Jeffrey wants his limelight back

Jeffrey's breakfast, taken from his Facebook wall.

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has every interest in ensuring that Labour is elected to government now that he is retiring from the Nationalist Party and his long-time girlfriend Carmen Camilleri Ciantar is working for Labour and might be a Labour candidate.

That couple’s bread is now buttered firmly on Joseph Muscat’s side.

This factor, compounded by four years of resentment at having his multi-million-euro Mistra deal hijacked, being sidelined for lying about it to the prime minister, and now having his limelight stolen by Franco Debono, means that his backstabbing will intensify between now and the general election.

That he has had some kind of nervous breakdown between last March and the present, which has unbalanced him significantly, goes without saying. Anyone who has had the misfortune of being forced into conversation with him will know that he repeats himself neurotically in an angry monotone which escalates into rage, can’t get away from the same subjects, has a rigid facial expression which turns frightening spiteful and venomous when he descends into insults about the prime minister (which he enjoys most when he has an audience of Super One journalists and Labour lawyers), and has become increasingly shifty and ‘loopy’.

I can’t stand him, quite frankly, but you all know that by now. His behaviour has been abominable.

If you wish to know why he is now attacking Joe Saliba with lies about his involvement in Charles Polidano’s non-existent cement factory, I’ll tell you, because I know.

For the last four years Jeffrey has borne a grudge against Joe Saliba because he believes that Saliba orchestrated the pressure for his resignation back in March 2008, when it became known that he really was planning some development scam in Mistra and that he had lied to Lawrence Gonzi about it, almost costing the Nationalist Party the general election literally on the eve.

The sicko has been waiting to lunge all this time, and the trigger came when he needed a story to push Franco out of the limelight and elbow his way into it instead.

This is similar to how Franco began blowing bigger gaskets and then took it to the max when he saw that the horrible New Year’s Day murders had wiped him and his agenda right out of the news. He acted to put himself back in the headlines.

These are two bad cases we’re dealing with here, and make no mistake about it.

If Jeffrey were normal and stable and had a serious accusation to make about a former politician, he would have chosen his method more carefully. Instead, this 48-year-old member of parliament made his accusation on his Facebook wall, there among his photographs of spaghetti suppers, details of films he saw, and hate messages designed to incite even more hatred of me among his Labour FB friends.

I used to wonder why he expends so much time and effort on courting that Labour marmalja on Facebook, but when I found out that Carmen is back in with the Labour Party and might be contesting the elections, I stopped wondering.

He’s got a valuable resource there and will use it to drum up support for her if and when she contests. What we are seeing him do now is the groundwork: getting Labour people on his side is step one. Step two will be getting them to transfer that support to the woman who shares his bed.

In light of this, Jeffrey should be more careful how he drags Charles Polidano into the equation. Polidano is the new friend of Labour. Every party or event Labour has had over the last couple of years has been held at the Montekristo Estate. When Karmenu Vella’s son married Miriam Dalli, the reception was held there. And when Marlene Mizzi’s daughter married recently, the party was also at Monte Kristo. They must be getting a very good…discount.

Charles Polidano’s companion runs a nice boutique where I often go for a browse. It is the only place I know which retails the jewellery which Michelle Muscat wholesales under the Buttardi brand.

Whatever the situation, and people in business are free to donate to whichever party they please, Jeffrey is the last person on this island who should be talking in scandalised tones about suspect planning permission.

He is also unwise and rash to put himself behind Franco’s bill on political party financing, because it will undo much of the work Carmen has done already to insinuate herself back into Labour. The Labour Party does not want a law on political party financing and is going to be very annoyed that Carmen’s boyfriend is doing this, though it may forgive him because of all the good work he has done for Labour already and is doing still.

As for Franco and Jeffrey, if they imagine that the Labour Party is going to vote in favour of this bill as it did with the divorce bill, they’re in for a bit of a surprise. With a political party financing bill, the cons outweigh the pros for Labour.