The three stooges
“Hey! Who are you calling Dumbo? That man on my back is the deputy leader of the Malta Labour Party. Call him Dumbo again and he’ll sue” – Ellie the Elephant
You have to hand it to Labour. The party really knows how to keep the country in stitches. The election of the twin jokers in the pack of deputy leadership candidates has been met with great hilarity. Even Labour MPs are laughing, though in despair.
The real surprise is that nearly half the population doesn’t get the joke and heads right out to vote for this ship of fools every five years in the hope that things will get better within the party. Five decades later, they’re still looking for reasons to give Labour a chance. Clearly, the relationship between the Labour Party and its electors constitutes a form of marriage without divorce. I wonder whether they even take the trouble to ask themselves why Labour will have won just three general elections in more than half a century by the time we get to the next round in 2013.
Yes, that’s right: three elections in half a century since the start of the 1960s: 1971, 1976 and 1996. Because we’re talking in terms of popular support, and not seats in parliament, 1981 counts as another loss. And the 1996 win has to be framed in the context of just how many thousands of electors rushed to the polls to undo their decision only 22 months after making it. They gave Labour a chance and boy, did they regret it.
No wonder people are so reluctant to say they vote Labour, in surveys or in conversation. They know it’s embarrassing, so when they do speak up, it’s with that air of defiance, like a teenage announcing he’s gay at a family lunch with all the grandparents present and correct. Someone sticks up for Labour and everyone else raises an eyebrow and thinks of a new subject to take the conversation in a different direction as rapidly as possible. To say you vote Labour in polite company nowadays is like announcing that you have genital warts. Others change the subject to avoid the possibility of unpleasantness and too much information.
Whenever an otherwise sensible person is brave enough to claim that he or she votes Labour – anywhere other than on the comments-board of a blog or newspaper forum, that is – I immediately assume that this person’s views have been shaped by the family, in which case they might just perhaps be excused for failing to think more rationally later on in life. If the person doesn’t come from a Labour family, then I wonder what caused the shoulder-chips to grow. It has been my observation that when somebody who is fairly intelligent, from a non-Labour background and without working-class roots suddenly embraces the Labour Party in its incarnation of the past 50-odd years, something has gone wrong in that person’s life.
Deciding to support the risible Labour Party becomes an act of defiance against the gods and society, a reverse salute at life itself, and is the fruit of bitterness and disappointment, perhaps even of anger and envy. Angry teenagers dress like Goths and smash telephone booths. Angry grown-ups vote for Labour and the three stooges.
Despite the word going round that the party machine promoted Chris Cardona and Gavin Gulia, others who share my political sympathies were pretty confident that former policeman Anglu Farrugia and Super One’s Otello Toni Abela would be elected. At a meeting on Thursday afternoon, before the first electoral round, somebody brought this up, and my reaction was that Labour delegates may have hopeless taste and no political nous, but they’re not actually certifiably insane. Besides, wasn’t the party machine that pushed Joseph Muscat now supposed to be pushing Cardona and Gulia? It turns out I was wrong and my colleague was right.
When the result of the first round was made public at about midnight, L-Ispettur and Otello had so many more votes than the runners-up that the result of the Friday run-off was a foregone conclusion. My initial thoughts were that if they were so clearly the favourites of the party delegates, and by such a wide margin, then they and not Cardona and Gulia must have been the ones pushed by the Muscat machine. Perhaps Muscat felt more able to manipulate a couple of jokers like L-Ispettur and Otello. But I was left with some nagging doubts.
Why would somebody who is trying so hard to come across as a smooth operator allow his lilo to be punctured by two deputy leaders that make the line-up look like the three stooges, when he could have had the more marketable and slicker outfit of Cardona and Gulia? Cardona and Gulia match Muscat. Abela and Farrugia match each other yet highlight Muscat’s posturing through contrast. It is the very recipe used by trios who perform comedy acts, but perhaps they’re not aware of it.
