Wenzu's moral code: keep my secret while I slag you off
Typical Wenzu Mintoff – entreating people not to reveal his ‘secrets’ and then slagging them off. As for Toni and Joseph, I really can’t understand these people. All that posturing, when they knew about this:
The Times, Saturday, 6th December 2008
Another e-mail sent by mistake
Michael Falzon, NaxxarAccording to the report on the Labour leader’s address to his party’s general conference (December 1) when Joseph Muscat referred to the e-mail that was sent to Jason Micallef in error, he said that “the offers and telephone calls asking us not to release the information were useless. You will not buy us”.
It so happens that on March 27 of this year, Wenzu Mintoff, then MLP education secretary, sent an e-mail to MLP acting leader Charles Mangion, copied to all party officials. Instead of e-mailing a copy to then deputy leader Michael Falzon, Dr Mintoff pressed the wrong button and sent the e-mail to me!
On realising his error, Dr Mintoff phoned me and entreated me to ignore the e-mail, rather than passing it on to the PN media, as I had actually already done. I replied that I will have to see. After discussing the issue with the relevant PN official, it was decided that the e-mail would be ignored – come se non fosse niente! A few minutes after this decision was taken, a very perturbed Toni Abela also contacted me by phone and entreated me to behave like a gentleman by not taking advantage of a genuine mistake.
I assured Dr Abela that the decision not to reveal the contents of the e-mail had by then been taken.
I am not recalling this in order to ask readers to judge whether I did the right thing or not but to assure Dr Muscat that I never considered the phone calls from Dr Mintoff and Dr Abela as useless attempts at “buying” me.
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Presently I am not happy with the sudden expensive changes the government (especially Gatt) is introducing. PBO’s email was going to be the last straw.
I watched parts of Xarabank while zapping during the adverts, but who the hell from PL decided to present to us tele-viewers pea-brain MR PEPSODENT. All through the program he interrupted and judged by his standards.
PBO had his baptism of fire with Mr Pea-brain interrupting , Karl assuming and Peppi stopping him for “RIKLAMI”.
Will PL ever learn?
If the e mail Wenzu Mintoff sent you by mistake was of public interest; you should have published it, without first asking PN for permission. The point of the matter is not Jason’s teeth but what was happening behind our backs. Is it or isn’t it true that whoever complained to a government department had his particulars sent to the PN. If so my name and email address has just been added (if they weren’t already there) to PN headquarters, because I have just complained to Austin Gatt about the proposed public transport reforms. Maybe PN will send taxis to take my children to University, college or work, who knows, they might even get their vote.
OMG this PBO affair ! I had previously expressed my doubts re his capabilites as general secretary of the PN, based solely on his track record as mayor of Valletta. There was a blogger here who countered my comment to be an Austin Gatt planted elf, because Austin Gatt sees Paul Borg Olivier a threat LOL !!
Actually PBO is a threat to the whole government because of his daftness .
1) Such things should never be put on e mail
2) Imagine such a slip up happened during an election campaign – even more devastating than the JPO affair
3) on Xarabank he reveals that he actually made 2 mistakes not 1 , by sending the email to a Saviour AZZOPARDI and JASON Micallef , instead of Parl Sec Azzopardi Jason. He is not only daft but utterly careless.
For good measure he also revealed that the PM was on board with this initiative.
Dr Gonzi, please demonstrate par idejn sodi also with people who don’t perform, both at party and government level – ask for their resignation
@david s
Seems like you’d rather see citizens’ rights breached, than the party you support losing political mileage. But nevermind, you’re otherwise right about PBO’s qualities (or lack of). Don’t lose too much sleep … come election time this incident would have long been forgotten.
@ DavidS
You’re missing the point here. PBO grave mistake was not that he emailed the wrong persons, but that he was soliciting a breach of the data protection act, which is a criminal offence. PBO’s attempt at defending his action by quoting Labour’s manifesto was pathetic. Dr Gonzi should show his mettle by asking for PBO’s resignation, otherwise he would appear to be an accomplice in this serious breach. Tough on PBO, but this resignation is essential for the party’s reputation, or else it will come back to haunt the PN at the next election, adding to JPO debacle.
@ David S – My comment about you and PBO was very tongue in cheek. It seems you can’t take the jibe, but to your credit you didn’t deny it. Bullly for you!. I have worked with PBO in the past in the party, and he comes across as a bahbuh, but he is not stupid.
On the other hand, I heard a buzz that my comment was relayed to Austin by someone…..I wonder who?
It’s not going to stop me speaking my mind though. Its not the first time that I did so, quite sharply, even with Austin Gatt. He is a man who can take it! I respect him a lot for that!
@David S. I forgot……now you know why I never get any offers to serve from him.
Daph – Maybe your headline should have read “Wenzu and Toni’s moral code – Keep our secret while we slag you off”. (Donnhom kollha bla principji! Ah well, like attracts like, I suppose.)
@ Grace
Maybe PN will send taxis to take my children to University, college or work, who knows, they might even get their vote.
Maybe Austin will pass by and take them in his Jaguar!
@ Daphne
What would YOU have done if it was YOU who received this email? Would you have published it (you yourself asked Dr Muscat to publish this email if it was in the public’s best interest)?
Re PBO, I guess that one mistake the PN council did this year was that they did not elect C Bonnici instead of PBO. In my opinion he was better suited than PBO.
[Daphne – This is what I would have done. If I had received the email, I would have published it. There is no argument for NOT publishing it, unless it is the trade-off of favours, which didn’t work in the PN’s case. They agreed not to publish Wenzu Mintoff’s email after he begged them not to. The ‘PL’ (because we’ve been bossed into using the new acronym now) didn’t return the compliment with Paul Borg Olivier’s email. Moral of the story: don’t expect non-gentlemen to abide by a gentlemen’s agreement; there is no scope for gentlemen’s agreements in politics. If I had SENT the email by mistake, I would have gone through with the consequences. I would certainly have never embarrassed myself further by crawling up to the unintended recipient to beg for it not to be published, thereby putting myself in that person’s debt. And quite frankly, I would rather have a government minister going around in a Jaguar than a prime minister who makes an inverted snobbery point of driving himself around in a white old-model Mazda while his ‘driver’ picks up a government salary for doing nothing.]
Moral of the story. Lawrence Gonzi was more than right to ask Simon Busuttil to fill the post of PN Secretary General. Look where PBO landed the Party now!
“On realising his error, Dr Mintoff phoned me and entreated me to ignore the e-mail, rather than passing it on to the PN media, AS I HAD ACTUALLY ALREADY DONE. I replied that I will have to see. After discussing the issue with the relevant PN official, it was decided that the e-mail would be ignored – come se non fosse niente!”
And Daphne has from time to time tried to convince her readers that she is not part of the PN media machine, yet she passes on stray emails to the PN media faster than it took Dr. Mintoff to realize that he had copied her in by mistake. What a joke.
[Daphne – It wasn’t me writing that, Uncle Fester. It was Michael Falzon, former Nationalist Party minister. I am quoting his letter in full. I think you’d better eat your words there.]
@Daphne. If that’s the case then I retract my comment, however I still believe you are an integral part of the PN media machine.
[Daphne – IF that’s the case? It says so on top of the letter: The Times, Michael Falzon and the date. Believe what you like. You live in the free world.]