No names, no credibility – Stop Project Piano: a typically 'cunning plan' by Labour's crack team of public affairs wizards
Nikita Zammit Alamango of Forum Zghazagh Laburisti: with a bit of luck and a lot of effort, we can Stop Project Piano.
The single greatest enemy of credibility is anonymity.
The way it works is simple: if you don’t have the courage of your convictions, then you’re going to convince nobody.
Arguments that come with names attached are taken seriously. Those without names attached are not.
If you stand by what you have to say, then others will stand by you.
If you don’t, they won’t.
That’s why the Stop Project Piano campaign for a referendum is doomed to failure from the outset.
Whatever their views may be on the project or a referendum, only the unthinking would append their names to a campaign without knowing who the organisers are.
When you back a campaign, it is not just the campaign you are backing but its promoters. And you have to know who those promoters are.
The promoters of Stop Project Piano refuse to say who they are. They say it is irrelevant – or rather, “its irrelevant”.
That alone shows they know little or nothing of public affairs. Saying who you are when you are promoting a campaign is not just relevant. It is crucial to the campaign’s credibility and success.
For a start, if you don’t say who you are, you are not going to get the high-profile backers you need to make it work. And if you don’t say who you are, then you can’t do all the necessary to get the attention you need: television, newspapers, radio, direct lobbying.
I know why the organisers of this campaign won’t say who they are. It’s not so much a matter of won’t as can’t.
They can’t say who they are because saying who they are would make them even less credible than they are when anonymous. How is that possible? Simple – think. What could be less credible than being anonymous? Being the Labour Party, or affiliated to it.
The organisers of the Stop Project Piano campaign live and breathe in the Labour grotto. Their reluctance to tell us who they are is not, as Astrid Vella said when denying that she is involved, because they are afraid of being victimised by bloggers (grow up, Astrid) or the government.
No. They are reluctant to say who they are because they know they will be seen at once as being motivated by a political party agenda.
I believe Astrid Vella when she says she is not involved. I had reached that conclusion before I read her denial, purely on the basis of linguistic analysis, stylistic assessment, and the preferred means of communication.
The group’s main means of reaching others for their signatures is through Facebook, the happy hunting ground of Labour elves who, over the last two years since the general election, have migrated en masse from Hi5.
The Labour elves do lots of campaigning on Facebook, even though – and this is typically Labour – they invariably use it for negative purposes and negative messages.
A proper public affairs campaign would not be conducted on Facebook. Facebook would be just a minor part of it, but not the main thing. Whoever is doing this is certainly not thinking ‘mainstream’, or they believe that Facebook is mainstream.
Another indicator that we are dealing here with mittilkless Labour elves is the use of language.
Their Facebook statement, though written in English, is definitely not the product of somebody from your typical tal-pepe FAA background.
The people who wrote and approved that thing tried hard to crack it, but failed – and though they wouldn’t be able to work out the difference, others who speak and write a different sort of English can.
So no. The style is not tal-pepe middle-class. It is Labour mittilkless: the university-educated, 20-something/30-something elves in Labour’s grotto, who give themselves away through typically Maltastar-ish sentence construction and stylistic clues like the use of Capital Letters when they think something is important, even though it is not a Proper Noun.
This, for example, is a typically Labour Mittilkless Maltastar Elve construction:
“Many are asking us the question…who are we? And we briefly answer…its irrelevant!”
We are not into this campaign to gain personal reputation, this is not a campaign instigated by our egos. We’re simply common people who love our country and believe that the Cultural Identity of a nation is more important that any other aspect of a country.
And so is this:
“We believe, just as the majority of the people, that the project as proposed by the Government is an insult to our cultural heritage and the same government is literally hijacking this long awaited project for shortsighted political objectives. The short term gains for the ruling elite will only transmit a heavy determent to the whole nation!”
You have to be a Labour mittilkless functionary to confuse determent and detriment, and then say – instead of ‘it will be to the nation’s detriment’ – that it will ‘transmit a heavy determent to the whole nation’.
And then there’s this seemingly insignificant clue that reminds me how the devil is invariably in the detail:
“This is why it is irrelevant to know who are the people behind this campaign,”
Only people from a mittilkless background, as opposed to a middle class background, use the interrogative form when making a statement, because they are not quite sure where in the sentence to place the verb. This is where to place it:
“This is why it is irrelevant to know who the people behind this campaign are..”
And they go on in true Maltastar fashion:
“…. for the simple reason that behind every movement is not faces that represent the organisation that are relevant, but the philosophy that unites such individuals to undergo such an ambitious campaign.”
