What next – kidnapping by the FBI?
Evarist and Jeffrey have a little chat via their mobile phones. There’s a noise and the call is disconnected.
It happens to me all the time. I just ring back and carry on.
But not Evarist and Jeffrey. Oh no. They have a bit of a discussion and decide that their phones are being hacked. Or tapped. Or both. Or whatever.
This put me in mind of Saviour Balzan and Roger Degiorgio who, when the Malta Today website went off line for some hours because of server problems, put out a story on the site, when it came back to life, saying that it had been hacked by pro-Mubarak forces because they’d uploaded video footage of the protests in Tahrir Square.
Groan.
So now Jeffrey and Varist have filed a formal complaint with the police (a ‘kwerela’) asking for an investigation, and the Divorce Movement honchos, instead of calming them down and asking them not to be so very excitable and Wayne’s World-ish, issued an indignant statement.
I’ve known for some time now (but learned too late) that Jeffrey is so far up himself that he can’t see daylight. But I hadn’t understood that Evarist had headed in that direction too. He’s long struck me as lazy and detached, and the snide way he speaks is so off-putting. But I didn’t know he subscribed to the ‘Martians stole my breakfast’ school of paranoia and self-delusion.
Let’s face it: why would anyone want to ‘hack’ their cellphones? I can tell you what a conversation with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando sounds like, and it’s not fascinating. A conversation with ‘Ev’, as I recall, is more tedious still. And it’s not like you’re going to hear either of them declare his desire to be the other one’s tampon.
So no thrills there.
Information, perhaps? Hardly – they’re working on drumming up support for the No vote – or is it the Yes vote? – in the upcoming divorce referendum. They’re not planning a drug heist or a new nuclear weapon. They’re not talking to David Gatt or Fabio Psaila.
And they’re certainly not Julian Assange.
I think I know what the problem might be. Some time in the last 48 hours, Joseph Muscat was overheard speaking on his mobile telephone behind the Speaker’s chair in parliament. The person who heard him (not the Speaker) worked out that Muscat was speaking to Pullicino Orlando.
This person then walked up to a group of around six people and described what he thought he had heard. I rather suspect it might have got back to Jeffrey that somebody heard a conversation of his, or thought they did.
How tiresome it all is. And how tiresome these people are. The Divorce Movement seems to be working to defeat its own cause. It is doing nothing to explain to people what divorce is, and Malta is jampacked with people who really don’t know and who are being asked to vote for or against.
Evarist and Jeffrey, as frontrunners, seem determnined to put us off divorce because they irritate us so much that we reason, totally irrationally, that anything they approve of can’t possibly be worth having.
Or we simply don’t want to be identified with them. Jeffrey I can just about tolerate. After all, I’m partly responsible for inflicting him on the country (I’m going to have to wear a hair-shirt for a long time). But Evarist? No thanks. Zommu.
At first, I thought Jeffrey had pulled the rug out from under Muscat’s feet by presenting his private member’s bill instead of Muscat. But now I can see things more clearly.
I suspect Muscat might have used Jeffrey to present that bill and so save him and the Labour government all the chaos and havoc that the current government now has to contend with.
I was told – by Jeffrey himself, before anyone rushes to negate this – that Muscat did something similar with the vote on the St John’s Cathedral museum. When they’d all been drinking at one of Consuelo’s parties, Muscat and several of the other Labour guests challenged him about how he planned to vote. In a fit of bravado, he said he would vote against the museum. And then he was stuck with it.
Muscat might not have persuaded Pullicino Orlando directly to push forward his private bill. But it is obvious now that far from suffering a disadvantage because his bill was taken away from him, Muscat has been done the most enormous favour.
Now he doesn’t have to keep his promise, and somebody else gets to deal with the hassle, the flak and the fall-out.
The short advantage Jeffrey gained in terms of positive personal PR when he presented that bill has since been dissipated and he is now worse off in terms of public perception than he was before. It has been mishandled terribly. He should have presented the bill and taken a step back, stayed out of the limelight and let matters take their course.
But Jeffrey is incapable of that. He has to stand in the limelight and be the show. And I rather think he has scuppered the divorce boat because of it.
Then again, perhaps it was the government he had actually set out to scupper, which is why Malta Today is giving him so much coverage. Sometimes, they’ve got so many pictures of Jeffrey online that it looks like Hello magazine. I’m guessing he doesn’t quite get that this damages him because it makes people like him less.
One of the most damaging photographs shows him leaving the Auberge de Castille by the main door after a meeting with the prime minister;. He’s wearing faded jeans. And nobody enters or leaves by the main door unless they’re on an official visit. People who are there for meetings enter and leave by the door on St Paul Street. It was staged for the Malta Today photographer and it was just so……narcissistic.
The divorce referendum is going to be a bloody mess, the best possible illustration of the Maltese saying that a hurried cat gives birth to blind kittens.
45 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
kemm hu kool, our Jeff ! Bla rispett is more like it.
kev, this one is for you: somone is tempering with Jeffrey’s and Evarist’s cell phones.