When I had thought about the matter some more, I realised that my initial analysis was completely wrong. There is no way that Muscat would have wanted Otello and L-Ispettur, and not just because they capsize his self-inflated image by behaving like an even more downmarket version of the Two Ronnies. An abiding image of the last electoral campaign is Toni Abela in some show that superseded Otello, wearing a pair of pilot’s gloves and doing a Godzilla impression around the Super One studio, muttering ‘par idejn sodi’, while the camera followed him around for the edification of the masses. Abela and Farrugia are going to be impossible to work with – the CEO’s worst nightmare of two directors voted in to represent the interests of family shareholders, who hijack and sabotage every meeting of the board by strenuously objecting to things they know nothing about, and making ludicrous suggestions while everyone else groans inwardly. Oh, and who then pounce on the tea and biscuits when they’re brought in.
Joseph Muscat must have wanted Cardona and Gulia, and L-Ispettur and Otello must have been the worst-case scenario for him. Now that worst-case scenario has materialised.
The party machine which pushed Muscat so successfully stopped working efficiently after scoring that first goal, or else it met with great resistance. It’s important to remember that in the first electoral round – which is where the true loyalties of the delegates are to be identified – Muscat scored just under 50 per cent of the vote, and this despite the mammoth support he received through the power of incumbency of his backers. The delegates may have felt they had to vote as the incumbent powers wished them to vote, when it came to the party leader. But then when it came to voting for the deputy leaders, they revelled in the freedom to vote as their instincts told them to vote, and they homed in on the two most vulgar and rough-edged candidates in the line-up, and the ones most prone to making astonishing judgements (“The Nationalist Party won because it set up a fund to buy the votes of Labour drug addicts through agents.”). Seen in this light, the election of Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela is beginning to look like a backlash against the perceived imposition of Joseph Muscat.
Anglu Farrugia has announced that he has full faith in Joseph Muscat and wishes to help him cause an internal earthquake at the Labour Party, and another down the road at the Nationalist Party. That shouldn’t be a problem. All he has to do is fall on both buildings from a great height, preferably while sitting on an elephant.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
44 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
I Agree with Daphne here. The election of the Two Kummidjanti as deputy leaders is what the delegati are all about. If you saw them voting they were mostly old, mostly die hard and mostly old Labour. Anglu with his chilli flavoured speeches, and Toni with his television theatricals in the guise of othello, or Gani Borg, or whatever he calls himself nowadays, are just what appeals to them. Political slapstick comedy. What did we all expect. Joe was pushed by the Machine. The Machine also pushed Gavin and Chris. Lots of calls were made. all to no avail. The delegates wanted the new leader flanked by older hands.What they do not realise is that Joe is the Old Hand here. he has been in the party longer than Anglu and Toni.
This article is interesting, Daphne. I love reading your blog but I tend to disagree with you on certain issues.
I, for starters, am a University student who was never ashamed to say I vote Labour and will not be ashamed particularly now that the new leader, in my opinion, is doing an excellent job in his role.
Regarding deputy leadership, I was not happy with the results and would have much preferred Chris Cardona and Gavin Gulia to fill such posts for multiple reasons. Alas, it seems that the delegates did not understand the pattern. However, I’m not really worried about Anglu and Toni as I don’t consider the deputies’ roles to be very significant. I believe that Dr.Muscat is able enough so as to be projected on his own.
Oh well….so we have genital warts! So be it. The truth is that the MLP is today in exactly the same position as it was in the 1960s. In those days, “admitting” to being Labour was not likened to having genital warts, but rather meant that you were heading straight for the eternal burning flames. And the mentality of those days meant that people believed that in the literal sense. Labourites were ostracised by the ever powerful figure of the parish-priest who, in the absence of local government was the de facto “mayor”, who used to distinguish Labour households from non-Labour ones by refraining from delivering to the former the traditional Easter house blessing. And, yes, Labour supporters mostly reacted in a defiant way.