And our mission is very straight forward…
Call a Referendum on the basis that this sensitive project should be decided by the people instead of being forced by politicians who simply aim for political gains in that they are willing to take merit for completing a project just before the election.
Oppose Piano’s plans, arguing that apart from being a forced project, it doesn’t blend with our rich Capital City’s setting.
That is relevant!
But perhaps the greatest indicator that we are dealing here with Labour elves is the fact that this exercise is stupid, futile and ill-conceived. At the risk of causing widespread offence – but you have to admit it; it’s a fact – only somebody who thinks about who to vote for and then chooses Labour could come up with anything so daft.
Their ultimate aim is to stop the project, but they don’t seem to have worked out that forcing the government to call a referendum is not enough to do this. Even doing the necessary to force a referendum is impossible. People don’t care enough to demand a referendum and you really have to be locked up in your own world not to see this. It is especially impossible if you are anonymous, and demanding that tens of thousands of people put their name to something when you are unwilling to do so yourself.
But let’s say the elves do the impossible. A referendum is announced. What then? Forcing the referendum will turn out to have been the easy bit. The real work begins with getting electors to turn out in force to vote No.
How do these anonymous campaigners plan to do that – and using what funds, exactly? Do they plan to go out on the hustings wearing brown-paper bags over their heads and appear on our television screens concealed by that fuzzy focus and voice-changer used to disguise the identity of rape victims?
After people have voted, the elve organisers have another problem on their hands: how to count the votes. Do we include the dead and those who abstained, among the No votes? When the Yes vote turns out to have won, do we call a mass meeting outside party headquarters to announce that it hasn’t, and then insist that we will not respect the result of a referendum but only the result of a general election?
To quote the elves on their Stop Project Piano Facebook group: ‘its relevant’.
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I am surprised they did not call their campaign “Project Piano Cease.”
The good thing is that we already know how they would interpret the result of any referendum. Remember how the No vote won in 2003?
I wouldn’t waste more time analysing this bunch of wannabes.
No, please do, Daphne. I’m enjoying it. My English is not perfect but I’m not going to take offence at you for pointing these things out. Hopefully I’m good at other things.
Launching a public campaign with such a lack of “quality control” speaks volumes about the organisational skills of those behind this political prank.
If they don’t have the resources to issue a proper statement, how are they going to pull this off? I strongly suspect that there are Labour supporters who can contribute mightily to the party but who are afraid of being let down by these whippersnappers.
The Times has reported that the Referenda Act, (which I cannot trace!), permits a referendum to be held basically to abrogate a law passed by Parliament. Now, the Labour elves may have difficulty pronouncing, let alone understanding, “abrogate.”
If the Times is correct (and I suspect they are), then this is sheer waste of time.
Of course, by now, the elves are inundating timesofmalta.com with their comments in favour of the referendum.
Chapter 237, Article 3 of the Referenda Act:
3(1) Persons entitled to vote in a referendum under this Act
will be called upon to declare:
(a) whether they approve proposals set out in a resolution
passed for that purpose by the House and published in
the Gazette; or
(b) whether they agree that a provision of law should be
abrogated in accordance with the provisions of Part V
of this Act, as the case may be.
Ciccio: Under 3(1)a, it is possible to have ANY project halted if this project has been referred to in another act. So, for example, the City Gate Project is being financed through the annual Appropriation Bill.
If a Referendum aborgating the vote for the financing of the project (and not the entire bill) were raised, then, yes, a referendum may be indeed possible even though it may possibly be challenged and tested at Constitutional Court level.
@Whoa, there!
Only expenditure of headings are included in an appropriation bill not specific projects.
And, in any case, section 13(2)(f) of the Referenda Act excludes fiscal legislation from being the subject of an abrogative referendum.
The Refernda Act is Chapter 237. You and I may know that this is a sheer waste of time, but to Mario Azzopardi from distant Toronto it’s simply ‘Fantastic!’ If you’re on Facebook, join the ‘YES to Renzo Piano’s Project for Valletta’.
Don’t you think this joining of this and that Facebook group is completely pointless? If letting “The People” decide against Piano’s project is silly, then letting them decide for the project is just as silly.
That’s elvishspeak, across the board. After Astrid Vella, it’s the next worst thing that could have happened to any lingering opponents to the project.
Idiots. And that’s too good a word for them.
I understand that the elves have quickly been summoned after the publication of this blog-post in order to deal with the problem of “anonymity” which Daphne has wisely raised.
