It's 2022...let's turn this around, TOGETHER!

Watch or read our New Year Message below:

join the party @ togethergibraltar.com

In 2011, when he was Leader of the Opposition, Fabian Picardo promised you a collegiate Government, free from the 'individualised and autocratic' style of the Caruana administration.

Ten years later, he has become exactly what he used to criticise.

But don't take my word for it. The evidence is right before your eyes.

Just look at his press release on New Year's Eve:

"This year we will begin our housing projects in earnest" he tells you.

Because they've been so busy with Brexit. Where has his housing Minister, Steven Linares, been all this time? Has he had to deal with Brexit?

Hassan Centenary Terraces and Bob Peliza Mews were promised to you in 2015. Two years later they told you the first flats would be completed in 2021.

Six years have gone by.

Six Years.

Another thing Fabian Picardo promised you is a Minister's Charter.

He promised to answer all your letters within two weeks. Are they answering your letters? I can tell you they're not answering mine. And these are important letters to do with health. Is the

Health Minister also dealing with Brexit?

And then there is the grand e-government project. After four years and nearly thirteen and a half million pounds spent on consultancy fees, we are still a million miles away from the online, digital government services we were promised. What has the e-services Minister, Albert Isola been doing for the last four years?

Has he been negotiating Brexit too?

And what of our atrocious traffic problems? We're selling more vehicles than ever before.

Last year we even removed duty on them, and our roads are just as congested as they were before the traffic plan was published.

Where is the transport Minister, Paul Balban?

Is he dealing with Brexit too?

Maybe they just don't the have time to build the affordable homes they promised, or answer letters on health, because they're down to nine Ministers.

Let's not forget that just six months after you were told this was the only Government worth voting for, one of their government Ministers, Gilbert Licudi, stepped down, and has spent the last two years earning an MPs salary while doing nothing except working for Hassans.

Maybe that's the reason Fabian Picardo tells you to be patient if they're not delivering their promises on time. Because they're too busy with Brexit even to hold monthly sessions of Parliament, which they also promised you.

But let me tell you what Fabian Picardo does have time for.

He has plenty of time to skulk in the shadows hiding behind a fake name, writing for the New People, a newspaper which he legally owns, and pays for with your money.

He uses privileged information available to the Government to write in that party organ, trashing not only his political opponents, but also the good people who run NGOs.

Is that the sort of behaviour you would expect from someone who says he doesn't have time to deliver his promises on housing and health?

When the cameras are rolling, Fabian Picardo will wax lyrical about his team, and tell you they're the only ones who can guide Gibraltar through troubled times.

But behind closed doors everyone knows he does not have confidence in his own people. That is why everything goes through Number Six.

Just like it did in the final years of Peter Caruana. That's why everything takes so long. That's why this government no longer works.

That's why people are taking to the streets and demonstrating in large numbers almost on a weekly basis now.

The discontent is real. Their backs are against the wall.

In the last year, Together Gibraltar has been working for you by holding government to account on the important issues that matter to us all. Questioning and exposing government on conflicts of interest, calling for an inquiry on the high death toll during the Covid pandemic, exposing the maladministration in the GHA, pressing for better facilities in mental health services, and for those living with disabilities; calling for accountability on costly projects which have delivered little in return. We worked hard during the abortion referendum representing the choice side and calling for an end to this draconian law which imprisoned women for life. We represented our students at the end of summer, many who were left to fend for themselves at the eleventh hour. We have also been seeing you by the hundreds in one to one meetings, trying to help you and represent you; we have held executive elections, the only party to do so; we set up a youth committee with the goal of engaging more with the youth demographic in civil society matters; we have been as interactive as we possibly could be during the current circumstances and we continue to plan ahead with more groups and committees which we hope will serve to enhance grass roots engagement and help to shape future policy building.

We can do things better. We can bring about change. But it starts with every single one of you. Get involved. We're here to listen to you but we cannot do this without you. We know you're unhappy with the current direction of travel, but it will not get better until everyone takes responsibility for the way things are. Politics isn't just about the leaders and the MPs. It's about the activists, the standard bearers, the youth groups, the sub committees, the focus groups, the think tanks. It's about people like you and me working together to make Gibraltar the place we want it to be.

Let's get the ball rolling for change in 2022. Together we can do this.