So far we’ve eliminated the CIA and the Mossad. Can you work on it before Sharon gets back from the office and you’re forced into the bathroom with your laptop?
Surely you mean ‘tempering’ with Jaffrey’s cell phone.
That makes Joseph Muscat an excellent (even if disgusting) chess player. I think that he is underestimated, when it comes to political ploy.
Considering further that JM cannot check-mate the PM with the Bishop on a matter of divorce.
You cannot have checkmate with just the bishop and a pawn…
Quite right, Baxxter. There are no kings, queens, or knights on this board, only jackasses.
Harry, but as someone mentioned in one of the recent posts, we have witnessed a couple of drama queens on the board.
ciccio, they should have been thrown ‘overboard’ a long time ago
I think the whole polemic about the referendum question is a red herring. People who do not want the introduction of divorce (most of them for religious reasons) will vote against it, whatever the question and they will vote on principle.
Pullicino Orlando should have known that his bill was premature because public opinion is not yet in favour of divorce legislation. Timing is everything in politics
By insisting on a referendum, I’m afraid that Muscat is also making sure that, not only will divorce not be introduced, but that no politician, himself included, will dare suggest its introduction for a very long time.
Three months is not enough time to turn a pro-divorce minority into a majority, especially as the anti-divorce lobby seems much more credible than the primadonnas on the other side.
Though I do not intend to use divorce if it gets in, I was in favour of some divorce legislation for those who need it. After all this trash I will definitely vote NO.
Jeffery Pullicino Orlando qed juri kemm hu ala biebu mill-Partit Nazzjonalista, meta tellawh u idefendewh minn “Terrinata’ ta’ Alfred Sant .
Dakinhar b’li inkixef fuq JPO minn Alfred Sant ftit qabel l-elezzjoni kien ghoddu diga gherreq (scupper) lilu nnifsu u l-partit mieghu.
Lil Sant ix-xitan tah id-disa’ u disghin u zamm l-ahhar wiehed ghalih, ghax fil-konferenza stampa, Sant ma kienx basar li se jsib lil JPO quddiemu bil-press card.
Id-decizjonijiet hziena ta’ Sant qalbu kemm kemm il-folja favur il-PN, l-aghar wahda kienet “keccuh minn hawn; gibulu l-Pulizija”.
Hawnhekk kien gabli qalbi gungliena. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bBFdsR4p6Q&feature=related
X’differenza illum.
It-taghlima ghal KULL partit hi li kandidati ghal l-elezzjonijiet iridu jigu miflijja minn fuq s’isfel , QABEL ma jigu ipprezentatati quddiem l-ezekuttiv ghall-approvazzjoni.
Hsieb hazin qed jigini u se nghidu hawn: mhux forsi xi hadd wieghed xi haga lil xi hadd, imbasta jkollna lil Joseph prim ministru?
M’hemmx aghar minn meta xi hadd jattakkak minn gewwa, jew jahdem spalla ma spalla ma l-ghadu tieghek.
Mulej harisna mill-hbieb, l-ghedewwa niehu hsiebom ahna.
With friends like you Jeff, who needs enemies?
Another tourist posing for a picture on the footsteps of Castille. A bit overdressed for the occasion, in my view.
Why would Pullicino Orlando first propose a bill in 2010 and insist that he would like to see it discussed early in 2011 (after the budget), but later agree to a motion by the Leader of the Opposition to take voters to the polls on a referendum before Parliament discusses his own bill?
Anzi ma nfaqax jibki u jxerred id-dmugħ a la Mistra.
If anybody takes Jeffrey seriously all they have to do is imagine him, unless like others who have seen him, on a hairdresser’s chair with his locks covered in tin foil, while the dye sets in.
At least he seems to now have realised that he can’t have remained an au naturel blonde for ever.
Is this a blonde joke?
This clearly shows that what they are doing is only for self popularity.
Not only has Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando scuppered his political career, but he is putting the pro-divoce movement in clear and present danger.
Furthermore, the duo Bartolo & Pullicino Orlando (sounds like a music-hall act from the 1930s) are the worst possible figure-heads for the pro-divorce movement and will put off some voters from voting Yes.
A propos the referendum, let’s get the rules of engagement laid down in stone BEFORE voting.
No one wants a repetition of the EU referendum result when you-know-who added up the abstainers to the No vote and declared a premature victory.
Narcissistic? I told you so. It took me all of twenty seconds to read Pullicino Orlando’s character to a T.
When he’s not wearing pantaloons de Nîmes, however, he does make an effort to dress correctly. So I give him credit for that. And he’s the only Maltese politician ever to give a speech in English (i.e. when he wasn’t forced to). So double credit to him.
Pantalons.
If you read The Chap, you would know the expression. Obviously, you don’t.
I thought only cowboys wore chaps.
“The divorce referendum is going to be a bloody mess, the best possible illustration of the Maltese saying that a hurried cat gives birth to blind kittens”
Ain’t that the truth. To put it mildly.
