More on Dr Luciano Busuttil BA LLD MP Dip. (Nail Technician)
I can't write, spell or punctuate, but the University of Malta gave me a law degree all the same.
It’s good to see that The Times picked up the story of Dr Luciano Busuttil BA LLD MP, Labour Party spokesman for European Affairs, and his discussion on Facebook of Libya’s frozen assets (much of which are in bank accounts by the Labour Party’s former treasurer, Joe Sammut).
It looks like Dr Luciano Busuttil BA LLD MP has gone on the defensive:
“Dr Busuttil played down the impact his comment could have and insisted he lived in “a free country” where Labourites should not be scared to ask questions.”
The Times’ report also includes the Nationalist Party’s reaction to Dr Luciano Busuttil BA LLD MP’s leading question. It includes the uncharacteristically outspoken definition of Dr Luciano Busuttil BA LLD MP’s ‘comments’ (in quote marks) as “plain stupid”.
‘Grave lack of substance’ – PN
In a reaction, the PN said Dr Busuttil was free to “ask questions”, but that did not give him the right to make a fool of the country.
“It is a given that his online ‘comments’ on whether Malta should actually consider not handing Libya’s frozen assets to the Libyan people are plain stupid but they are also extremely worrying because Dr. Busuttil happens to be Labour’s European Affairs spokesman,” the PN said.
“With Labour at the helm Luciano Busuttil will be calling the shots and taking decisions that affect Malta’s EU and diplomatic relations. His online comments do not augur well at all – with such reasoning there is no doubt that once in charge he’ll make a huge mess – at Malta’s expense.”
The PN pointed out that Dr Busuttil hails from the same party whose leader has a track record of giving, time and again, the wrong advice such as when he vociferously campaigned against Malta’s EU membership; his strong opposition to the euro and his advice that Malta should use the veto on migration issues.
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“Myself”, a kompożixin by Year 5 student Luciano Busuttil:
http://extranet.tynwald.org.im/CPA/BIMR2010/Biographies/BusuttilL.pdf
Is this really a biographical ‘text’ by Dr L. Busuttil? I mean was this REALLY published somewhere?
[Daphne – Yes.]
@Mustaccun
Nahh…looks more like an applicant’s CV to me.
…In a dismal way I may add.
Oh my God, and these are our prospective leaders? Let me put it in a way that Dr Busuttil might understand:
Me very down, feel like tears. Please stay home, no submit nomination for election. If you do, i end myself’s life.
[Daphne – You forgot something: ‘Thanks and keep it up sweet. CU.’]
You forgot to list your degrees, apc.
Labour’s mask is being uncovered.
They tried to keep silent on the matter but their ‘loyalty’ to Gaddafi is beyond their control.
Remember Reno Calleja, KMB and now Luciano Busuttil who is Labour’s European Affairs Shadow Minister.
It seems that the ‘tap’ is closed forever now.
Who will finance their campaign now? The African Union where Gaddafi used to pump his millions? Or shall we ask Keith Schembri, who flew with Joseph Muscat to meet Gaddafi as soon as he was elected?
That PN reply seems to have been written by a different hand, one that can actually think in English. Have they really recruited a new speechwriter?
[Daphne – I wouldn’t know, but if they have, then it’s not before time. I’m tired of watching them sit there and take the rotten tomatoes. Turning the other cheek is for Christians with an eye to beatification, not for politicians.]
News anchors on France 24 speak perfect English – FRANCE, the perennial enemy of les ros bifs. And here in TEFL Malta, we parade pidgin with pride (‘see how many dikris I hef’).
I mean that reply is punchy. Concise. To the point. And it actually uses, for the first time ever in the history of Malta, the blessed words “plain stupid”.
Hallelujah.
Perhaps Charles Crawford’s lectures are starting to sink in.
[Daphne – Charles Crawford trained, as a former diplomat, civil servants and diplomatic staff at the Foreign Office. You read too much Glenn Bedingfield.]
I love a little fiction now and then.
““It is a given that his online ‘comments’ on whether Malta should actually consider not handing Libya’s frozen assets to the Libyan people are plain stupid”
It’s about bloody time – they need speech-writers or communications people like this.
I agree that ‘Labourites’ should not be scared to ask questions.
In fact lots of them ask questions all the time on Malta’s dozens of newspapers, TV/radio stations, web sites and blogs.
Compare this to the situation in the seventies and eighties when the mere mention of opening a private radio station was considered a sick joke by the fascist regime.
What I disagree with is that a law graduate and a parliamentarian to boot asks questions that are plain ludicrous about topics of national importance.
This I find utterly unacceptable and contemptible.
You’re right, Baxxter. It immediately strikes you as different. I love the opening salvo:
“In a reaction, the PN said Dr Busuttil was free to “ask questions”, but that did not give him the right to make a fool of the country.”
By implication, it also means that Dr. Busuttil is a fool.
