Maria l-Maws can’t read the signs of the times
Maria l-Maws thinks that a party leader must be charismatic. True. But he also needs a good dose of political intelligence, as distinct from the usual kind, and the ability to read people and pick up their messages.
Yet Maria l-Maws couldn’t even read the writing on the wall in this election. Even without the surveys that said plain and clear that the vast majority of new voters were behind Lawrence Gonzi (while Jason was busy thinking that there were only 17,000 of them rather than 34,000), it was possible to see where the youth vote was going.
Maria l-Maws teaches at the university, and still he couldn’t see what was happening. He didn’t even bother to sit and pick a few brains. Oh no. Instead, he waited until the general election had come and gone, and then he convened a bunch of students at his home for a post-mortem inquiry. Gosh, that’s useful. He told Malta Today: “I regret that I did not organise meetings like these before the elections. They would have been such an eye-opener for me and the party. As I spoke to them, I thought to myself, ‘this is what democracy is about.’”
Ding-dong. Evarist makes the thrilling discovery that speaking to people gives you a pretty good idea of what they want and how they think. But the Labour Party, of course, is a closed book and a closed shop. The only people Labour politicians listen to are those who vote Labour. Every day for the past 18 years I have been telling them what’s wrong with them and will they listen? Will they hell. I don’t support them, so my views are not considered to be of any value. It doesn’t occur to these people that it is precisely because I don’t support them that I know what’s wrong with them and can be trusted to tell them exactly what’s so unattractive and untrustworthy about them.
They’re not going to start listening any time soon, despite their professed intentions. Just listen to Jason shoot his mouth off. Just hark at that twerp with his 15-year project which he claims to have written in 10 days.
So what did the student focus group tell Maria l-Maws? Nothing that I hadn’t already picked up myself during the campaign, without the aid of surveys or polls, but using only commonsense and observation. I may not be charismatic and intelligent, but I have a good pair of eyes in my head and there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. They told him that the message ‘bidu gdid’ was frightening and unnerving because people didn’t want to start all over again; they wanted to carry on as they were, but better. Every single person fighting in the Nationalist trenches picked that up immediately. So how come nobody on the Labour side did? How come nobody shot down that stupid slogan and the even stupider message behind it when Jason and Fred came up with it? Ah – because nobody dares challenge them, that’s why.
The students also told the man known in tal-pepe circles (he has a tal-pepe wife) as Ev that Labour should have better policies that are relevant to the middle classes and not just the working class, and that these policies should be worked out well and presented in a credible fashion. Ding dong again. Need it take a focus group of students to tell Maria l-Maws something so obvious? Couldn’t he have worked it out for himself? He’s been an MP for 16 years, for heaven’s sake.
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Dear Ol’ Ev!!??
Better start cramming up on Marx, folks!
@ Daphne
You wrote:
“people didn’t want to start all over again; they wanted to carry on as they were”
Don’t you think that that is precisely the reason why JM (taking it as given that he is a repackaged Sant) has more of a chance than anybody else? If a new broom sweeps in, questions will be raised as why so many VIPs in the MLP thought that he was the best thing since sliced bread. If a new Boss thinks the old ways were not the best way forward, might that not leave all the previous “yes Fredu” boys in a precarious position within a new party?
I have feeling that it is in their interest to maintain the status quo. The requisites of the MLP (and country ultimately) come a far second in their priorities, especially when faced with their political extinction.
Erm ‘changing the oil’ does fall a tad short as metaphors go. Voting for Labour would have been more like ditching the wheels to make the car go faster. MLP isn’t and hasn’t been fit to govern since il-perit allowed anyone with a more than above average intelligence to be elbowed out by his gang. Lorry, Agatha and co, the heroes of the day, became ministers not because they possessed the necessary qualifications to run the country but because they were (unjustly) imprisoned. Mediocrity was glorified to protect the new ruling class’ shortcomings. It paid Mintoff dividends in the short run but MLP will be footing the bill for many years to come.
The same old tune is still being played. Last Saturday I happened to listen to Joe Mifsud on super one radio. For crying out loud doesn’t he realize that he’s not doing his thing in a bar with his mates? Talking on radio is not like being in a Kazin. Mr. Mifsud was having his say about N. Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, so far good and I might even have been inclined to agree with his arguments but his choice of words and manner is total cringe inducing. Listening to Emanuel Cuschieri and Wenzu Mintoff on super one spewing the same tired rhetoric day in year out blaming the government if it happens to rain in Timbuktu confirm that Labour have not shaken off the Mintoff legacy. It is this legacy that allowed the top structures of the party to be what they have been post Mintoff. A top brass that always makes one ask WHY? Why did Mintoff decree that all boat houses be painted green? Vans white with a red stripe? Why did we end up with a prickly pear as our national emblem? Why did Alfred Sant have to decide to start his articles in the Times, probably his most important media pitch, with an obscure word beginning with the letters Pr? The reception class, why? These are little details seemingly as irrelevant as Jason’s choice of footwear but it’s these little details that remind us that these people still do not have what it takes and if they’re left to their own devices they will perform the unfathomable. As in close down MCAST (why?) or do away with the 11 plus (why?). Because although they recognize a problem, and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that there is a problem, they do not have what it takes to come up with a solution. Their methods are as still as suspect as ever. They can always be counted upon to get rid of the wheels.
2 Paul
‘Lorry, Agatha and co, the heroes of the day, became ministers not because they possessed the necessary qualifications to run the country but because they were (unjustly) imprisoned’.
Dont’ remind me, pleeeease. I can still hear the yells of ‘Das-seklu taghna’ screeched in ear-splitting decibels on the Museum Esplanade by big, busty harridans and sweaty, beer guzzling, pot-bellied men in shirt sleeves after the last MLP election victory. All those thugs running rampant and lording it all over the place.
From such recurrences, deliver us, O Lord!
MEDITATE GENTE MEDITATE…….
Now that Varist Bartolo announced his MLP Leadership candidacy, the whole situation within the MLP is rather strange and can be further once George Abela, Marie Louise Coleiro and Anglu Farrugia decide to have a run for the leadership.
The problem is and which I’m sure the MLP is perhaps not aware of is that who ever will be leader of the opposition and leader of the MLP will be elected with not more that 310 first preference votes.
Yes it is so.
Simple mathematics :
Votes to be casted by MLP delegates: 940 (+ -)
Joseph Muscat 310
Michael Falzon 240
Evarist Bartolo 180
George Abela 120
Marie Louise Coleiro 50
Anglu Farrugia 40
And this is the difference between PN and MLP there is no strategy not even for a vital internal position as that of the leadership.
In such a situation the MLP leader will be a leader of just 1/3 of the delegates present
Meditate gente meditate
Yesterday’s STOM front page report about MEPA’s Auditor’s approval of Mistra 1994 development included also the reasons why he approved the development – which is only fair. Before publishing his two reports on the DCC in February and March did he give an opportunity to the DCC members to defend their case and give reasons for their decision?
Anyone remembers which years did Maria l-Maws work at the national broadcasting station, followed then by 10 years heading the Labour Party’s media? And what was he role exactly at the national station
Just been to the man’s website and I suspect he’s not so proud of his years at Xandir Malta because he fails to specify which years was he at Dardar Malta.
Many thanks
Chilly,
I thought it was Mandra Malta!