Even becoming a teacher was practically impossible for young Labour leaning men and women, as their application to enter the two teacher-training institutions (run by the church) used to enquire with the parish priest regarding their “Catholic credentials”. The cruel MLP government of the 70s saw to it that this situation exists no more.
Yes, Daphne, we have been there before. Never for one second think that what Laburisti are going through now is something new. But then, this is what fires them!
@Albert Farrugia
Oh please Albert. Don’t prove Daphne’s point. Where did you get your chip from. Who is being ostracised? So now half the population is unemployed? Forced out of a job? Starving on the bread line?
Grow up! And start using that grey matter up there. This is the kind of reasoning that gives Labour supporters a bad name!
@MPG
Do not to fall into the pattern of thinking that is being pushed on us. They are all the rage ridiculing Farrugia and Abela. But what have these two to be ashamed of, really? Farrugia was a police inspector in the 70s and 80s. And, like police inspectors of that time, Labour AND Nationalist, he followed orders. Don’t forget that the dreaded SMU of Labour times was headed by a certain individual who later, under a PN government, headed the Guido DeMarco-founded SAG section. The one and same person! And don’t forget that Farrugia led the prosecution against former Police Commissioner Laurence Pullicino.
And Abela? What’s so wrong about Abela? He had the courage, as a high-ranking official of the MLP in the late 80s, to speak out against violent elements in the party. For this, he was expelled from the party! Abela was given credit for such a stand this very morning on Radio 101 by Jean-Pierre Farrugia, PN MP. Bad times for Labour those certainly were, but Abela was certainly not on the wrong side! And ask any of Abela’s clients and they will all speak of his unwavering commitment to them.
True, Farrugia and Abela’s styles are rather rough at the edges. So what? Have you ever heard of a certain Austin Gatt? No president of a poetry club, he!
@chris
Please read Daphne’s article before reacting to my comments.
Thanks.
@Albert
Good to see that you have seen sense and started to bring arguments to the discussion table. So much better than whining
@Albert Farrugia. You’re quite ridiculous, banging on about L-Interdett and the suffering of Laburisti at the hands of the church. Who cares? If you had a problem with the church, you should have taken it up with the church. You certainly shouldn’t be taking it up with those who were in nappies at the time, and who vote PN today. Is it even worth pointing out to you that at the time of L-Interdett, each and every member of my extended family voted for the Constitutional Party and not for the Nationalist Party? Is it even worth bothering with an explanation that the Stricklandjani had similar problems with both the church and the antagonism of the Nationalist Party, yet you won’t hear a single one of them banging on about it today?
As for your defence of Anglu Farrugia ‘just following orders’, I assume you are not being ironic, which means you must be ignorant of the fact that, famously or perhaps infamously, ‘we were just following orders’ was not even considered an acceptable line of defence at the Nuremberg trials (look them up).
Your comparison of Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela to Austin Gatt shows that, like many people who share your rabid support of the Labour Party, you are impervious and obvlivious to social nuances. Austin Gatt comes from an extremely good family (I’m talking in terms of social background here, not church-going) and he may be abrupt at times but where it counts, breeding will out….in Farrugia’s and Otello’s case, too.
Yes, Daphne, you’re so right!
Labour never won four elections. And in 1996 it was the VAT-fluke that did it, so that cannot count either. And in 1971, had it not been for those five extra MLP votes in ‘az-Zebbug they would have lost that too, cos now we’re talking about seats now not votes, and those five votes could have been PN-oriented housewives bullied into voting MLP by their husband-thugs. That leaves 1976 – but that was only due to the power of incumbency anyway… so it doesn’t count either…
Lapour has not won a shinkle elekshion since 1955!
What a Party of Noobs!
May Love Prevail. Aghtu bewsa lil xulxin…
@Albert Farrugia.
