Nice one, Jeffrey – try keeping your mouth shut between now and 28 May
If Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando isn’t completely out of his Yes campaign colleagues’ control, then they should try slapping a gag on him or, if that fails, locking him in some remote cupboard with plenty of food and water and letting him out at 9.40pm on 28 May.
He is a massive liability to his own cause, but he is too self-involved to see it.
It was always a thoroughly rotten move to have the divorce bill proposed, and the Yes campaign spearheaded, by somebody who wants a divorce himself. This is because even perceived personal vested interests are a major turn-off to the public, let alone unashamedly barefaced ones.
The Yes campaign has been handicapped by the perception that Pullicino Orlando is doing this only because he wants to divorce his wife, the Labour MP Marlene Pullicino, and marry his long-standing consort.
Now he has gone and stripped that motivation naked for all to see, saying this morning that if the No vote wins the referendum, he will register his daughter’s flat in England in his name, because he is paying her rent, and get divorced there.
And presumably, he will then forget about campaigning for divorce in Malta, because his own interests will have been served.
All that is needed in this ugly, public marital battle between the two MPs on either side of the house is for the mother of that poor girl – who shouldn’t have been dragged into her father’s attempt to divorce her mother – to gazump him by renting her own flat in London and beating him to it. It’s not as if she can’t afford to do so.
But then, unlike him, she probably knows that registering yourself as a resident of the United Kingdom involves a hell of a lot more than renting a flat in your name and pretending that you live at that address. If it were so very simple, then some enterprising Maltese would by now have come up with a thriving divorce business – renting flats in cheap, rundown areas and taking money from up to six Maltese people per flat to put their names down as tenants so that they can get divorced.
Belt up, Jeffrey, unless you’re hell-bent on sinking ships for a hobby.
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If I were you’d I’d stay away from press conferences for a while. He’s in touch with his ‘feminine’ side, if you know what I mean.
The No movement(s) is the biggest reason to vote Yes and the Yes movement is the biggest reason to vote No.
Antoine, your comment hits the nail dead on its head. I would be willing to sponsor this comment and put it on a billboard in front of JPO’s house.
Exactly, if I weren’t so damn in favor of divorce, I’d vote NO because of Joseph, JPO and Bartlu, but I’ll vote YES because of NO’s nonsense.
J Pullicino is a headace for whoever he campaigns for. He was a set back for the Nationalist Party before the last election, and is now a blow for the ‘Yes’ side whenever he opens his mouth. Some time ago on television, Beppe Fenech Adami told him that he should not talk about law since he is a dentist….. maybe his fellow ‘Yes’ campaigners should remind him of this more frequently.
The dIVA campaign!
What he didn’t say is that if he is registered as a UK resident for more than 12 months, he will be stripped off the Electoral Register, and ….durum durum….he will lose his parliamentary seat.
It’s just a bluff.
[Daphne – He’s going to lose that anyway.]
Right Daphne, I bet all that I have that he will never be elected again!
@R Micallef …..and thank God for that .
The Yes movement keeps telling us that it’s very expensive to get a divorce from abroad and has produced billboards on these lines… then Jeffrey tells us you can get divorce from abroad at the click of a button.
Jeffrey cost the Nationalists at least 5,000 votes in the last ten days of the 2008 general election campaign… he’s now costing the Yes camp even more votes in a campaign on which most people don’t feel too strongly and therefore judge on other matters like Jeffrey’s feet-in-the-mouth.
Correct me if I am wrong, but if he gets divorce from England, he still cannot marry his long-standing consort, if she is not divorced too.
What a waste of energy and time. Why can’t one be for divorce legislation without waging a battle? Why has JPO turned the issue into a battle against his party?
He gained nothing. A zero sum game for him.
Zero sum xejn. He’s positioned himself as a nuisance and a liability, and everyone rushed to pacify the petulant enfant terrible.
In the process he managed to bag: a parliamentary secretary’s post, chairmanship of MCST and a position as one of Malta’s top bullshitters-in-chief, direct access to the OPM, wall to wall media coverage, not a few admiring fillies, and a yet more powerful connections.
Not bad for a zero sum game.
