How to be consistent, by Marlene Mizzi
It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.
Oh, fabulous. There goes Marlene Mizzi, letting the side down. I don’t mean the side called Labour. I mean the side called Women in Public Life.
For years we’ve had to struggle against the bigoted and prejudiced perception that we women are flaky, can’t make our minds up, or make our minds up for reasons of caprice rather than common sense. Hence, we can’t be trusted in decision-making positions because our decisions are crap.
Now here’s Marlene, so far perceived as a strong woman, portraying herself as Barbie Bird-Brain in a letter published in The Times today.
“How I voted five years ago is really none of your business and I find your arrogance appalling… but I will tell you anyway. I voted YES for Europe and voted Labour in the following general election.”
Oh, Marlene, really! You’ve left us with a choice between dismissing you completely as a flake who can’t make her mind up, or disbelieving you as a liar on the grounds that this kind of crazy inconsistency is just so much at odds with your public persona and with what we know of you.
So what is it to be, given that neither option is a good one? You say that you voted for Malta to join the EU and then just a few weeks later you voted for Malta to stay out of the EU. And you voted for Sant to become prime minister when he said that your Yes vote in the referendum didn’t count.
For heaven’s sake, Marlene.
You would have been better off telling us that you voted No and then voted Labour, or that you voted Yes and then voted PN. At least those options would have left you with your credibility intact. By sitting on the fence, you’ve undermined yourself completely.
Who’s going to believe you now when you say that you have an independent mind and that you work in the national interest? Your belief in the national interest apparently drove you to vote Yes in the referendum, but then when it came to a toss-up between the national interest and party loyalty, party loyalty won out and you voted Labour, flushing EU membership and the national interest down the drain. It’s a free country and you were within your rights to behave with such great inconsistency, but then don’t expect to escape a drubbing for doing so.
So far, Marlene, I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt and have assumed that you were one of the many Labour supporters who voted yes and then voted PN to make sure we joined the EU. It’s such a damned shame to discover that you’re one of those people who voted to deny me EU citizenship, and to keep my sons prisoners on this rock.
I take that as a personal affront.
As to your statement that it is nobody’s business how you voted and that to demand this information of you is appalling arrogance, might I remind you that you are standing for election and that it is your duty to volunteer information as to how you voted, of your own accord and without having these facts wrested from you under the duress of a public challenge.
Standing for election demands full disclosure of your beliefs and opinions, and this includes how you voted in the referendum and how you voted in the general election. Surely you don’t expect people to vote for you without telling them how you yourself voted? That is what constitutes appalling arrogance.
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I think it’s made worse by the fact that, despite saying she thinks it’s no-one’s business how she voted, she still tells the press. If she believes that she shouldn’t tell people about how she voted, she shouldn’t tell people how she voted. It looks weak. If you say a belief of yours, back it up, don’t cave into media pressure.
‘For years we’ve had to struggle against the bigoted and prejudiced perception that we women are flaky’
Bigoted and prejudiced perception? I don’t think so.. every man knows you cannot trust ladies in a position of leadership.. they invariably screw it up.
[Daphne – Quick, check beneath Sant’s skirt.]
Britain was governed for 11 years by one of the greatest prime ministers ever, who, guess what, was a woman. Angela Merkel is another example of a more-than-capable woman in power. The best thing with a woman in charge is you know they won’t start a pointless war on someone.
[Daphne – Margaret Thatcher went to war on Argentina.]
I thought you might say that! So I chose my words carefully. I said ‘start’. Britain was attacked. She defended British territory and, more importantly, British subjects. But she was was not the aggressor.
Pfffff! Boadicea and the pointless rebellion against the Romans….
Was it pointless?
‘Quick, check beneath Sant’s skirt’
No, I prefer Marlene’s.
Daphne
You wrote:
“It’s such a damned shame to discover that you’re one of those people who voted to deny me EU citizenship, and to keep my sons prisoners on this rock”
If Marlene Mizzi voted ‘yes’ to EU membership like I did, she voted for all of us to become EU citizens. As for keeping your and our sons and daughters prisoners on this rock you are being too dramatic. Whoever wanted to leave this rock and venture abroad did so irrespective of EU membership. There are hundreds if not thousands of Maltese artists, academics, professionals and young business minded persons who escaped what you call this prison and made a name and a career for themselves.
Stating, as you do, that this rock of ours is a prison does no credit to the Nationalists who governed for the past 20 years and failed to turn this rock into the heaven they promised before 2004.
[Daphne – It’s you again, is it? It’s not Marlene’s first vote that counts. It’s her second, which utterly negated her first: a BIG NO TO EU MEMBERSHIP AND A GIANT YES TO ALFRED SANT. If she’s not insanely inconsistent, then she’s lying about either one vote or the other. There’s no third way.
Stop quibbling. You lot have painted yourselves into the most God-awful corner with your campaign against EU membership, and now reality has caught up with you. Tough. As for ‘leaving this rock if you wanted to’ – all those people you talk about jumped through hoops, went illegal, queued for work permits and residence permits – why should leaving the country to work or live have been a Houdini exercise? You have made this point before and it is as damned stupid and fatuous now as it was then. You cannot even begin to compare picking up your ID card and going to the plotting and planning and tricking and twisting that went on then – at a time when there was really so much to escape from, thanks to your bastard party in government. No, I am not being dramatic. I am being factual. This place is restricted in size, restricted in population and restricted in opportunities, no matter who governs it. The Nationalist governments of the last 22 years have made it as good as it can get. Your party in government made it bloody hell – which is why the electorate said thanks but no thanks in 1981, 1987, 1992, 1998, 2003 and 2008. Now f**k off.]