I guess you’re right Albert on this one. Despite Anglu and Toni, I’m really not ashamed to say that I vote Labour and will never do so. With the rate things are going, I’ll be even more happy to say that I will vote Labour.
The “earthquake and the elephant” paragraph made me splutter my coffee this morning. Then I turned the page and decided to give up on breakfast altogether. Since the election of the new MLP leader, your fellow columnist J. Cassar, is noticing many glum and very worried faces on Net tv. REALLY? She then goes on to ask “someone please explain it to me because now I’m really confused” The columnist goes on further…”Naturally the kiss of death for him (G. Abela) was the PN’s endorsement but I suppose they knew what they were doing, right?”
To make things a little clearer, the Maltese population must have somebody with a good track record and experience working within a more youthful structure to govern the country. The other 99 points in the “101 ways of how to win an election” are mostly gimmicks and pale into comparison. The only person thats comes close to Lawrence Gonzi on this respect is George Abela, full stop. The ONLY thing that is very rightly worrying the government is the lenght of time they have been in governance…end of. Definitely not the evangelical faith healer and his two banditos from the (old) far west.
Another thing. Some people say…How could it be that the “magna tal-partit MLP” wanted Cardona and Gulia as deputy leaders and those other two got elected? What the heck do you expect with Jason Micallef controlling this “magna”…a good job?
Finally, a tiny suggestion for Daphne…a “quotes / posts of the week section”
Mine would be:
“I think MLP delegates are nationalist after all…they have elected a Walt Disney scenario.” K. Spiteri 13.06
“Joe Galea, your comment “Hehe, i bet you’re dead envious of our young promising leader. Gonzi already looks like a piece of antique furniture in comparison.” reminds me of what Ronald Reagan once said when confronted with the fact the Walter Mondale (Democratic Presidential Candidate 1984) was much younger than him.”I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” It is good to note that in that particular election Mr. Reagan won 49 out of 50 states….so much for being young and promising!” AC 11.06
“Behind Joseph there is NO-ONE…just my wife (lil-din)” Joseph Muscat 08.06
Perhaps it’s time to consider a different approach. Just like a newly-elected prime minister has a free hand in choosing the MPs who will form his cabinet, a newly-elected party leader would have a free hand to choose his team – deputy/deputies, secretary-general, treasurer etc – from among those who submit their nomination. That would make it a real team … winning together or sinking together.
On the selection of AF and TA as deputy leaders, I wanted to be wrong; but on Thursday, when I described the MLP as acting lke a cult, implicitly I indicated, if it was so, then that AF and TA would be selected by the delegates. My instincts told me so; but, at the same time, I criticized myself (to myself) on the precition on the likelihood that I would more likely be proven wrong.
My instinct, however, was rooted in professional judgment. And unfortunately, I was right (this time). The question to be asked is, “Why did the delegates do this?” The answer may be found in their insularity to critical thinking–and their personal histories, for many of those delegates, still strongly tied to Labour’s nasty past–or at least their rigid and independent attitudes that cling to the past and is gronded in their personal psychlogies. As DCG suggests, it also seems to me to be “an act of defiance aganst the gods and society, a reverse salute at life itself.”
My professional colleagues have told me that it takes a matter of generations, perhaps three, for cultural changes to shift in the former Eastern-bloc countries. Communists of the former generation in Russia are today very upset with “Indiana Jones” of today, let alone the predictable securities that socialists societies had seemed to offer.
Malta has its own particular history, but many of the personal dynamics are the same. In Malta, the cultural change is being brought about by the 1987 cultural revolution of the PN’s power in government. In another generation or two, the old guard will be gone (from both parties); and the thinking of the newer generations, for better or for worse, will be what it is: perhaps ahistorical (unfortunately), but with a greater distance from “old Labour” and “old PN.”
Education, opportunties, and higher aspirations [in a very challenging economic and environmental world] will lead to a larger identifiable unified groups with more discerning political choices that are more consistent with pragmatic and rational achievables. Perhaps political parties themselves will evolve to move into those social spaces.