I have been informed by a recently divorced person in the UK that to file an application there you require at least 22 faulty reasons why you are filing for divorce. These ‘faults’ also have a bearing on the percentage of maintenance allowed. Do I need to ask a lawyer to confirm this??
[Daphne – Faulty reasons?]
Most certainly Jeffrey will not be re-elected on the PN ticket as I am pretty certain the party will not accept his nomination. If it does, I will be the first to start a revolt in the Kunsill Generali.
Faulty reasons – I mean this lady had to find at least 22 reasons why her husband was at fault – he called me this; he called me that; he belittled me in front of friends; caught him lying. Don’t seem too much with a couple at war but still a requirement by the British courts.
[Daphne – Not at all. All you have to do is spend two years apart and then it’s automatic. You don’t even have to appear in court. Obviously, these two were in a rush.]
I’d vote NO because of JPO
Don’t you dare!
“Unashamedly barefaced “: for the first time I’m reading a prudent comment about Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
Tridx ghalija dan l-egocentriku jmur Puket fit-Tajlandja u jaghmel liz-zubbara jrid – ara ahna x’jinteressana x’jaghmel. John Attard Montalto ma nafx x’hawwad imma nippreferi mija bhalu milli dal-wicc tost ta’ JPO. Ara veru li wiccu u l-ghatba tal-qorti xorta!
Li nixtieq inkun naf jiena hu ghalfejn min jixtieq jerga jizzewweg ma japplikax ghall-annullament tal-qorti, jew forsi difficli wkoll biex jinghata dan l-annullament jekk ma jkunx hemm bazi soda?
Annullment is given only for very valid reasons, like cheating before the actual wedding, a disease which that partner did not disclose before marriage, an addiction not disclosed before marriage (e.g. alcoholism, gambling, violence etc) or other reasons similar to these.
There’s a fee to apply for it and it takes around six years. So in my opinion, if a separated person wants to marry again, and they apply for it as soon as they apply for the separation, it only takes two more years than the divorce legislation would. Bottom line: if there is a real reason, the annullment will be given, therefore divorce is not necessary.
[Daphne – Very confused thinking. You don’t need a reason to divorce, other than that you can no longer live with the other person, or the other person can no longer tolerate you. A declaration of nullity is NOT a divorce – it means that the marriage never existed because consent was vitiated or because the parties (or just one of them) were not in a position to consent or to know what they were consenting to. That’s all. Divorce ends a marriage, it doesn’t declare that there was no marriage. I happen to think that declarations of nullity, except in extreme and unusual cases, are immoral and deceitful. You marry for better or for worse, and that includes gambling habits or psychiatric conditions that might not have been previously disclosed. Divorce is more honest.]
“till death us do part” is also a promise.
[Daphne – Yes, exactly. And presumably that’s why they go for a declaration of nullity by a church tribunal, because they are fervent Catholics who believe in their marriage vows. So why ‘lie to themselves’? It is precisely because ’till death do us part” is a promise that divorce is more honest: it is an acknowledge that the marriage existed but could not last beyond that point. Anything else is a lie. People who really love their spouses continue to love them even when they discover that there were psychiatric problems or gambling habits they knew nothing about (difficult not to know, I must say). So what you’re saying when you go to the church tribunal to have your marriage declared null because of these reasons is really “I changed my mind about this person and want to get rid of him/her”. That’s why it’s dishonest.]
If the spouse is mentally fine and physically healthy, calm and serene, who never spent 1 euro at the lotto boot and doesn’t like alcohol but “jaqlibha lil mara minn fil-ghodu sa fil-ghaxija”, what shall his wife do – stay married to him? So of course we need divorce.
We have managed to create emotional havoc for people whose marriage broke down. Instead of helping out each individual some people are now trying to batch the whole lot in a quandary of ignorance and ulterior motives.
What a shame. Effectively divorce is a U-turn to a promise made. I believe that when things go drastically wrong they would in fact have started on the wrong foot. Sometimes there is fault and those at fault should compensate the aggrieved party.
http://www.facebook.com/notodivorceJPO?sk=wall
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110125/opinion/divorce-and-nationalist-values.346943