How come the Maltese journalists are never given the chance or the challenge to report directly from the places involved in such situations, like Libya for example?
[Daphne – Mark Micallef of The Times is currently in Benghazi. The reason Maltese journalists didn’t go there in the thick of the fighting is that their employers wouldn’t insure them.]
Luciano Busuttil managed in one Facebook comment what a whole army of elves couldn’t accomplish:
‘Rile the Nationalists.’
Meanwhile, Labour runs for cover; for the second time this week, it had to distance itself from such gaffes.
What it fails to understand is that an ambiguous approach to policy-making will simply increase the frequency of similar incidents.
They’re as moderate as a dodo.
It is true that one idiot does not a worry make. But the PL is FULL OF idiots, and so I am very, very worried.
Now isn’t twerpy Joseph in a fix.
He would probably want to give Luciano a public reprimanding (just to keep up appearances) but he just can’t, because he himself has on many occasions said that he would blackmail the EU institutions with a veto.
What a mess of a party.
I do not care what the two Drs. Busuttils say.
I prefer to look at reality.
Right now, Malta has two Libyan Mirage jets that have been effectively sequestered by the Maltese government. The government has not said much about these Libyan assets or their return.
[Daphne – Isn’t it obvious that they’re going to be returned? What is the prime minister planning to do, do you think? Flog them on eBay? Tal-biki.]
“I am making it clear that it was a question and not a statement. Had it been a statement I would have been stupid because these are not things that are done.”
-Timesofmalta.com
How old is this guy?
“Had it been a statement I would have been stupid…. ”
He’s leaving out the other option: it could have been a rhetorical question.
In other words, a question that doesn’t need an answer.
Or better still: just another stupid question, which makes him stupid either way.
So there is no escaping the “stupid” label, I’m afraid.
Lou Bondi’ recently argued that other journalists do not take up your stories. And yet, it seems to me pretty obvious that The Times took up the Lucky Luciano tomfoolery from your blog, ie., they did take up a story of yours.
This is not a lottery, with Luciano being lucky and others, like Jose’ Herrera, being unlucky.
To my mind, other journalists do not take up the Herrera stories for two reasons:
(a) there must be some sort of understanding between Herrera and certain members of the Press (ditto for Franco Debono) – otherwise they would not publish all their forays in forensic matters with such prominence;
(b) there is the misconceived idea that you, Daphne, write only because of a personal agenda against the Herreras.
May I submit a humble analysis.
Whereas it does not require an Einstein IQ to realize that you do find yourself having a serious personal matter with the Herreras, it is also as clear as can be that what you say about them is objectively true.
The fact that your subjective motivation is precisely that – subjective – does not in any way reduce the objectivity of your criticism.
In other words, the convergence of subjective motives and objective criticism should not invalidate the objective criticism.
Thinking otherwise betrays a confused mental setup.
Let us take an analogous situation. It would seem that one of the paedophile abuse victims has been attacked in the sense that his reports were fuelled by his sense of revenge or other psychological factor, and therefore the whole attack was unjustified.
But this is a non sequitur.
Whereas it might be true that the psychological factor is not among the purest, it is true that the accusations were founded and the misdeeds reported illegal (apart from disgusting etc).
In other words, whatever motivation the victim might have had did not invalidate the accusations moved by him.
The overlapping of subjective motiviation and objective criticism / accusation is completely irrelevant to whether a criticism / accusation is right or wrong.
Journalists seem not to understand this important distinction.
To return to the Herrera episode, and to conclude. Whereas Daphne is really motivated by personal issues, that does not nullify or wither away her criticism of the cavalier attitude displayed by the Herreras.
That Daphne has an issue with Consuelo does not make Herrera’s flirting with the judiciary (and his flaunting about it) acceptable.
That Daphne has an issue with Consuelo does not make Consuelo’s behaviour (in all its multifarious manifestations) acceptable.
Having an issue with somebody does not exonerate that somebody from their irresponsible, reprehensible behaviour.
If that were so, all we would need is an agent provocateur and we would get away with murder. Always.
An old friend of mine told me that Dr Luciano Busuttil was a PN supporter before moving on to the PL in his early days in media and politics. Can anyone confirm if this is true?
[Daphne – I’ve been around for a long time, and the first time I saw his name it was in L-orizzont, as some kind of columnist.]
If he was ever a PN supporter, thank God for the Damascene conversion.
“It’s good to see that The Times picked up the story of Dr Luciano Busuttil BA LLD MP”
Maybe they too are reading your blog?
About time too.
Did you ever have any doubt that they were?
It seems that the PL is trying to gather as many LL.Ds as possible for the next election – DOKTOR this and DOKTOR that seems to be impressive for the narrow minds at Mile End.
What worries me is a certain prevalent attitude that to be cool you have to criticise the government. God help you if you criticise Labour. I remember a very similar situation when the then MLP were in government. Looks like mentally we are heading there again.