Another five years and another round of young persons to benefit from the Smart City environment, and the revolution will role on. Even with the achievements of “modern success,” the cultural divide between social classes will take another generation to bridge, at least.
Perhaps the electoral systems within both of the major political parties do not allow for fast enough responsiveness to cultural changes. So, delegates making the choices may not be best for society at large. Then again, if party members were voting, maybe they too would not be representative of an evolving general public.
It seems that both parties are not entirely democratic, in that, they do not, yet, entirely trust the general voting public to determine their “internal” affairs. But, perhaps, if the political system could evolve to where voters may register with a particular party affiliation (like in the US) so as to vote in party contests, the general voting public might have an actual voice in the governance and structures of political institutions, without the requirement to “belong” to those institutions.
The stakeholders in a democracy, afterall, are the voters, unless the political parties are regarded as the guardians of political institutions. If party members feel that they own those institutions (or those institutions owe them), then this leaves the public on the outside looking in.
An elected political party is the guardian of government institutions. But, perhaps, a better formal mechanism for future civic participation at the party level could be a constructive dynamic for more responsive parties and less ill-fitting future governments.
I am not too hppy with AF and TA but now that they have been elected, its up to them to prove themselves. And Daphne, are you suggesting that whoever doesen’t come from a ‘good’ background’ can’t hold high office, or is incapable of doing so? smells a bit snobbish to me. I am also quite amused at the deep interest in the MLP’s deputy leaders when the PN have Tonio Borg, who isn’t exactly a great shakes of a politician. I’m sure you’ll agree with me on that point Daph. And please stop all these personal insults such as the elephant thingy – it doesen’t gel so much if you really are out to convince people.
Kev with your stupid, bigoted, blind reasoning then the MLP won the 1981 election cause’ then it was seats not votes that counted.
This does not augur well for labour being led by children from the centre and by clowns from the sides. These can never win an election. Only the PN can lose it and that is a dangerous strategy to follow as the 2008 election has shown. Now Jason is unashamedely pretending to stay in position becasue he wants the prize for electing JM and obstructing GA.
I was never ashamed to say I am Labour and have always voted labour. But I am starting to feel ashamed as of last friday. Waht brand can the party build with Toni and ANglue in the leadership trio. The labour delegates are completely disengaged with us labourites out here and we are just about to disengage from them. It works both ways.
@Albert Farrugia
Policemen who sit in a room and do nothing while the law is being broken are equally as guilty and morally reprehensible as those who commit the crimes.
Its interesting to note that you casually refer to torture & murder as obeying orders. Even I wouldn’t go so far. In my view the MLP goverment created the environment for this to happen, but according to you, it actually gave orders for it to happen. Interesting indeed. And coming from a Labour supporter. I suppose I’ll have to be charitable and just assume you’re confused, which, seeing the rest of your writing, is probably a fair assumption to make.
And by the way, your comment about PN & MLP inspectors both following orders? Also not the case. There were less than 10% PN supporters in the force by then, busy guarding lamp posts in the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter. Most nationalists had been purged from the force and replaced by thugs, precisely why the PN could do so little in the way of implementing justice after 1987, was still so vulnerable to labour violence (the 31/3/1989 incidents, the harbour blockade, the law courts etc) and had to wait for attrition by time until we finally got a police force we weren’t scared shitless of.
And enough whining about the sixties. Your hero (the one who’s hearing aid the CIA are tapping, remember?) picked a fight with another old labourite and lost. And caused SOME discomfort to some labourites and gave some PR opportunities to some MLP officials. That justifies absolutely nothing of what went on in the 70’s & 80’s and anyone who tries to do so should be ashamed, and cannot aspire to democratic credentials. And that includes Joe Muscat.
