Kulhadd was found guilty of libel regarding the above article. This is the relevant court judgement (though the link works intermittently):

http://docs.justice.gov.mt/SENTENZI2000_PDF/MALTA/TAL-MAGISTRATI%20(CIVILI)/2009/2009-06-11_45-2008_55606.PDF

Charles Cauchi

Joseph Muscat would never show such lack of judgement by organising several events – including the celebration of his “royal entry into parliament”, to quote Daphne – at the wine vaults of the most criticised and controversial of latterday ‘barunijiet’.

The question is whether Joseph Muscat exercises the same judgement (or lack thereof) in his political job.

[Daphne – Madonna hanina, you think it would be obvious to any mere MP, still more a cabinet minister, that these things should never happen, for all sorts of reasons including the most basic one that it’s just not worth the fall-out and the flak. I’ve come to the conclusion, sadly, that no number of codes of ethics and instructions from aides can teach some politicians the commonsense guidelines to behaviour that have not been drilled into them from childhood: screaming, shouting, washing dirty laundry in public, accepting football tickets and flights from big business, going on television to announce that they’re sulking because they expected to be made minister, accusing the finance minister of being subjected to undue influence when their own shadow finance minister has been working for the same developer for years. They all seem to be asking themselves ‘Why not?’ before doing something, when the question they really should be asking is ‘Why do it?’ Forget correctness (though that too) – it’s just not…..clever.]

Talk about exchange of favours: when France put an embargo on the ‘wine’ Marsovin was exporting, Mintoff gave orders to stop all imports from France. Dawk mhux pjaciri, jewilla.

However, I agree with you. Tonio should have known better, and George Fenech should not have put him in such a compromising position.

http://www.mlp.org.mt/printer.aspx?cnt=NewsDetails&t=Dossiers&ID=DOS10022008&print=true

The DNA man?

…… and this is not the first time that Tonio Fenech has shown extremely bad judgement, to say the least. We all remember how, shortly before the elections, he distributed many thousands of euro from the Good Causes Fund to entities which could only be considered as qualified with a very large stretch of the imagination.

[Daphne – People keep telling me this. Can somebody please give me a reliable list or a link to a newspaper story? Thanks.]

Are some politicians so detached from ‘the people’ that they (politicians, that is) cannot foresee that, although in itself this was just a ripple, it would be blown up to a tsunami? Such news irks the many wannabes so much that it hurts, and their only refuge is the tsi-tsi gossiping at the village market.

Tonio, you surely have more than enough on your mind at the moment than to waste your time and energy in trying to deflect these ‘should-have-been expected’ attacks.

There is a vast difference between rendering a professional service under transparent rules and for legally established remuneration and accepting expensive freebies given for no other reason than fact that you happen to be a minister and have control over the award of lucrative tenders.

That is the point.

[Daphne – Not quite, Twanny. The country is teeming with notaries. George Fenech can pick any one – eenie meenie minie mo – but he picks Charles Mangion and Mangion gets the considerable fees (and they are considerable, on contracts like that). So Mangion depends on George Fenech for income he would rather have than do without, and George Fenech can continue using him or he can choose to stop. George Fenech is the shadow finance minister’s real and actual client. He is not the finance minister’s client.]