They have been conducting very serious reflections and negotiations and from what can be surmised they will soon be issuing a statement on Facebook.
For the time being my sources are saying that the elves are being very secretive about “names”, but echoes have been heard coming out of the grotto to the following effect:
“this is the last miserable act of the miserable Gonzi government”
I cannot, as yet, put my finger on who is in the habit of making that statement… any ideas?
Norman Lowell.
It’s ” jekk it-teatru jaghmila parlament…..that will be the last miserable act of his miserable government…….QED TIFHEM? “
And here’s a timely reminder of the sort of people who get to decide how the rest of us live. This one can’t distinguish between a set of coins and an architectural project involving the city’s main gate, parliament house and a theatre.
timesofmalta.com
K Anastasi
“I think its a good idea, it would have been better if there was a selection of designs which we could have voted on… just like with the Euro Coins.”
Sounds like elvishthink.
The designs for the Maltese euro coins weren’t selected by a referendum but by public consultation. I don’t expect the Elves to know the difference, however.
It is not too hard to separate the PL’s real intent from their stated one. Ostensibly working to preserve Valletta’s architectural feng shui, they are actually harnessing the conflict to undermine voter confidence in the PN.
The Stop-Piano-Campaign is nothing more than a PL Workshop Project, an experiment in helping the next generation of politicians manipulate public opinion. PR and spin are politics’ future (as they have been business’ and advertising’s), i.e. gaming the system…putting out a line of bull, and hoping it flies for more than 24 hours.
Truth, impartiality, and objectivity are already on the chopping block, but their relevance will plummet as this political ideology gains ground.
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it – Josef Goebbels, Propaganda Minister for the Third Reich.
1. ‘Supermarket tal-laburisti’ bi prezzijiet irhas;
2. ismijiet ta’ mijjiet tal-voti mixtrija mil-PN rappurtati lil-pulizia, izda il-lista miktuba biss fuq nofs faccata ta’ karta A4;
3. refund tal-vehicle registration tax (anzi hawn barmu xi Euro 8,000 donazzjonijiet minghand il-kocc cwiec li jibilghu kull ma jghidulhom);
4. red touch;
5. maratona gbir ta’ fondi fl-istess hin tal-mass meeting tal-partit;
6. ‘niehdulhom lil-Marisa Micallef’ u naghtuha Euro 40,000 fis-sena, meta il-partit dejjem fallut u b’dejn ta mijjiet ta’eluf;
7. inrahhsu l-kontijiet tad-dawl u l-ilma bi euro 15,000,000 imma minghajr ma nghidu minn fejn ser ingibuhom;
8. bandiera tal-EU mtella’ fuq il-monument tal-helsien f’Jum il-Helsien;
u issa, taran-ta-ra,
9. referendum fuq il-pjanu.
U dan kollu ghadhom fl-opposizzjoni, mela aktar u aktar ara x’gej jekk isibu ruhom fil-gvern.
Imsomma, daqs xejn track record ta’ bully Joseph Muscat.
Now why does the name Baldrick spring to mind?
Baldrick kien stupidu, imma ma kellux kilba ghall-poter.
These are excellent idiots.
And a happy Baldrick indeed, surrounded by turnips of all shapes and sizes.
@H.P. Baxxter:
Oh absolutely – the people decided two years ago, in March 2008 to be precise. But the the anti-camp has been very vociferous in its antagonism to the project. It’s about time the pro-camp showed some support.
An evil party attracts evil members.
Daphne, you’ve managed to improve my mood slightly (no mean feat) following the Rooney injury.
And it’s elf in the singular, not elve, in your penultimate paragraph. Furthermore you could use the adjective, elfin, or, as the great John Ronald Ruel says, elvish.
[Daphne – Tim, I KNOW it’s elf. Elve is Maltastar speak.]
‘Elve’ is grotto-speak. It’s what the elves call themselves.
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=59399
By 9.28am that very same morning, Alexander Saliba had sent a circular e-mail to those he thought were fellow elves in Sant’s grotto, little realising that among the recipients he had somehow also included Stephen Calleja, the editor of The Malta Independent daily.
Mr Saliba told his colleagues to read Daphne’s article to see “how effective our articles have been” and how “we are riling the Nationalists”.
He ended: “Proud to be one of those elves in Sant’s Grotto.’
Nikki Alamango was the first one to reply: “She seems to be very upset. Keep it up guys so that we get the desired effect.”
