In a hole and digging hard
When you’re in a hole, dig deeper. Perhaps you’ll come out the other side. That seems to be Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s current approach to his public relations problem. He’s aiming for the admiration of a bunch of people who can’t or won’t vote for him because he’s with the wrong party. And if he thinks that by switching parties he’ll be voted in, he’s wrong again. No Laburist is going to vote for the hero of Mistra, even if he wraps himself round Joseph Muscat’s ankles and kisses his butt in a public square. As for AN or AD, he’s not going to succeed where countless others have failed.
Jeffrey’s latest belief is that people are trying to shut him up, and that he doesn’t need to go into the reasons why because our motives are obvious. Here he is in The Times today.
“I will not deign to answer those who brought up matters that are completely unrelated to the issue in their efforts to shut me up. Even the most naïve of observers must realise what their motives are.”
Jeffrey knows what my motive is because I’ve told him already – personally. I wish to stop him f**king up even further, for his own sake more than anything else. It’s horrible when you see somebody who is not essentially a bad person rushing right down a road with a large brick wall at the end of it. There are other reasons. As his constituent I am the one with the right and duty to tell him that he is not representing me correctly or according to my wishes – I, and not some racist in Birzebbuga or some braying bridge-table environmentalist in Sliema. Jeffrey doesn’t get this. He doesn’t get that he is answerable to me and to the few thousand highly localised constituents to whom he owes his seat. He says he is answerable to no one. But he is: he is answerable to us. Not to the prime minister, not to his party, but to his constituents. And our party of choice was the Nationalist Party – not Azzjoni Nazzjonali, not Labour, and not Alternattiva. Apparently, this is too hard to understand.
I think it is beyond disgusting that somebody who espoused liberal values and who convinced people to vote for him on that basis has morphed overnight into an amalgam of Josie Muscat and Joseph Muscat, with all this talk of ignoring our international obligations and towing people out to sea. I am disgusted, Jeffrey. I have no motives except the motive of expressing my great and utter disgust that my representative in parliament is talking like a watered-down Norman Lowell and claiming to do so on MY behalf. How dare you? Really – how in God’s name do you dare to do that?
My view is like the prime minister’s: that other people, whoever they are and wherever they are from, are not ‘skart’ to be tossed out when expedient, with no regard to what becomes of them. They are people with lives, families and stories and I can’t help but put myself in their position. Worse than Jeffrey’s disregard for human life and dignity is his blatant contempt for the rule of law. I am tempted to pass a cynical remark here, but I won’t. To him, international obligations are there to be disregarded when it suits us. More disturbingly still, he seems not to understand that states do not and cannot act in a vacuum. For every action, there is going to be a reaction. As Ranier Fsadni pointed out in his column in The Times yesterday, by behaving like a rogue state, we will ensure that we are treated as a rogue state. We risk suspension or even expulsion from the European Union. By towing people back towards Libya we risk severe retaliation from Libya. Even Josie Muscat has been careful with talk about Libya – after all, he has a hospital, dental clinics and plenty of business interests there, as do very many Maltese.
The only thing that could have redeemed Jeffrey is the one thing he never did and probably never will, because he still can’t see that he did anything wrong back in March or that he caused a lot of people a great deal of stress. All he needed to do was apologise – not for what he did or didn’t do with that blessed contract. I’m sure many of those who criticised him at heart understood his position and would have done the same. But for not being upfront about it.
I really have no patience for the blockhead foolishness of those who, when they realise they have made a mistake, try to convince themselves and others that they have not, and adopt a defiant stance instead. Is their sense of self so weak that they cannot admit error and apologise for it to those whom they have hurt? Is their sense of self tied up entirely in never making mistakes or never admitting them, not even to themselves?
The sentiments expressed in Jeffrey’s article in The Times today are reprehensible. And I am genuinely sad to say that so are his motives. How unfortunate it is that somebody who was handed a second chance has chosen to throw it all away because of his need to use defiance to block out remorse.
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Waiting for some comments about Vince Farrugia and Alan Deidun as PN EP candidates.
[Daphne – My lack of interest in MEP elections is as profound and absolute as my lack of interest in local council elections. I took a bit of interest in the first round, and now I don’t give a damn. The reason I take an interest in general elections is because they shape the destiny of the country in which I live. Otherwise, I detest competitive sport, and regard MEP elections and local council elections, and the interest taken in them, as belonging firmly within this category.]
Maybe it’s in Jeffrey’s genes and he’s going back to his roots. His maternal grandfather is Guze Orland a founder of the Malta Labour Party. He may use that background to cross over. Pleasures yet to come.
[Daphne – Astrid Vella’s maternal grandfather was a Labour member of senate, too. Perhaps they think the Labour Party has changed and is going back to its glory days of respectability, now that Anglu Farrugia and Toni Abela are at the helm.]
from it-Torca.
“…nannuh, Ġużè Orlando, kien wieħed mill-pijunieri tal-Partit Laburista fis-snin 1920. Artikolist u poeta prim. Ġużè Orlando kien telaqna kmieni fis-snin 1960 meta bdiet il-kwistjoni politika-reliġjuża. Fil-fatt, Ġużè Orlando kien diġà għadda minn konflitt simili fis-snin 1930 meta l-kanuni kollha kienu nfetħu kontra Strick-land u kontra Boffa tal-Partit Laburista. U Ġużè baqa’ sod.”
How things have changed since March 2008 is all I can say! When this blog was foremost in its attempts to exculpate Pullicino Orlando from the demon Alfred Sant. I think it’s the Nats who just love using people and then tossing them out as they are clearly doing to Pullicino Orlando.