“Ray Borg” – Has not your son and his family just left Malta to live elsewhere in Europe? Would they have been able to do so were it not for the people who voted “yes”? Ironic, is it not?
Erm, Ray Borg made a point of saying he voted “yes” to EU membership. What made you conclude he was Labour?
[Daphne – His pro-Labour views. Or maybe he’s just anti-government: one of those chippy people. Didn’t Marlene Mizzi vote Yes and then vote Labour straight afterwards?]
Re: Whoever wanted to leave this rock and venture abroad did so irrespective of EU membership.
You do not know what you are talking about. I left Malta 9 years ago in 2000 and am a so-called professional. It was a nightmare and a continuous struggle to get all papers in order. I envy people who are leaving Malta to work in Europe now, now that Malta is in the EU.
Daphne, you once said you tended to get on very well with Marlene Mizzi, so I think you must really be appalled by her behaviour to slate her so.
[Daphne – Yes, I am. I thought we were similarly bloody-minded. But I would never have done anything so weak, partisan and stupid as put loyalty to a political party before my desire to join the European Union. Maybe her desire to join the EU wasn’t that great, if it meant so little to her that she voted for an anti-EU party a few weeks after voting Yes. I also cannot understand her incredible stupidity in admitting to this behaviour rather than keeping her mouth shut. What was she hoping to achieve – winning the admiration of those who voted Yes and also of those who voted Labour? I feel really let down. So much for all that about the courage of her convictions, speaking her mind, and the other crap she’s been going on about. Somehow I had convinced myself that she was one of those Laburisti who voted Yes and then voted PN in 2003. There were very many of them. Boy, was I wrong. To my mind, a Yes vote followed by a vote for Sant is much worse than a No vote followed by a vote for Sant, because it’s just so whacko. And that business of telling a man who asked her how she voted that he’s appallingly arrogant – it’s just unbelievable. Why did he even have to ask? She appears to expect people to vote for her without telling them what her political views are. It’s just beyond comprehension: “Vote for me but don’t expect me to tell you how I voted.” Unbelievable.]
At the end of the day, though, I think she just wants a ride on the gravy train (like most MEP hopefuls), though it could be she’s still sore at Austin.
Either way, do you really find the pursuit of wealth and the desire to show someone how wrong he was, very untypical of women?
[Daphne – No, sadly. I’ve known some women to waste their whole lives trying to get even, long after the people they’re trying to get even with have moved on.]
Maybe this was the case 40 years ago, but times have changed. We’re on the doorstep of the age of feminine supremacy and though it’s unlikely there’ll be the violence of the masculine eras, there’ll be greed and backstabbing aplenty, you can be sure. These are no longer male prerogatives. The Spice Girls called it Girl Power. I think it’s just the desire for power (and/or wealth) – regardless of gender.
[Daphne – Women are VERY nasty, as any woman will tell you. Just because they don’t use physical violence it doesn’t mean they’re not extremely violent. Here I am saying ‘they’: I wasn’t a girl’s girl and I’m not a woman’s woman, so I have never been able to understand all that or relate to it. I find men so much easier to get along with, I can tell you. With a man, you have a difference of opinion, blow up and it’s gone. With a woman, you have a difference of opinion, usually involving a perceived threat or competition for something or someone, and she’s chewing at you for the rest of eternity, plotting and scheming and whispering. I remember one of my sons, aged about 12, coming home from school with a great discovery about one of the mysteries of the opposite sex: “When we fight” – we being boys – “we punch each other and then forget about it and go to the playground. But when the girls fight, they go on and on and on and on and when they come back to school the next year they’re still fighting with the same person.” I can see that from my own experience: clamped to my nether regions there’s a whole train of little bitches. Though I must say, I’d rather have their constant sniping, gossiping and evil-mongering than the arson attacks perpetrated by men.]
Speaking of consistency, I think that Lino Spiteri had admitted that he voted Yes in the referendum and PN in 2003 general election. It must have been hard for him, being an ex Labour minister.
I don’t think that Marlene Mizzi had such a big desire for Malta to join the European Union. I am sure she thought (wrongly) that either way it was not going to affect her. By that I mean financially. And she really comes across as an arrogant person. When we watched her on television, one of us said “Din ohra kollox kif tghid hi!”
It is justified to lampoon Labour candidates on Europe. But their inconsistency is larger than them, so to speak. It comes from the fact that, unlike the Tories, their party went from being rabidly anti-EU to Europhile virtually overnight. Had they remained anti-EU (or at least very EU-critical) we wouldn’t be justified in lampooning them for being inconsistent. As things stand, they just appear to be a bunch of opportunists who were nowhere to be seen pre-referendum but who are all over the place now, vying for a slice of the European cake. No principles, no strong political beliefs. Just in it for the convenient platform. Pragmatists all.
And you know what, a certain Anthony Mizzi will no doubt come to her rescue and write something to glorify her attributes just as he did on Maltastar.com (bottom of the article) http://www.maltastar.com/pages/ms09dart.asp?a=1440 Thought he would get away with it. Now am I being bitchy or is the Italian translation for Anthony, Antonio ? Miaow.
If I remember rightly Dr Fenech Adami used to say that one day the Labour Party will begin to claim that it was thanks to them that Malta joined the EU.