John Dalli is nagging about some consortium wanting to invest $1b in alternative energy projects around the island. He told John Bundy that the government ignored their proposals and went on describing how proud he is of negotiating the HSBC sale. Strange how John Bundy, now that he’s working for Labour, didn’t ask him whether he got a cut or suggest that somebody took a hefty commission.
Dalli is ex Labour anyway, and as for Bundy, well, good riddance to bad rubbish.
Are you sure that he’s “ex-“? Just asking.
Worse. Much worse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qadvvf3ZMKw
The Vatican Secret Service must have tapped their telephones.
Good call. I expect kev to come up with a suitably far-fetched theory, involving Opus Dei, Dan Brown, the Holy Grail and Lord Lucan, who is actually JPO (hence the shades).
Kev doesn’t have permission to produce a conspiracy theory about this one.
“The divorce referendum is going to be a bloody mess, the best possible illustration of the Maltese saying that a hurried cat gives birth to blind kittens.”
It’s exactly what I predicted would happen last July, the moment JPO dropped the divorce bomshell.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100711/opinion/no-mandate-no-party
[Daphne – Yes. You were right and I was wrong, because I expected that Jeffrey would present the bill and leave it at that. I didn’t think he woud actually have the poor judgement to push it through. But…]
And the divorce referendum is going to be horribly confused by a complex question, if Pullicino Orlando and Labour have their way.
Attaching all of the complex elements to the simple question of yes/no to the introduction of divorce is a mistake. The most straight forward answer to the divorce issue is yes or no.
All of the other qualifiers distract, distort, or negate any meaningful interpretation on the issue–when those qualifiers are combined into a single response question.
As any social scientist [my profession] or market researcher knows, you want to keep the interpretation of the answer to the question clear.
The simple question is the only way to do this.
However, if one is conducting an opinion survey, often more than one question and type of information is surveyed, and the inter-relationships of the items can be evaluated by particular multivariate statistical methods, when you know how each individual person replies to each of the questions.
But in a referendum vote, we are not dealing with the tools of social science. In a referendum vote, the only data that are available are the sums of the totals for or against.
In the present dispute between points of view on the referendum question, if a referendum were to be held, the PM’s positions is the most scientifically valid: the simple question, yes/no to the introduction of divorce.
I have never been in favour of a referendum, from the beginning: the MPs just need to legislate for divorce.
But it does seem that the JPO-PL tandem of position on making complex the referendum question can only serve to confuse the matter and render interpretation of the fundamental issue meaningless.
My opinion is that Muscat is intentionally trying to guarantee (by weakening its support through the cloud of confusion) that the divorce matter is defeated by acclaimation of the “people” (perhaps to satisfy the “majority” opinion within his party and the general electorate).
While the PM perhaps hopes to insure the defeat of a divorce bill by use of a referendum, which has only been used twice since Malta’s independence; and never has an absolute majority been obtained in a referendum relative to the total number of eligible voters.
I agree completely. Especially in the light that the voters of the opposing party already had trouble understanding what “Should Malta join the European Union?” meant.
A referendum is a bad idea, but at least define a question and don’t leave that to the people too.
Does the PN really need people like Jeffrey?
[Daphne – Yes, as long as he sits in that one seat.]
Daphne, it is true that the government needs Pullicino Orlando because of the 1-seat majority, but it should definitely be a warning for the future. When choosing its candidates the PN and any other party for that matter must seek to have people who reflect the party’s thinking and are committed to its values and principles and are loyal to the leader.
[Daphne – That was my point exactly about Musumeci in the last general election. He should have been deselected immediately the party discovered he was cheating on his wife with Consuelo Herrera. Not just a double adulterer, but sleeping with the enemy. And they kept him on. Shameful and crazy. So what is the PN saying: no to divorce but we don’t mind having adulterour cheats on our list?]
Prosit ta’ din ir-risposta.
Cry me a river, Jeffrey.
Who is in his right mind would vote this attention-seeker into parliament in the next election? He makes me cringe.
Jeffrey went to meet the prime minister wearing jeans, same shade as the notorious mini shirt ”tal-jeans” ta’ Consuelo.
“The divorce referendum is going to be a bloody mess”
How right you are.
No hysterics from Andre Camilleri, eh? What about:
”No divorce for battered women ‘because their abusers will also remarry”!
I bet you hadn’t thought of that.
What’s hysterical about it?
Dr Andre’ Camilleri stated a fact: if a wife batterer gets divorce he will end up battering his next wife…..and the next and the next.
People don’t change their characters.
[Daphne – Men don’t need to marry women to batter them, John.]
I suppose the solution to that problem could be that of putting a clause in the marriage law that renders men who have been convicted of violence against their spouse unfit to re-marry.
[Daphne – You can’t stop people marrying. If a woman wants to marry a wife-beater, then that’s her choice. When you are over 18 you don’t need permission to marry and you can marry who you please, as long as they are free and willing to marry you.]