[Daphne – Rather the opposite, Gerald. He was defended and protected. People stuck their necks out for him.]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090225/local/were-full-up-pullicino-orlando
joe vella (5 hours, 52 minutes ago)
great stuff jeffrey, you seem to be regaining your old ‘momentum’ and slowly winning back my (and I guess quite a number of others’) admiration!
a couple of weeks ago I put in my comments on the same site, regarding the subject, and I expressed my feeling that Dr Gonzi should declare full up.
I also suggested that Josie and Norman get together and organise a rally to try and rock the government out of its cocoon on this subject- with Joseph Muscat’s debate on the subject in the offing, a repeat of the St John,s farce could be in the pipeline (who knows who will be used to throw in the float this time!). I think you should team up with them to get this rally moving
take them on Jeffrey
I heard Libertas were interested in roping in JPO. Mari Gucci must have been shattered.
Dr. Savior Tortell Pisani (14 hours, 4 minutes ago)
@ Carmel Camilleri
What do you propose then? Waiting for the big northern nations to shoulder their responsibility? That will never materialise!… It doesn’t strike them where it hurts, that’s why! So I suggest to give up waiting for the manna to fall out of the sky…
Just take the bull by its horns!.. First things first… If needs be we could always withdraw Malta from the UNHCR. We should FIRST DIVERT the problem and ONLY THEN spend our time chatting about it… Not the other way round.
If for nothing else this will cause a good stir on an international level and perhaps (just perhaps) other countries will begin to wake up to the problem!!!
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090225/local/were-full-up-pullicino-orlando
Sitting on our ass pontificating is not going to solve it. EVER! And don’t talk about humanitarian issues… We currently offer ONE CRAP OF A SERVICE!
So like JPO rightly said, If we can’t offer an acceptable humanitarian service then suspend the service altogether until the issue falls within our capacity. If for nothing else it will save much international indignation on mistreating immigrants on our turf.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090225/local/were-full-up-pullicino-orlando
M Borg (4 hours, 40 minutes ago)
we clearly need a referendum where the citizens are asked whether they want the illegal immigrants here or not!
and by the way, who are the UN and what powers do they have? Where were the UN when USA attacked Iran in breach of UN Scurity Council? Where were the UN when no-one wanted to intervene in the Baltics crisis? Where were the UN when no one wanted to intervene in Rwanda? What stand did the UN take over Australia (a UN Member like Malta) which is still refusing illegal immigrants!
And what does the UN Charter for Human Rights say? Who is this Neil Falzon (by the way, he is paid by the UN )…who is incorrectly quoting the Charter? The charter specifies the country of origing of illegal immigrants……the ones coming here are coming from Libya….which definately is not their country of origin!!!!!!
WAKE UP MALTESE PEOPLE!!!! We need to act in the love of our Nation and our children!!
@Daphne
Excellent post. Heed it Jeffrey
Vince Farrugia’s comments tp di-ve.com are simply unbelievable. So here is a guy who openly says that he is using the Nationalist Party as an “airline to Brussels”. That he is Nationalist because it is the Nationalists who won government and so who decide. Whereas with the Opposition he would have been in a disadvantage. Absolutely unbelieveable.
And these words were the first words uttered AFTER his candidacy was approved. What type of political party is this, which accepts that one of its candidates openly declares that he is “using” it for his own ends??
Politics in Malta is becoming more bizarre by the minute.
Tal-biki. When The Times came up with an on-line facility that made it extremely easy for people to express their views, it unwittingly provided a yardstick for guaging the education and civility levels of the Maltese. In addition to the abundance of grammatical mistakes, the extent of intolerance, big-headedness and small-mindedness one comes across when reading these comments is shocking.
Where has it all gone wrong?
Some clear thought from timesofmalta.com at last:
S. Calascione (2 hours, 26 minutes ago)
I get the impression that many people here are blissfully unaware that the real danger facing Malta and Europe is the global financial crisis, which is slowly but surely undermining confidence in the European project. Further breakdown in cohesion may well be accompanied by a dramatic increase in far right sentiment, the real danger lurking on the horizon.
There is nothing “fresh” in the measures being proposed by Dr. Pullicino Orlando. It is precisely the National Socialist position of the 1930s.
The way the immigration argument is being presented from this side is obviously creating anger and even political rebellion in the Maltese. And who can blame them? So the argument goes….We can’t send them to Italy, either directly by sea or from here somehow because we will be breaking the Dublin II Convention, and heaven help anyone talking of taking a stand regarding these ‘rules’ which are unfair on boarder states. We can wait forever for the EU to change them, but they will never do so.
We can’t turn them back to Libya (contrary to what many think, we can and we will be in breach of no laws), because we will be breaking other obligations, or worse we will face retaliation from Libya. This is really good. My neighbour dumps people on my roof, and if I put them back on his, he will retaliate. I will put them there anyhow. And how will Libya retaliate? Apparently, we can do nothing.
Tell me how can ever one accept this sort of bullying? For one, I will never accept it. When no one comes to your rescue, international illegality has to be fought with same. If not south, they shall move north.
Andrea Sammut
“Maybe it’s in Jeffrey’s genes and he’s going back to his roots. ”
I don’t know enough political history to be sure but, somehow, my impression is that the founders of the Labour Party would not have approved the anti-immigrant rhetoric we’re hearing these days.
Daphne, You claimed that MLP voters have no chance of voting for JPO, Well, don’t underestimate their absurdity. After all they voted for Rita Law, and Sandro Schembri Adami (ex PN himself). His ex wife managed to be elected on both the PN ticket (local council) and MLP ticket (Parliament). JPO comes from a Labour background, while his current partner (real force behind the couple) was raised and spent all her adult life inside the Macina.
JPO seems to be desperate, vindictive and extremely vulnerable, and this might explain his irrationality and the easiness of him being manipulated.