Labour has a leader's wife, and it doesn't know what to do with her
For the first time in living memory, the Labour Party has a leader’s wife, and it’s behaving like a toddler with its first toy car, parading it up and down the room in front of the grown-ups, and zooming it across the floor. Zoooommmmm! Zooooommmmmm! Brrrnnnnn! Brrrrnnnnnn!
The people up at Mile End are clearly on a learning curve here, so we have to give them the benefit of the doubt. Eventually, they’ll learn how to put their toy car back in the box and give its wheels a rest. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of irritainment to be had watching the spectacle unfold.
The bush-fire telegraph has been buzzing with the news of how Mrs Muscat gatecrashed a London charity launch organised by a foundation chaired by the prime minister’s wife. A representative of the charity was invited onto Norman Hamilton’s Bla Agenda marathon on Super One, to talk about the charity’s efforts and to raise more funds. Funds were raised. Then the pound of flesh was taken in return: Michelle Muscat would attend the London launch, though she hadn’t been invited because she plays no role in the charity. Ah, the Labour Party argued, but the prime minister’s wife will be there, so the opposition leader’s wife must go too. In vain did mediators attempt to explain tactfully that the prime minister’s wife wouldn’t be there as the prime minister’s wife, but as chairman of the charitable foundation. The Labour Party and Mrs Muscat were having none of this. What’s sauce for the goose is damn well sauce for the gander.
Having decided to force her way into the event, Mrs Muscat flew to London anyway, without communicating the fact beforehand to her official host, the chairman of the charity and prime minister’s wife, or to the British High Commission, though she was going to London in her capacity of Opposition leader’s wife, and not as Michelle Muscat for a spot of shopping at Harrods, selecting from the rails favoured by Eurovision singers and the consorts of oil sheikhs. I imagine she didn’t see why she should bother. In for a penny, in for a pound. If you’re going to be rude enough to gatecrash, then you might as well be rude enough to surprise your hosts even further by turning up with a Super One camera to invade the privacy of young cancer patients, who should consider themselves fortunate to be filmed with such a lovely lady bringing a bit of sunshine into their lives. Norman Hamilton’s travel agency sponsored her trip, because what with her husband having taken such a big cut in salary, twins to feed and silver dresses to buy, she can’t afford an Easyjet ticket.
The Super One investigative reporters returned with the story that Michelle Muscat had been invited to London to launch the charitable project, and that she had given a speech reminding her audience that the parents of children with cancer suffer too, you know. Thanks for that gem, Michelle. They don’t suffer ‘too’. They suffer more. Footage was shown of Mrs Muscat in Princess-of-Wales mode, smiling at the children and bringing joy to their lives, wearing a new 1960s crash-helmet hairdo, with little barbetti artfully styled down her cheekbones. Super One then had a twinge of conscience and conceded, in the last sentence of its breathless report about how Michelle conquered all, that a person called ‘is-sinjura Kate Gonzi kienet prezenti ukoll’. And then Maltastar.com, the Labour Party’s so-called news-site, repeated the fantasy, telling us in the last line of its story that somebody called ‘Mrs Kate Gonzi was also present.’
Shocking manners? Breaking all the rules of good behaviour? Thinking that protocol is just the title of another one of Alfred Sant’s articles? You’ve got it.
Mrs Muscat’s people have a cunning plan going. They’re keeping track of the prime minister’s wife’s engagements and then they get Mrs Muscat to show up as well. Lecture on breastfeeding? Opening of an envelope? The prime minister’s wife turns up and finds her shadow there waiting, hanging around like a pair of curtains. Maybe it isn’t a cunning plan, after all. Maybe it’s just one of those schoolgirl crushes.
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Maybe she’s rehearsing for when she fills in for Michelle Obama…
Her chicken brain covered by a poodle bouffant hairstyle is telling her that since she’s called Michelle too, she might as well show up at the inaugural ball in one of her silver frights bought off the rack at C & A London.
[Daphne – Actually, those clothes look rather expensive. She’s spending a lot of money on being badly dressed – that kind of shiny, tacky, ironed-hair, too-much-make-up and spindly heels look which is the norm at Maltese weddings. And here’s the thing: she seems to be a reasonably nice person whose behaviour is down to ignorance of behavioural codes and rather too much pushiness than hdura of the sort that riddles the people around her husband.]
They cannot even be so much as subtle with their PR. At least they give us the pleasure of feeling justified in calling it ”cheap” propaganda. Bad taste…… Joey my boy, A LEOPARD NEVER CHANGES ITS SPOTS, OR IN YOUR CASE, HMAR TAQTALU DENBU, HMAR JIBQA.
Eeee it’s good that you were objective and admitted that she DOES look like a reasonably nice person. I think she’s lovely… but she’s being pushed around poor woman.
