Edward Scicluna sits in another parliament and cannot speak for the Opposition
Edward Scicluna is not a member of the Opposition and so cannot speak for it. He does so because the Opposition has no shadow finance minister, except on paper.
This is my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday, today
.The other day I wondered out loud why it is always the leader of the Opposition who criticises the government in matters of the economy and finance. Is he going to be our finance minister as well as our prime minister in 18 months?
Clearly not, for that would be far too taxing for the chap who can’t even be fagged to drag himself to official ceremonies if they happen on a Sunday, and who used the excuse of a crack in his shinbone to disappear from view completely last summer, though it didn’t prevent him taking a cruise with This One, his wife.
I thought about this for about five seconds, and realised that there is no clear designate for the post of finance minister when the Party of Joseph is elected to government.
I shuffled through the list of spokesmen and shadows, and understood that there are at least three members of the sort-of-shadow-cabinet who are delegated to speak about these things – Leo Brincat, Karmenu Vella and Charles Mangion.
Leo Brincat is pretty much invisible outside his newspaper columns which nobody reads (damn shame, that) while you never get a peep out of the other two. Presumably, Mangion is far too busy in his notary’s office, working on land deal contracts which he can criticise later while wearing his Opposition MP hat, while Vella is finding the business of writing a five-year policy programme for the New Golden Years more than a little bit taxing.
The strain of keeping those innovative policies top-secret while compiling photo albums about Dom Mintoff on Facebook must be exhausting him.
So in the post-Moody’s debate, it has been largely Joseph Muscat who has been yapping away, while sensible people yawn, remind themselves that he was the one who fought against membership of the Eurozone (and the European Union) and look away.
If we want advice on how to take sound foreign and economic policy decisions, we’re not going to be looking to Muscat for any of that. We know the buck stops with him, but we’d still like to know what the man who will be his finance minister has to say about all of this.
At least, I assume from the dregs on display that it is going to be a man, but Muscat might have other ideas and be planning on making the earth move for us with the progressive and liberal choice of the Queen of Two Toyshops as finance boss.
If he had any black, Muslim one-legged lesbian shopkeepers to hand it would have been so convenient, because imagine all those progressive and liberal birds he could kill with that one stone and damn the consequences for the economy.
The fact that the Opposition party has nobody fit to speak about the economy and finance was highlighted yesterday when a Labour MEP – who is not part of the Opposition because he sits in another parliament altogether (a distinction which many people miss, largely because they confuse party and Opposition/government) – took time out from his concerns in Brussels to speak as though he is the shadow minister of finance in Malta.
Edward Scicluna, who – I repeat – does not sit in the Maltese parliament and does not form part of the Opposition – released a statement yesterday criticising the government’s response to Moody’s downgrading of Malta.
Imagine what he would have said if that response had been like Obama’s when the United States was downgraded by Standard & Poor for the first time in its history: no matter what the ratings agencies say, we will always be a triple A nation.
I’m not going to delve into the merits of what Scicluna said and how the government, in response, buried him under an avalanche of facts and figures – though I do have a great deal to say, which I shall keep to myself, about the artfully misleading headline to the online report in The Times, ‘Moody’s report refutes government spin on Malta’s economy – Edward Scicluna’.
What interests me is why the Opposition has resorted to an external consultant from another parliament to speak on its behalf – something which an external consultant by definition cannot do, as he does not represent the Opposition – when it has so many MPs decorating the decks of our own parliament. Are they all utterly incompetent in matters of the economy?
If so, then Muscat had better get to work fast, and it’s not only he who should be worried.
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Joseph Cuschieri might get his seat after all.
A politically biased economist is not to be trusted.
Scicluna, wrapping himself in Labour politics, is now not to be trusted.
As an economist myself, I could accept his neutral comments, when he was not politically aligned. Economists are ‘trained’ to ‘work the numbers’.
Let me give you an example.
During graduate school, one of my assignments, in a tutorial, was to demonstrate why and how Canada’s GDP had increased for five continuous years. Using visuals back then (overhead viewgraphs), I based my analysis on an ever increasing growth chart of Canada’s GDP, outling the main economic contributors to that growth.
