While the Mittilkless is starved of its living wage, Tony Zarb sits in the Golden Circle
Published:
September 27, 2010 at 2:21pm
God, I could have bought a hell of a lot of doughnuts with 400 euros.
While the middle classes boil their socks to make soup for supper and pray for the day that My Dear Leader is elected to give them the living wage, Mr and Mrs Tony Zarb were seen last night sitting in seats that cost 200 euros each at the Elton John concert.
He could have bought a lot of steak for 400 euros. And some pizza, too.
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When will we hear that the GWU is now the union of the ‘middle classes’? Or will this be the divided between MLPs mother of all mothers and Joseph Muscat?
D plot ‘tikinz’.
Maybe the tickets were freebies; “jew b’xejn jew xejn” remember that? Was it 1984? How Orwellian.
Huh. Euro 400 spent in one evening on Sir Elton, rather than on steak.
No wonder the working class is struggling to make ends meat.
… he’s on a diet and with the money he saves …
They were surely complimentary tickets. I say “surely” because I know Tony, I know where he lives and I know how the man and his wife live. They don’t give the impression that they have money to burn.
[Daphne – If they were freebies, then there is even more reason we should know about them, and who gave them to him. Any why.]
@ Daphne,
… on a good-to-know basis, possibly, particularly if you happen to be a member of the GWU. Otherwise, Tony Zarb being a public figure but not a public official, I see no reason why we “should” – as in, ‘we have a right to’ – know about who gave him free tickets to a concert and why.
[Daphne – He’s a union leader. Of course we should be told.]
i don’t think so daph. you’re a public figure and i don’t give rat’s arse how you spend your dosh
[Daphne – I am a public figure but I AM NOT ANSWERABLE TO ANYBODY. Tony Zarb heads Malta’s largest and most influential union and is answerable to his union members and yes, to the general public. Also, I do not claim to represent starving workers, nor do I claim on a near-daily basis that the economy is failing and people are collapsing under the weight of bills they cannot pay. On the contrary, I say the opposite.]
The job of a union leader is to negotiate salary increases, not to be awarded complementary tickets.
And in any case, for a gift to be acceptable by an officer in a public position, that gift has to be of reasonable value so as not to put undue pressure on the recipient.
I think he lives where he lives to project a certain image to the union members. They wouldn’t identify with him if he lived in a villa.
I guess he could afford one though….
They may not have money to burn, but he’s certainly well fed, so there’s no problem with the grocery bills there.
Monday to Friday groaning that the workers have to eat cake and on Sunday turning up at the Elton John concert with the missus at Euro 200 a seat. All workers are equal but some are more equal than the others; Orwell again.
And since when has the Labour Pary started caring about the middle class. They used to call them ‘tal-pepe’
400 euros worth of tickets and then he has the nerve to go and tell his dumb flock of followers that the country is in dire straits- the FAT liar.
It’s a shame, falling into the temptation and accepting such complimentary tickets, when Tony Zarb is supposed to support the workers who find it so difficult to make ends meet and can afford only a pizza on weekends.
Champagne Socialists.
I wonder whether they have taken to the polenta culture yet.
I cannot afford these royal circle seats. Yet.
I am eagerly awaiting my pensjoni hajja.
See you in three years’ time Sir Elton.
Perhaps the GWU has started handing out living wages.
The tickets could have been supplied by the GWU and so can be classified as fringe benefits which are taxable (as for car, mobile, petrol etc).
Even if it seems unfair, political figures should keep a low profile, when it comes to mixing with the rich, or attending avenues of big spending.
However, there is something I must be missing.
The late Italian Communist party leader Enrico Belinguer, an idol to his supporters, was known to own numerous properties in Sardinia and yet his popularity never diminished.
The same goes with Berlusconi, yet he was voted into power.
[Daphne – Berlusconi IS the rich.]
Argentina’s late Evita Peron falls under the same category. Perhaps someone can explain because the whole thing escapes me.
Mela tajba din. Has Joseph Muscat paid for his cruise or was it complimentary? The same applies for Tony Zarb.
Did he honestly fork out Eur400 to attend Elton John’s concert?
Well well well – if he didn’t pay for them himself his lot have got a nerve criticising Joe Saliba and Paul Borg Olivier for accepting Zaren Vassallo’s invitation of a trip on a yacht. Not that I personally approve of any of it, but as the saying goes ‘biex tiskongra trid tkun pur’.
Tony Zarb is nothing but a self-promoting hypocrite. They call them champagne socialists in the UK, look at Neil Kinnock with his snout in the EU trough and John Prescott.
I was high class till your web-site came along. Now I can barely afford my Blackberry charges for accessing your site, especially when roaming. Come on, be a sport – spend an extra 100 euro and get an https address, then I can access your site for free on government servers.
Try this URL:
http://uk.babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fdaphnecaruanagalizia.com&lp=nl_fr&btnTrUrl=Translate
It is a workaround that works around many firewalls. Not sure whether or not government firewalls are clever enough to block it.