She should wear whatever she finds fit and her behaviour shouldn’t be someone’s blunt imitation or being someone’s shadow.
Where does this leave the MLP media ‘code of ethics’? I thought so ……
@ J Grima I dont thnk she’s the one being pushed around, I suspect she is the one doing all the pushing – and pushing her Joseph too . Her comment “kuntenta li wasalt s’hawn” says it all
but do you find anything good in Labour?
you poor blue-eyed people!
[Daphne – Some of its key figures provide me with hours of fun.]
I honestly don’t think that the people at Mile End have anything to do with this. Don’t forget she’s an image consultant…she won’t allow others to advise her :)
Michelle is our first political WAG.
[Daphne – Wish I’d thought of that one.]
Kind of reminds me of the Flintstones and Cavemen, but I think they are more similar to the monkeys of 2001, in terms of manners. http://www.palantir.net/2001/tma1/pics/dawn11.jpg
What more, they’re just a bunch of wannabes.
@ David S
Oh and wouldn’t you be? “Kuntenta li wasalt s’hawn” is a perfectly honest remark considering the situation!
No, I sincerely do not think that she’s pushing anyone around.
If she’s reasonably nice, as you put it Daph, how come it doesn’t come through? After all, she’s into PR isn’t it?
What we’re getting is a pushy, overstyled social harridan
Look at pg.109 on Sunday Times of Malta.The Prime Minister and his wife Kate Gonzi and the Opposition Leader and his wife Mrs Michelle Muscat are thanked for their presence at the funeral
Hope said:
but do you find anything good in Labour?
you poor blue-eyed people!
I say………..is there anything good in Labour?? Plesae enlighten us
M
@ J Grima A perfectly honest remark would be if she was content that HER HUSBAND Joseph emerged the winner in the MLP leadership race . But her comment was that she was content for HERSELF -“Kuntenta li wasalt s’hawn”. Perhaps Joseph may not have even contested were it not for Michelle’s ambition to be Malta’s first lady …with the result that we have a leader of the opposition (and perhaps pm) who is clearly out of his depth !
@david s – i agree. I suspect she wears the trousers.
I can’t believe all this freaking show is taking place in Malta. It’s worse than a nightmare. Within merely six months, the silly show has turned into an erratic obsession..and we have four and a half years to go.
So far these two are trying to outshine each other. I am sure that in a couple of years we’ll see images and footage of the twins thrown around (first walk, first words, first day at school etc).
...but she’s {Michelle Muscat] being pushed around poor woman.”
Poor woman? Michelle? Pushed around? What about that news clip somewhere that had quoted her saying “Ferhana hafna li wasalt sa hawn” – Not “li waslana” or even “li wasalli [Joseph]” (as her mother-in-law would undoubtedly have said), but “Li [jien] wasalt sa hawn”.
Maybe we are looking to the day when news media will report “Ir-ragel ta’ Michelle gie mahtur Prim Ministru”. Shades of Bill Clinton, rather than of Barack Obama.
“(Michelle is) spending a lot of money on being badly dressed -”
Or, as Dolly Parton once put it, “I have spent a huge fortune in making myself look cheap”
J. Grima: ““Kuntenta li wasalt s’hawn” is a perfectly honest remark considering the situation!”
But also very telling. “Joseph [tieghi?]kien haqqu li jilhaq” would have been more apt.
Perhaps we could be looking to the day when the media will report “Ir-ragel ta’Michelle gie mahtur Prim Ministru”. Shades of the Clintons rather than the Obamas that Joe Muscat and his better half purport to emulate.
David S. “Malta’s first lady” is the wise of the head of state, not the wife of the prime minister. The prime minister’s wife is just that.
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“I was especially proud to be Maltese when I saw that both Kate Gonzi and Michelle Muscat were in the delegation that was present at the ceremony. Archbishop Paul Cremona celebrated Mass during the inauguration.
Norman Hamilton and his indefatigable Bla Agenda team were there too. At the end of this month, a special edition of his magazine programme will be broadcast and viewers will be able to donate money towards this worthy cause”.
TANYA CILIA “HOME THOUGHTS”…………..THE SUNDAY TIMES OF MALTA, November 9th page 35
[Daphne – And your point is what exactly?]
Ray Borg: Donations to the fund can be made at any time.
Ah! So it seems that Mrs. Gonzi is NOT the chairperson of Puttinu Cares Children’s Cancer Foundation after all but the chairperson of another (similarly called, I must admit) foundation: The HSBC Cares for Children Fund!
http://www.timesofmalta.com./articles/view/20081115/local/puttinu-cares-to-pay-euro-350-000-in-bank-interest
[Daphne – Yes, and the one is run by the other.]