Completing my presentatation, my professor then asked me to turn the viewgraph upside down, ie, the chart showed GDP declining. He then asked me to explain why. Employing numbers I had discarded in order to prove my previous conclusion, I attempted to prove the opposite. Guess I did OK, since I got an ‘A’ for the tutorial.
As I previously mentioned, take an economist’s conclusions with a big pinch of salt–especially if politically motivated with an ambitious axe to grind.
That’s an extremely useful exercise, Harry. One at which most Maltese students would suck, since it needs that combination of technical skills and political acumen which I’ve rarely seen combined,
The thing with Edward Scicluna is that his reputation was sky-high before he even ventured into politics, and is pretty much unassailable. His word is sacred.
PN has no one to match him on its side. Gordon Cordina, who was instrumental in the EU campaign, is not involved in politics. The best PN can do is to counter Scicluna’s declarations with some limp press release which reads like an accountant’s balance sheet.
It won’t do.
Totally agree, Baxxter.
Just one small point. ‘His word is sacred’ should be modified to ‘was’ sacred.
I’d still use the present tense. Behold the reverence with which he’s called “il-Profs Scicluna” by friend and foe alike. Though an MLP member and MEP, he is super partes, a bit like Peter Serracino Inglott (also “Profs” but “Father” takes precedence).
I agree that Prof Edward Scicluna has sky-high reputation and credibility which he had managed to establish before venturinginto politics. As a Maltese citizen Prof Edward Scicluna has all the credentials and competence to intervene, with his valid views, on local issues. How come, Daphne dear, you never expressed your absurd opinion when either Dr Simon Busuttil or David Casa intervened in local politics, bearing in mind that they are both MEPs in Brussels. Therefore according to your standards, since they are not included amongst the local Nationalist Parliamentary group, they are both not expected to express themselves on local political issues?
[Daphne – David Casa and Simon Busuttil never speak for the government, or as though they sit in the Maltese parliament. Please do yourself a favour and learn the difference between ‘the Labour Party’ and ‘the Opposition’. To speak for the Opposition, you must be delegated to do so, by means of a seat in the Maltese parliament, on the Opposition benches.]
Perhaps Joseph has reserved the Finance Ministry for that other Labour star, Wistin Abela, him of the ‘zewg millezmi irhas fuq l-incova’ fame.
Unless of course Abela is playing hard to get, in which case Joseph is well and truly stuck. Any suggestions anyone?
It’ll be interesting to watch the three-way bitch-fight between Leo Brincat, Evarist Bartolo and Karmenu Vella, all vying for the post of finance minister.
I don’t think Evarist is interested in that post…
Ah yes, Baxxter, interesting.
Immaculate academic credentials for the job. A failed bank clerk, a weird ‘educationist’ and an old (very) perit. Why not throw in the Elephant Man–perhaps he can ‘beat’ the economy into shape.
It is advisable, Daphne dear, to peruse several articles in the local press by both Dr Simon Busuttil and David Casa. Kindly
refer to the latest article issued in the Times of Malta on 14/09/2011, quite recently, by Dr Simon Busuttil entitled
“A Breath of Fresh Air” regarding the electoral programme
of the current Nationalist Administration regarding environment.
Please do yourself a favour and learn that what is good for
the goose is good for the gander. According to your absurd
mentality Dr Simon Busuttil does not distinguish between
‘the Nationalist Party’ and ‘the Government’.
Has anyone read Moody’s report in full before even attempting to give Scicluna one iota of credibility?
I believe the complete report is being released today or tomorrow, unless there is a link already which I have not found yet.
In the meantime, the ratings for US, Italy and Greece among others have already been downgraded and no smart alecs are pulling their hair out and predicting disasters.
While downgrades to the US, Italy and Greece are based on by far greater national debts, doubts over their solvency, Malta’s downgrade from A1 to A2 is balanced out by other factors such as: the low level of unemployment, the significant increase in exports and its 2.8% expansion of the economy which is nearly twice the EU average.
Maybe Moody’s was a tad too eager to publish the Malta rating so as not to include the positive trends in the Maltese economy?
Perhaps the chaps at the Red House, have managed to establish “friends” at Moody’s or Edward Scicluna has contacts there
Did this guy graduate in Mintoff’s time?
In that case his degrees/diplomas are more suited to wrap anchovies in, then to give advice on economics since he is very economical with logic and reality.
I agree with Austin Gatt. No win for the PL.