Jesmond sulks again – you know, for a change
Jesmond Mugliett, suspected of having a hotline to the enemy
Not to put too fine a point on it, Saviour Balzan needs to get his head examined if he thinks that letting his personal obsessions take over his newspaper, television show and website is a good way to do news journalism or run a media business.
What I find most worrying – or would do if I cared about Saviour Balzan and his business, which I don’t – is that he doesn’t even seem to realise they are fixations and that he has been overcome by them to the point where he might really need somebody to take him aside and have a quiet word.
It’s not going to be his business partner Roger de Giorgio, who has long since gone down the same road.
Let them stew in their own mess, but you can count on me to talk about it while it’s happening.
Isn’t Saviour aware that by repeatedly interviewing for his Reporter show (on Favourite Channel…) the same few individuals who are ‘against the government’ in unconstructive ways, the bitter and the neurotic, he is undermining his own credibility and turning himself into a joke?
A TV news interview show is not an opinion column.
That’s not the way to get an audience. It’s not even the way to achieve his objective of undermining the prime minister, who he detests. More subtlety is required.
You can’t watch his interviews, in which he tries to put words into the mouths of the bitter and the rejected and the sidelined, asking none of the questions that need to be asked, egging them on in the most unsubtle manner possible, and not laugh at his stupidity.
See the interview with Robert Musumeci in a previous post. This week, too, he’s had that Jesmond Mugliett, the one who can’t decide whose side he’s on, and whose wife is a big favourite with Super One.
There he was, complaining because the finance minister, in his presentation of the budget to backbenchers ahead of time, left out what Malta Today called ‘the juicier bits’.
That is the finance minister’s prerogative. I believe he was right, and that he would have been irresponsible to give away details to people he suspects might have a hotline to Labour.
Mugliett has only himself to blame for the fact that he is not trusted with information. He has made a pig’s dinner of his credibility and his trustworthiness.
He is not seen as decent, loyal and honourable, but as a backstabber who is quite capable of plotting in the dirty tricks department. He spends too much time bleeding in public or seething with bitterness in inappropriate forums.
The only trouble is that because he and a couple of others cannot be trusted, the other backbenchers get left out of the loop too, because you can’t pick and choose those who will be given information and those who will not.
Jesmond and those others have let the side down, badly. But they are too far up their own rear-ends to see it. May the electorate dispose of them.
15 Comments Comment
Reply to Jake Click here to cancel reply
Well done Daphne, you’ve said it all.
The latest Labour message, as seen and heard on Facebook and Super One, is that it is criminally wasteful of GonziPN to have electric Christmas decorations on roundabouts when we are still in ‘the month of the dead’, and when “il-poplu hu baghtut ghax ma jistax ilahhaq mal-kontijiet”.
We can save on the cribs this year, if they’re willing to don costumes.
Is Alfred Sant happy with Mugliett’s wife in the Labour fold? If I remember well he spent weeks if not months attacking Mugliett with conflict of interest regarding the Regional Road tunnel.
not tunnel ….bridge !
Amen to that.
I have heard that Saviour Balzan is a consultant to Union Press and the Labour media.
Jesmond Mugliett commented beneath the article which reports about his comments on maltatoday.com.mt:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/budget2012/Family-friendly-measures-kept-secret-from-PN-backbenchers
POSTED BY: Muglj001 — 16/11/2011 13:30:50 I regret how my intervention during the post budget programme was reported.
I was asked whether the parliamentary group meeting was a useless exercise where mp’s are presented by a fait accompli. I said that it was not. I said that certain measures in the budget hit us by surprise, having been decided at the last moment. Certain criticsm made by mps on certain proposed measures were taken on board and not included.
The PM reserved the right to take unilateral decisions on the last hours before the budget. I believe that i made objective assessments during the programme contrary to the impression given in today’s article.
If there are any who think that the trouble with Franco, JPO and Mugliett et al will disappear after next election, they may be wrong.
Assuming that all will be barred from running under the NP banner, they may choose to run as independents and if only one out of three or more is elected as ‘independent’ he could cause more trouble than staying in and somehow made to behave.
All three know very well that in return for their disloyal behaviour, their chances of getting a Cabinet post is at best, remote. Only a big mea culpa will come some way towards redemption and it is highly unlikely that any one of them will go that route.
Their ego is so huge, it’s obstructing their vision.
If there was ever a Maltese politician who was practically adored it was Mintoff. Supporters called themselves Mintoffjani, not Laburisti or Socjalisti. Yet when he didn’t toe the party line, he was sidelined and called ‘Traditur’. And this was Mintoff who led the MLP for 50 years.
Can you imagine how quickly the three you mentioned will be forgotten?
Jeffrey Mugliett? Franco Pullicino? Jesmond Debono? Now, the latter is someone I know.
Jesmond has lost all credibility and his political career is now over. Now he has nothing to lose and we won’t be surprised if he fires more dirty shots.
I do see it so very loudly and clearly that Saviour Balzan hates Lawrence Gonzi. But why, I ask. What is the reason behind this?
Was SB hoping to get some advantage out of John Dalli being elected to the leadership post? Or am i missing something somewhere?
Daphne
Without going into the merits of this MP and others that have caused trouble to the Government, so what do you think of a similar situation occurring in a private company?
I used to work for a company where some individuals were given total control of the management of the company not only because they were capable but because they were very cunning and over the years managed to convince their boss that they should be trusted.
Eventually, in less than a year or so about 25% of the workforce left the company as they could not stand their arrogance, their know it all attitude and the rubbishing of employees’ concerns & even to constructive suggestions.
Many of these employees used to complain about the management style of the new management team and there were many valid reasons for this – do you therefore classify these as bitter employees?
It would be interesting to know your views on this as the impression that you give is that no matter what Management or Leaders do their subordinates should accept it and not do anything about it?
[Daphne – Politicians are elected. Employees are not. You cannot compare a private company to parliament, the cabinet of government, or even a political party. But if you wish to do that, then you should know that Jesmond, Franco and Jeffrey would never have been given the chance to behave the way they did, because they would have been fired the first day they made trouble. They behaved with such dreadful arrogance because they were able to take advantage of their unsackability. They are the equivalent, if you must, of the boss’s son or boss’s sister who, instead of realising that it is incumbent on them to stick to the rules and behave better than everyone else, instead do as they please, break all the rules, throw their weight about, and when challenged by the manager, say ‘get out of my face – if you challenge me, you’re the one who’ll lose your job.’]
Thanks, Daphne – interesting reply.
[Daphne – Yes. Fact is, in companies and corporations, you shout at your boss, insult him and disparage him, and you’re a dead man walking, marched out of the building by security. Companies belong to their shareholders, not to their employees. Some people find it hard to understand that it is the owners, through their delegated representatives on the board, who take the decisions.]