Obviously, Lino Spiteri would prefer it if we said nothing about this
Both Lorry Sant and Dom Mintoff were democratically elected, and Karmenu Vella and AST both think of that time as the 'golden years' of glory.
Here’s Lino Spiteri in The Sunday Times, yesterday. Apparently, now we are not allowed to criticise Alex Sceberras Trigona and Karmenu Vella for being in the Mintoff’s and Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s cabinet of government – as Lino Spiteri was – because it constitutes ‘a personal attack’.
And apparently, too, they have every right to expect a political present and future and Muscat has every right to go along with this because they were democratically elected, the one to the party hierarchy, the other to parliament.
So was Lorry Sant, Mr Spiteri.
And Mr Spiteri knows, despite his history with the Labour Party, that democracy is not only about elections. It is also about freedom of expression and the ABSOLUTE DUTY (not just right) of politicians, journalists and others to point out the serious shortcomings of people like Alex Sceberras Trigona and Karmenu Vella, and of their party leader for giving them such prominence and significance.
Mr Spiteri has come a long way since 1987 and he should know that it is the prime minister’s DUTY to criticise his opposite number for having the Labour electoral programme written by a man who sat in the cabinets of Dom Mintoff, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and even – heaven help us – Alfred Sant.
Yes, duty, Mr Spiteri, not just right – as indeed it is mine and, if you are honest with yourself, yours too.
————-
It should be common decency not to personalise politics. And one should be democratic enough to acknowledge democratic choice, even where one disagrees with the outcome. Not so Lawrence Gonzi in respect of Labour’s Karmenu Vella and Alex Sceberras Trigona.
Like all politicians, they have a past. Like me they were in the 1981-87 Labour Cabinet which had its fair share of issues to account for.
Unlike me, since I retired from politics in 1998, they feel they have a political present and future. Sceberras Trigona, after some time out of mainstream politics, contested a post in the Labour Party hierarchy. The party delegates chose him over another contestant. It was a democratic outcome which had nothing to do with the leader ofthe party.
Vella has been an MP for decades. He served as a minister in the 1981-87 Cabinet, and I am not aware that anybody questioned his performance of ministerial duties. He was a minister once more in the 1996-98 Labour government, in charge of tourism. Leading members of the sector say to this day he was the best tourism minister ever, with due respect to other Labour and also Nationalist stalwarts who also fulfilled that role.
He stood for re-election in 1998, 2003 and 2008. Each time the electorate taking part in that basic democratic process returned him as handsomely as could be. There is little doubt that it will do so again when the next election takes place.
That democratic background notwithstanding, Gonzi took it upon himself to personalise politics. He sanctimoniously declared that opposition leader Joseph Muscat should turn away Sceberras Trigona and Vella because they had served in the 1981-87 Cabinet. The PN general secretary rapidly becamehis master’s voice, parroting thepersonal attack.
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Although he kept a lower profile than Karmenu Vella and Sceberras Trigona, Lino Spiteri himself has a tainted past, having formed part of the Mintoff-KMB government in 1981-1987.
Not only did he never condemn the routine violence of those dark days but he’s also on record saying that the Curia building was probably ransacked by PN supporters.
Lino Spiteri , with his argumentation in his columns, shows a deep and profound hatred for the PN leadership. He is no pundit.
And yet, The Times continues to give him “airtime”. Mabel Strickland must be rolling in her grave for having Aliied Newspapers littered with so many Labourites.
It’s not just The Times, either. His novellas are total pigswill, and yet publisher keeps courting him.
Funny how Lino Spiteri felt the need to defend AST and Karmenu Vella.
AST was in China overseeing Labour’s latest confidential agreement. Something they haven’t yet shared with us. Maybe Lino Spiteri could relay some titbits in his next article.
Karmenu Vella did basically the same in Libya, signing agreements with the now defunct regime.
I don’t recall these two consulting with the electorate before committing themselves.
If Lino Spiteri considers these concerns personal attacks, where, in his order of democracy, do we stand?
In the last paragraph of that article, Lino Spiteri wrote that on two occasions some individuals previously unknown to him had told him that up to now they had always voted PN but next time round they would vote for Joseph; he also added a caveat that he had told them that he had nothing to do with politics nowadays.