In my opinion, the organisers are not serious if they are distributing complimentary Euro 400 tickets. What about those spectators who paid the full amount for their tickets and found Mr and Mrs Tony Zarb on a possible freebie?
Hey man, Tony Zarb rocks. I wonder if he was shimmying up and down the aisles to Elton’s Rocket Man. I bet you he had a few emails from his ex dockyard mates today telling him exactly what they think of his gallivanting about at EUR400 a go.
“Hawn Tony. Hekk sew, inti ghand Elton John u ahna ghal erba pastizzi Hal Qormi. L-iehor gej u sejjer ghal kruuuuz u ahna mittelkless ftit brodu tat-tigieg.”
Just a thought.
To my utter amazement I watched the news when the people of Bormla were saying that their appliances were ruined when there was that sabotage.
One said she had four air-conditioners, computer etc. Another said she had two air-conditioners and so on. They must have a hell of an electricity bill and I bet that they are the ones that qualify for the subsidy.
Believe me, I was happy to hear them, as from the way the opposition talks, one would think that all of Malta was on the brink of poverty.
Once Joe Grima said that Tony Zarb was always abroad attending some conference.
Being a frequent flyer, I happened to be on the same plane with him many times. I don’t know why, but he always sat at the back of the plane.
I also flew on the same plane with him once. And even then, he sat at the back of the plane.
If I am not wrong, food is served from the back of the plane.
Back ballast helps the plane take off.
It’s called ballast.
Just in case anyone thinks that it is just PL politicians who have gone cuckoo I recommend the Swiss finance minister making his ‘salami statement’ on Youtube.
Then go for the latest. The sexy Rachida Dati confusing inflation with something somewhat different. What a Freudian slip!
No wonder Sarko sacked his justice minister soon after appointing her. What a woman.
Sorry to go off completely at a tangent, but isn’t this Rachida really sweet? To my mind she has an innocent, girlish look and goes to mix up “inflation” with “fellation”. Now, what was she thinking?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8027780/Ex-French-justice-minister-Rachida-Dati-in-sex-gaffe.html
She was probably thinking of the living wage as proposed by Dr. Joseph Muscat, a former MEP.
Sweet? She’s a mega-firebreathing stuck-up bitch. Her ministerial colleagues couldn’t stand her. In the end Sarko had to deal with the problem by sending her off to the European parliament.
Oh and her brother got nabbed for drug trafficking. Once a Maghrébine, always a Maghrébine, what.
Are you sure he occupied just one seat?
At least he wasn’t bumming a freebie Club Class ticket.
How do you know he wasn’t bumming an economy class ticket?
For all we know, unless you know more than the words you wrote, Tony might be a fanatic of Elton John who might have spent all his holiday savings on those tickets, or he could have simply received them as gifts.
[Daphne – Gifts? To a union leader? For shame. Korruzzjoni lampanti.]
In any case, what’s the big deal?
He hasn’t been caught with his pants down in an alley and in the company of a transvestite prostitute as you are trying to make it look.
[Daphne – Oh, is that what he does in his spare time? Please tell.]
Just as an aside, I don’t read the L-orrizont and It-Torca. I am not a member of the GWU and nor have I any particular admiration of Tony Zarb.
Tony’s son is called Elton as a matter of fact. He must be a real fan of Elton John.
I nailed it then
A 400 Euros splurge for someone who is mkisser bil-kontijiet tad-dawl u l-ilma is pretty impressive. Should we conclude
1) that fleecing the haddiema batuti is alright as long as it pays his salary as union leader?
2) that he’s paid more than the average worker whose union contributions finance his salary?
3) that what he spouts about the discrepancy between workers’ incomes and the cost of living is a load of hogwash?
4) that what he says isn’t a load of hogwash but, you know, a man’s got to live so stuff the bills and let’s hear it for Elton John live in concert?
Enough with the hypocrisy.
Very true. I saw the ‘Issa Daqshekk Pizza’ man. I was there.
H.P Baxxter: yes, her reputation as a tough customer is well-known, in spite of her looks. I think your sweeping comment about meghrebins is misplaced. Or is racism acceptable to you? They are not all the same and I’ve known quite a few in my time.
I’ve lived among them and my sweeping comment is more or less correct.
The decent ones among the under-40s are the exception, and I’ve been lucky to know two of them, even though one of them was in daily breach of the law by wearing a hijab in a government institution.
It’s like saying that the Maltese are a fat nation. There are exceptions, but most of us are overweight.
Or saying that blacks are good at sports. It is not racism. I’m not denying them any rights because of their race.
In Dati’s case, Sarkozy made a big show and dance of appointing a petite beurette to one of the country’s top ministries. She was propelled to power on the strength of her racial origin, in a sort of inverse racism which is all the rage in Europe.
Then it turned out she wasn’t so brilliant after all.