Estimats mimbreux dal Sagrüt Rexhital dals Liverats Democräteux, other members of the Free Democrats, guests of this January 2019 Convention of the Free Democrats, azul. I’m thankful for the opportunity to offer a brief address during your first annual meeting and grateful to you for your kind invitation.
It was especially pleasant to me that the invitation came from Dien, who is not only a friend I have always held in high esteem and worked with positively, but also my opposite number in the Cosa as Tuischac’h and a former Mençei himself.
As my tenure as Prime Minister drew to a close, I already knew my next project would be to tackle the huge institutional issue we have with the Ziu - which is that, over the years, the Cosa, and in a lesser way the Senate, have become more and more simple voting clubs, with less debate, less Terpelaziuns, less constructive opposition. The number of proposed bills fell from over 40 a term, four years ago, to not even 20 last Cosa. As I’m writing, the Lord Castiglha has joined the Senate after a full three months of sede vacante, casting yesterday the first floor vote by a Senator for Florencia since May last year (for the record, the full Senate voted on 14 bills, 2 resolutions, 2 nominations and 1 motion since). It fell to me - a quasi-independent presiding officer - to hold the Government to account over an immigration draught lasting more than two months! It is apparent, sioridas and sioreux, that the Ziu is in grave risk of becoming meaningless - its lower house, a rubber stamp for the Government; its upper house, a dorm.
Talossans who have at heart the notion that the Ziu is the uppermost seat of democracy in our Kingdom, as I hope you all are, should start paying attention and working to prevent that, by bringing more sense in what it means to be an MZ. I'm trying to do so in the Senate; I don't know if it's enough, I don't know if it will work, I don't know if it will survive the test of time. All I know is that a world in which no MZs strike out and a certain amount of lively debate happens is possible, and should be worked towards for Talossa's own good.
Let me also congratulate you all on the formation of the Royalist Caucus. I’ve always thought that the Free Democrats’s caucus structure was particularly attractive and conductive to internal dialogue, and I commend you on deciding to form your own, at a time when the radical voices in our Kingdom are a minority in number but a majority in voice. Let’s not forget that three consecutive General Elections and the summer 2017 referendum clearly showed the moderate monarchist path is what Talossans want, and I am firmly convinced that is still the way to go for Talossa as it approaches its 40th anniversary. And with the mainstream conservatives in Talossa utterly absent or increasingly willing to refrain from engaging in the political process set out by the Ziu, it falls to moderates of all parties to be the critical voice Talossan politics need.
I may not be what one would define a staunch monarchist, but I can certainly smell the turkey that's burning in the oven, and it's why I put forward the amendment to retain the Privy Council: as it turned out, the opposition continued in its inane boycott of the convention, the Prime Minister made some rather unconvincing remarks against that were probably directed at his coalition partners more than at me, and nobody was really interested in offering the King a lifesaver and seeing how he reacted. This did nothing to reassure my feeling that the tide of reform, which I have long embraced in the past with enthusiasm, might be getting a bit too high and to a point where it risks becoming a pointless partisan exercise.
It is therefore the job of us moderates to keep working together towards sensible reforms but against careless radicalism - and speaking of that, I’ll be brutally honest when I say that I’m interested to see where the red line will be for more moderate members of the Free Democrats, given some recent actions. Furthermore, the “official” opposition seems more intent on self harm than on actually trying to steer the course of policymaking and on exercising true oversight of the government’s actions; perhaps they have simply given up on their purpose, but in any case it’s hard to view them as anything more than façade royalists. Weak, weak, weak.
Considering this is the Royalist Caucus I’m also obliged to make a passing remark on the recent Speech from the Throne, which I never got around to offering some sort of comment about. I’m disappointed that the thread degenerated in the kind of name calling that has become all too common lately, because I feel that the most important point in King John’s address was completely shoved aside. People are fleeing active Talossan life not only because of other macronational commitments, as often times can happen, but also because many are scared away from it by the constant infighting and mudslinging. It hasn’t always been this bad, and it can get better, but I’m afraid that people who’d care to fix it can’t, for whatever reason, and people who could and should fix it don’t really care to.
In my view, the issue is that the Government, from a certain point onwards, has picked its priorities horribly wrong: we got a constitutional convention, which didn’t do much to bring Talossa together (by its own virtue rather than anyone’s fault in particular) and began at a time when the government’s own members were absent - imagine a prime minister standing before an empty frontbench during an important debate; we got an impeachment bill which, whatever your opinion of it, will haunt Talossa for months to come; we got a raft of reorganisation bills, of which only the Civil Service one was particularly needed, but even that was still somewhat botched as we haven’t heard from the Commissioner since; the most important Permanent Secretary is still unfilled, with an unsolved immigration crisis that somehow doesn’t seem to bother anyone in the Ziu (the government should really thank the opposition for the umpteenth “get out of jail free” card); money has been thrown at cultural endeavors with no clear plan - or perhaps the plan was to not have a plan at all-; and we got this final appropriations bill for a chain of office that few people will ever see or hold (no wonder I never pushed for it despite being Prime Minister for half the time since the previous one was lost), with no plans for webhosting reform being presented yet.
Moderates all over Talossa should take notice of all of this, which goes against our deeply held beliefs in community, fiscal responsibility and sensible reformism. Whatever party we belong to, we should push towards the adoption of manifestoes that drive towards a brighter, livelier, stronger Talossa - certainly not towards a return to whatever mess pre-2012 Talossa was, or worse towards a republican wasteland where after more years of infighting everyone has been driven out of active Talossanity because we’ve been complacent or simply blind.
Let me finish on a brighter note, as I feel this speech has been somewhat gloomier than I intended (although maybe it was warranted). Yesterday was the first day of the 2019 Census, and we already had roughly 50 responses, among those many people who don’t really engage with Talossa daily or weekly if at all. People are still proud to be Talossans, whether they support the monarchy or not, whether they live east or west of the pond, whether they are old timers, reviensadeirs or newer citizens. People still care about Talossa. We still have the opportunity to make this 40th year of independence a resounding success. Let’s make it happen.
Graschcias à toct per auscultevetz me. Sa vivadra Talossa!