A few minutes later Aaron Farrugia, who seems to be the leader of the group in the Labour Youth organisation, sent another collective e-mail in which he made fun of Daphne: She is angry today because we write on the papers as only she has the divine right to write… especially on toupees. (Daphne illum mikkina inkazzata ghax ahna niktbu fil-gazzetti. Ghandha ragun mikkina ghax hi biss ghandha dritt divin tikteb… jekk jista jkun fuq il-parrokki…)
Mr Farrugia then issued a series of orders to various members of the group telling them what work they had to do. For all the cloak and dagger atmospherics, the duties he set them seem quite humdrum and low key. Mr Farrugia also decided to call each member of the group Elve (?):
“Memo to elves in Sant’s grotto… Elve Alex… and Elve Josef… start working with Malcolm on the next wine party:
“Elve Andre, Elve Therese and Elve Bjorn A start working on IUSY events in Malta:
“Elve Daniel together with Elve Nikita and Elve Therese work on the renewable energy conference…”
Signing as Elve Aar, he ended: “Keep it up elves: Proud to be elves on Labour’s side …”
In mid-afternoon, Rene Monsigneur somewhat cryptically wrote that the Christmas decorations effect had affected Daphne. “We are hitting her where it hurts, just because a couple of elves from the Centru Nazzjonali Laburista have attracted her attention.”
He too ended his message with words of encouragement: “Keep it up, elves. Christmas will soon be here.”
Maybe we should ask Dom Mintoff about the Renzo Piano project, he seemed to prefer it roofless when he was in power even though we were given war damage money by the British government to fix it. Where did the money go?!
I cannot understand how Dr. Gonzi can get (as these imbeciles are stating) political gain out of this project. If the majority (again as these imbeciles are stating) is against the project it would be a downfall and not gain.
The conclusion is that the project is supported by the (silent) majority and it would gain a bigger support once the project is completed.
And by the way is Dr. Gonzi the dictator or the one who is being led by the back-benchers? But that is another argument these fools cannot understand.
I suppose old-timers like myself will remember the tune “Oh!! What a lovely bunch of coconuts”. It must have been such a bunch to propose an anonymous campaign against the Piano project.
I am sure that in this project there would be liaison with the Antiquity Department.
Digging in and around the highest area of what was known as Monte Sciberras, might uncover some surprises. The project has to go ahead, just a bit of extra attention that’s all.
@ Daphne: why do you even bother with these nutters?
ATTENTION DENIS CATANIA
The spelling’s “La Redoute”. That should tell you something you don’t already know.
Tim,
Maybe ‘elf’ means 1000 elves in the Maltastar dictionary.
They have a very big and important dictionary in the Maltastar grotto. It’s called ‘Brittanica’ (sic). They used it to look up the meaning of Totalitarianism (sic), which is A Proper Noun.
Pia Micallef says on Facebook that she would kill to have an arse like Nikita Alamango’s, and Dirk Urpani thinks Daphne is jealous.
Of what exactly, Dirk? Having a nice arse (your opinion) and no brains to go with it?
There’s a lot you can do with a large arse – ask one particular magistrate – but there’s far more you can do with a large brain.
As for you, Pia, I don’t blame you. I’ve seen yours. And Dirk Urpani I’ve checked out your butt too – interesting competition in the elf-butt stakes going on here.
It takes generations to get rid of an arse like that.
http://www.facebook.com/NikitaAlamango
(photo is subject to change)
I really don’t care about this campaign or campaigns in general. There is public outcry particularly about the theatre.
It could be used as a tuna aquarium now that everyone is happy their slaughter can continue until tuna disappears from the sea. Then we will only have jellyfish for the oriental customer.
What irks me about the Piano project is that it is just another smoke screen, something to stir up emotions and forget about the realities of the present. The Labour cretins swallow these hook, line and sinker, as they have always done in the past.
What is really worrying is that the 80 million euros quoted are much less than the final bill. Somebody is hiding the real costings of it, same as happened with Mater Dei Hospital Time will tell.
Well! Gonzi is happy with it. He very probably won’t have to worry about the deficit for much longer.
On the other hand, Piano or no Piano, nothing can be more horrendous than “Bieb il-Belt”. It was a desecration of our noble capital and must have been designed by an architect who just about managed the use of a ruler.
The Times 01/04/10
Press digest:
” l-orizzont reports about the new website calling for a referendum on the Piano City Gate development.”
NO COMMENT
Daphne wins again.
Hopefully the project will be irreversible very soon. Remember that Labour sees this project as something which hinders their chances of being elected next time round so naturally they are against.
you are rubbish daphne!!!!
[Daphne – This man’s website is listed as ‘pornhub’.]