I do not know if this is a parable or not but I find it rather hard to believe that people whom you do not know approach you at a restaurant or make an appointment just to tell you that they have changed political sides.
Although I would not put it past the type of chavs who reason that if we tell him now that we are voting PL, we can approach him in the future for anything we need; for them it’s like putting money in the bank to earn interest in the future.
If you read Spiteri’s opinion pieces carefully, it is obvious that the manipulation of the Spiteri/Sant leadership race still sticks in his craw.
Again, good one Daphne!
When Lino Spiteri felt he could no longer work with Alfred Sant, he resigned.
He did not resign from Mintoff’s Cabinet. He was there with the lot of them.
“Mr Spiteri has come a long way since 1987”. And so have the Maltese people.
Joseph Muscat should turn away Sceberras Trigona and Karmenu Vella not because they formed part of a previous MLP cabinet between 1981 and 1987.
They should be rejected because the MLP adminstration throughout that period was characterised by its commitment to political violence.
Was it not during the time that Lino Spiteri was a Mintoffian minister that it was the norm to give 50 Maltese liri “under the counter” to be able to purchase a Seleco colour tv that was sold for four hundred Maltese liri?
Lino Spiteri should start writing the true history of politics.
“He was there with the lot of them”.
True, and we should not forget it.
He seems to have plucked up courage only after 1987.
He never came out publicly to condemn violence. He might have whispered in some deaf ears.
That is cowardice.
If he says he did and was ignored he should have resigned there and then or should have pronounced himself eloquently.
He resigned over CET in 1997, but saw no reasons to resign before 1987.
No use playing the angel now, because that’s just hypocrisy.
hear hear
“All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. ”
George Orwell
It was disconcerting and somewhat disappointing reading Mr. Spiteri’s article yesterday. Over the years, I had thought he was one of the more enlightened of a very poor bunch.
By failing to acknowledge, and therefore implicitly condoning, the ‘shenanigans’ (or worse) of these individuals, he has fallen precipitously in, I am sure, many thinking people’s estimation.
Preparing to enter the skip?
That would be quite a U-turn given that he is always pontificating that he is finished with politics.
Lino Spiteri was Minster of Trade in the Golden Years.
He was instrumental in breaching trade relations with Italy, France and Japan simply because it was Labour policy to do so. He didn’t resign.
That policy dictated that no imports would be allowed into Malta from countries which did not buy Malta-made products. Lino Spiteri was that same man who led Malta into endless years of acute shortages of basic comodities and who was particpant in the bulk-buying system when we ised to import corned beef from the People’s Republic of China.
[Daphne – When it might well have been not corned beef at all but minced dissidents.]
Mr. Spiteri contested the 1996 election and accepted the post of finance minister knowing full well that his party’s main electoral pledge was the removal of VAT. He then resigned to sabotage Sant, his rival in the leadership contest, and claimed that it was on a matter of principle.
He was aware of the implications of removing VAT but yet went along with it out of sheer spite, at considerable cost to the economy. He is hardly in a position to take the moral high ground.
For fairness’ sake, most of our corned beef came from the land of corned beef, that is, Argentina – albeit never top grade. We did import half-bled beef from Romania.
The bulk-buying system and quota systems were among the most economically damaging and disruptive policies the Labour government came up with.
Good article Daph
Lino is not defending those Labour Party stalwarts but himself, as he was one of the clique at that time.
Lino Spiteri – at least these days the attacks are verbal, not physical.
In your days as a minister in Mintoff’s and KMB’s cabinet, people had to endure physical attacks and you did not resign or say anything publicly.
Its easy for you to pontificate now.
Politicians have a present and a future.
However, if they happen to have been active in politics since the pliocene period, they also have a past.
If Spiteri considers reviving memories to be tantamount to personal attacks, then he cannot be thinking very highly of those same memories.
Lino Spiteri tries very hard to airbrush the PL’s past which, incidentally, includes a good chunk of his own.
He should keep in mind, though, that we dinosaurs are not all amnesic.
Not yet.
Some ex-politicians are already dreaming of S. Anton.
Lino Spiteri has been a director of a Libyan state-owned company – Medavia – for a long time now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlPb_UYNxa8
If Lino Spiteri were to write in 200 years time he might get away with it , as matters stand cigarette and political stains have one thing in common- they are damned difficult to get rid of .