@P Portelli
I’m not about to vote labour but I wouldn’t lose hope if I were you. It seems that one of the changes in the future will be reducing the number of deputy leaders to one. So when that happen’s obviously there’ll be another election. If Anglu makes it again, reforms and all and with JM supposedly consolidated, THEN you can lose hope :)
@Albert Farrugia
And by the way, Toni Abela may have spoken out about the violent and corrupt elements in the MLP after the 1987 election, but his article in the orizzont after the 2008 election was highly imflammatory and in other times WOULD have led to violence. So maybe Toni Abela is still part of those times, and its only the fact that most are not, that violence did not occur.
Albert Farrugia – Kindly explain to me why one of my teachers in the 1970s sometimes used to bring her sandwiches to school packed in pages of L-Orrizzont (or whatever it was called in those days – on the other days it was empty packets of Pasta Angelus, but that’s another story). Surely she didn’t lie about her political leanings just to get a job? And do rest assured that she was not employed because of her sweetness.
Albert Farrugia – “They are all the rage ridiculing Farrugia and Abela. But what have these two to be ashamed of, really?”
– Re your (rhetorical) question about the former, I suggest that you ask the several people who were (unjustly) arrested when he was a police inspector. My eldest sister was one of them.
“What’s so wrong about Abela?”
He’s an embarrassment, to say the least, as are the rest of the line-up.
@Albert Farrugia
One more thing about Toni Abela. Why exactly did he speak out about the violence and corruption in the labour party AFTER the 1987 election? It would have been worthy of note if he spoke out when it was happening, not when it was mostly over. No prizes for that. I know last week’s super 5 numbers but they’re not going to give me last week’s prize, now, are they?
Quote: “And don’t forget that Farrugia led the prosecution against former Police Commissioner Laurence Pullicino.
Why has Mrs. Daphne Caruana Galizia skipped the quoted sentence? I had been asking for it in this site since weeks, it never came. Why? Now a friend has spilt the beans.
No one from the Daphne or ABC clan dared write it. It demolishes all that was written and being written against Anglu Farrugia’s behaviour when he was still serving in the police force. I even remember his words: “The era of Pullicino is over”.
Perhaps Daphne and the members of her clan have a brain divided into compartments.
La Fontaine (Book I. vii) has a suitable fable on the subject: « The beggar’s bag. » (La Besace in French). It ends like this, freely translated.
“The sovereign manufacturer
“Created us beggar’s bag carriers, all of the same kind,
“Those of olden times as well as of to-day:
“For our defects he made the pocket on the back,
“And the one in front for the defects of others.
Verify your facts before going into print Daphne dear.
I know that this has nothing to do with the “discussion” here but maybe somebody could scan yesterday’s interview with Joseph Muscat in The Times’ Weekender insert, which I couldn’t find online.
The interview ended with something along the lines of “I (the interviewer – whose name I can’t remember) asked him (Joseph Muscat) if there is any place on earth which he would like to show to his children. His reply was ‘One day I would like to show them the exact place where they were conceived, but that’s a secret for now.'” EXACT place? Vulgar innuendo, or what? Whatever the case – even if the place in question was some clinic – surely such details are private? Well, they’re certainly not innuendos to be made by a newly-elected party leader.
And what’s with the full-page photo of him on the Weekender cover, complete with a nappy in one hand and Pamper’s wipes in the other? A cheap ad, or what?
Whatever the case, such a photo was certainly not befitting somebody aiming to be prime minister one day, more so when it was stated in the interview itself that it (the interview) was held at his office. Did he traipse all the way from Burmarrad with the nappy and wipes ready to pose for the photo? What an embarrassing little twerp!
@Albert Farrugia Comparing Toni Abela and Anglu Farrugia with Austin Gatt? Im sorry but I am going to insult you back. You are indeed a FOOL and should have your head checked.
I am confused with the ‘spontaneous’ decision of Anglu Farrugia to let Mangion as the Opposition Leader.
I feel that the vote of the delegates was not respected. I am not convinced with this move.
