statements about how things could have or should have been done better, or faster, or cheaper. It’s easy to point fingers.
Of course, it’s much harder for the GSD to actually say HOW they would have done things better, faster, or cheaper.
On that, the GSD are totally silent.
Far from making any political commitments of their own, the GSD just seek to rely on empty buzz words to make hypothetical arguments they know they can’t back up in the real world.
They want to pretend to the Gibraltar electorate that they would be more effective, when, in fact, an objective analysis would show the GSLP Liberals have managed the extremely difficult circumstances of the last three years better than most places and likely better than the GSD led by Mr Azopardi would have done.
Now, the GSD say they want to get back to basics. But the reality is that the basics were so abandoned by the GSD that it was this Government that had to pick up the pieces. The GSLP Liberals had to build every school in Gibraltar from the ground up because basic maintenance was so far overdue. It was the GSLP Liberal Government that has had to invest in our critical infrastructure because it was so outdated that it couldn’t reliably support the community’s needs, although the GSD have the “hard face and little shame” to complain about the state of the infrastructure they abandoned. It was the GSLP Liberal Government that has had to buy the taxpayer out of an obscenely expensive hospital contract which has cost us all over £100 million when the public had previously bought the building for £8 million.
The truth is that the GSD couldn’t get the basics right when they had the chance. The GSD’s legacy on the basics was services and infrastructure that, like their administration, could no longer stand the test of time. Now the GSD are keen to preach empty rhetoric but less keen to reveal how they would have done differently, much less to back it up with any kind of cost analysis.
The Chief Minister, the Hon Fabian Picardo KC MP, said: ‘Both Mr Azopardi and Mr Bossino in the last few days have been keen to point out what they think we have done wrong, but have shied away from saying what they would have done any differently and how they would have done it. It is even richer for Mr Azopardi to say that Gibraltar should get back to basics when he was Deputy Chief Minister of the Government whose legacy was a dilapidated infrastructure and services so lacking in resources in 2011 that they – like his Government – were not fit for purpose. It is this Government that has invested in Gibraltar’s infrastructure and its people, and that is what we will continue to do. We have suffered three awful years of massive challenges and are now suffering the effects of increased cost of living etc. But we are working through these issues for our people and we will not be distracted the by periodic awakening of part time politicians who think that with a couple of nasty press releases they will persuade the people of Gibraltar to risk our nation’s future on them. The people of Gibraltar are too clever to be duped by the sporadic press statements of political Rumpelstiltskins who wake up every four years to try to fulfil their ambitions to hold high political office. Those of us who have lived the past three years know the reality of what leadership requires and it isn’t about the fairytales Mr Azopardi is trying to tell our people.”
ENDS