We now have FOUR stooges.
@Michael Debono – you expect me to respect Anglu Farrugia for leading the prosecution of the man he served. Please. I expect he was just following orders again.
Please note – and this is on record elsewhere – that when I was held under arrest (in a pitch-black cell without food or water for 27 hours), he wrote a false ‘confession’ and then forced me to sign it by saying that I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the lock-up until I did. Nobody ordered him to do that, I imagine. He did it of his own free will.
@Michael Debono – this obsession with faux French intellectual pursuits leads me to surmise that you’re Anthony Licari (or Alfred Sant)
Something JM and AF have in common – JM went from No to Yes
on Europe. AF went from Yes to No on Pullicino!
Courage of their convictions?
Quoting Daphne: “Your comparison of Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela to Austin Gatt shows that, like many people who share your rabid support of the Labour Party, you are impervious and obvlivious to social nuances. Austin Gatt comes from an extremely good family (I’m talking in terms of social background here, not church-going) and he may be abrupt at times but where it counts, breeding will out…”
Hmm, is there something we don’t know about the families and social backgrounds of Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela?
This would be very interesting to share!
@Galea – it should be obvious from their speech and behaviour where they’re coming from, and it’s certainly not from Austin Gatt’s background.
There is no doubt that the election of Farrugia to the post of Deputy Leader for Parliamentary Affairs does not help the New Labour image. But then let’s keep this in context. The man has been elected Deputy Leader. He’s about as important to Labour’s election hopes as Tonio Borg was to the Nationalists in March – i.e. zero importance. At least he had the sense not to push to be appointed Opposition Leader pending Joseph Muscat’s co-option to Parliament. The MLP can play the political game as well as the Nats – witness President’s leaked disappointment that Labour did not allow him to appoint Anglu Farrugia to Opposition Leader. Sorry Effie, Labour acted faster than you did to save the situation. If JM made that decision then I can understand why the Delegates elected him – he definitely has what it takes to outsmart the Machiavellian tribe down at Tal-Pieta.
Galea – Even their first names are a dead give-away, especailly given their ages. To give you just one teeeny weeny little clue:
Anglu and Toni could very easily have been named “Austin”. But Austin? He would never have been named “Anglu”, or “Toni” – or “Bastjan”, for that matter.
Got it? (But then again, you knew it in the first place, didn’t you?)
Uncle Fester – Seeing that you’re back in circulation, maybe you’d like to reply to the question I put to you under the blog “One in three babies …” some time last week. Thank you.
@Uncle fester, if you think that the fact Anglu Farrugia is deputy leader is not going to be of any importance over the next five years, you really don’t know what you’re talking about.
@ ABC. Is Anthony Licari’s grasp of English THAT pathetic?
@Amanda. I did not see that question. I literally browse these blogs. If you don’t mind, can you repeat that question if it is still relevant today.
@Daphne. I hope not because I do want to see some progressive legislation passed in this country of ours while I can still benefit from it! As far as I’m concerned it will take Labour to do it so I’m gunning for Joseph and his team at Mile End!
@Uncle Fester
“I do want to see some progressive legislation passed in this country of ours while I can still benefit from it!”
What legislation is it that you have not yet benefited from? I can’t imagine that you have not derived benfits from those shared by the commom good, unless you inhabit the world of KMB. I’m sure I, too, could propose some progressive legislation. But are you saying that none of the legislation under the PN has been progressive, or that it is simply insufficient?
@Edward Clemmer. Both the PN and the MLP did a lot of good for the country and some harm. In the case of the PN – the government has increased the standard of living of the vast majority of the population and negotiated entry into the EU. The progressive issues I was referring to were not economic in nature. I am talking about progress on separation of church and state that was started by Mintoff. We still live in a country where there is no divorce, a woman has no right to choose and gay rights are unheard of. Let’s match the economic progress with some social progress – that’s my only point. In short, thank you PN for increasing our standard of living and getting us into the EU. Now go spend some time on the opposition benches while Labour takes care of much needed social progress. If we need you later we know how to vote for you.
@Uncle Fester
“Now go spend some time on the opposition benches while Labour takes care of much needed social progress.”
I am in agreement with your issues. But the method of accomplishment and their particular shape and form for Malta is yet unknown, given the general cultural milieu. I don’t have evidence, yet, to believe that the MLP wold be capable of governing, as well as introducing the needed social progress. For me, the model of social progress might be the State of California in the US. But, that might be rather revolutionary in Malta, for any government, PN or MLP. Would it also be possible for a PN government to also bring about the required social change, along with the economic change it is managing to its credit? My hope, is that there would be a capable and responsible MLP government, in alternation with PN, that would allow such social progress. My skepticism, however, remains that the MLP in its current form lacks support and credibility to govern. A credible MLP in opposition may force a PN government to tackle the progressive issues for social changes.
I have promised to ignore this site, but after reading two references to my contribution I would try to have a last word.
So it transpires that Daphne Caruana Galizia has finally admitted and disclosed that she has a murderous grudge against Anglu Farrugia and she cannot take it out of her system. No better way than to expectorate to try to get some relief. (I dare not add more vulgarity to this site)
No, Dr.Andrew Borg Cardona I am neither Licari nor Sant. Didn’t you notice the difference in style? I would wish to have their qualifications and do not envy them. When I am at a loss to remember a suitable quotation in English I use a foreign even Maltese expression with which I am more familiar and I feel certain that I will be understood
I quote the little French I know because I noticed that you do in your more interesting contributions to the Times of Malta and you understand it quite well, otherwise it would be a waste of time and space
@Edward Clemmer
Why dont you spare us the never ending, long winding arguments and just tell us that you have seen a lot of schoraly evidence to ban the MLP? And save yourself a lot of typing on your keyboard.
@Edward Clemmer. Maybe that will happen. However PN has not been good on these issues in government.
– Before marriage law reforms of the 1990s, marriage issues were dealt with in the country’s courts as they should be. Then along comes Guido de Marco and negotiates a shaira like deal with the Vatican to give local church tribunals exclusive right over marriages between Catholics. That would never have happened under Labour.
– EU Directive on non-discrimination for gays was intentionally watered down in application to appease the local church hierarchy – who I like to refer to as “the Nationalist party at prayer” (with apologies to the Church of England known as the Conservative party at prayer). That would never have happened under Labour.
– By now Labour would have introduced some form of divorce. Sant government had already commissioned a report and the clear intention was to pave the way for some divorce legislation.
– PN government made a point of introducing ridiculous clause about abortion in EU accession treaty. That would never have happened under Labour. It also chilled the debate on the need to grant women some sort of right to choose in Malta and led to the crazy amendment to the Constitution being pushed by Gift for Life which had the President of the Republic publicly supporting their movement. Never would have happened under Labour.
– Malta’s voting record with the Vatican on women’s issues at the Beijing conference on women would never ever have happened under Labour.
And so many other things. And you want to rely on the PN to change matters on social issues? Edward, dream on cowboy, it ain’t never going to happen with Gonzi in the saddle.
Further more speaking of obsession, you are surely not obsessed by the “elves”. My name is what it is Debono Michael. My late grand grand father was a capenter Camillo Debono, the windows at the Scots Church, South Street c/w Old Bakery street are his work. Just check if you can.
Even the windmill at hastings was for a time the abode of relatives. Check since you are curious to identify people.
Go to Rabat and check whether there was at a time a lemonade bottling plant run by a certain Joseph Debono a great uncle. Are you convinced. If not it does not matter.
So Daphne has afterall consented to sign a declaration against her free wiil. Once I am in the right, I would never consent, come what may, to lie particularly about myself. Will she do it now?
Daphne’s notoriety started with a shipwreck it might end with an earthquake.