Muscat’s maths marks were not as high as Franco’s

Published: January 17, 2012 at 10:15pm

I’m watching Bondi+. Joseph Muscat has just said that the Labour Party is at a huge disadvantage because it has lost six of the last seven elections.

In the next breath, he said that the Labour Party hasn’t won the majority of votes in a general election since 1976.

That’s right, 1976.

Was he confused, having meant to say 1996?

Or is he just a manipulative liar who wants to feed yet another refrain into the mix: ‘Labour hasn’t won since 1976. The Nationalists have been in power for 40 years.’

Because what he also failed to mention is that even though Labour didn’t get the majority of votes in 1981, it got the majority of seats and went on to govern for five and a half years ,stretching the term to the legal maximum – against the will of the majority.

Tell me about it. I went to sixth form, sat my A-levels, got a job, worked for a few years, married and had one-and-a-half children ALL UNDER AN ILLEGITIMATE LABOUR GOVERNMENT which got in when I was 17 and hung on in there until I was almost 23.

1976.

Indeed.

Joseph Muscat owes his very existence in the Labour Party to Alfred Sant, who he flattered and manipulated and to whom he clung like a leech. And now he wishes to wipe him off the Labour history books.




30 Comments Comment

  1. FP says:

    I think you missed the bit where he admitted that Labour did not have a majority of votes in 1981 and added that he did not expect to be applauded for saying so.

  2. FP says:

    I don’t think Muscat enjoyed Toni Abela’s comment about how nature invariably takes its course no matter how much one messes with the appearnace of one’s hair.

  3. maryanne says:

    They are only focusing on lies and image. Forget facts and proposals for now.

    I was disgusted to hear a new candidate like Mr. Fearne telling us that we have come to expect only mediocrity from this government.

    Imissu jisthi. He works at Mater Dei. Is that mediocrity? Is he contributing towards it?

    Most of the new candidates, given their young age, are a walking certificate to Nationalist governments and no amount of rhetoric and lies will change that.

    • Tim Ripard says:

      Mater Dei – over budget, late and smaller capacity than St. Luke’s.

      Airport – over budget (by about 80%).

      Manwel Dimech Bridge – over budget, late and messed around with by Jesmond Mugliett.

      Corruption at the VAT Dept – a poorly designed and administered system.

      It’s true that after the deregulation of the civil aviation market Air Malta could never have lasted the way it was but a truly far-seeing administration would have been a hell of a lot more prudent and would have made sure that Azzurra Air and the RJs never happened.

      Yes, investment in education has been huge and largely successful but outside that what has been achieved?

      Mediocrity is a pretty fair description, I would say.

      It’s still a million times better than the MLP record of disaster, violence and repression, but mediocrity is what it is.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        Well yeah, like I always say, you have to choose the least bad option. That’s democracy.

      • maryanne says:

        It is always a question with whom you make comparisons. My guess is that mediocrity will take a whole new meaning with Labour in government.

      • Chris Ripard says:

        Remember the graffiti? “Only the mediocre are always at their best”

        I think we should also bear in mind other factors – the PN in government always had half the country working against it and we Maltese in general are pretty allergic to hard work, so it doesn’t surprise me that we muck through at best.

        Can any of you out there even conceive of the Maltese doing what Germany did after the war? (Going in to work for free, just to get the economy back on its feet).

        Until we have a government with all the people behind it, we will always under-perform. And that government will have to lead by example.

        When will we see Ministers cycling to work, or at least, getting there in Fords and Fiats? When will they travel on normal class flights?

        When will their civil servants put in an 8 hour day, summer and winter? I will take my hat off to any government that does these things.

      • Life of Brian says:

        @Chris Ripard

        Several people already work for free. It’s how the entire social system’s propped up.

      • Antoine Vella says:

        Tim Ripard, mediocrity and making do have always been ingrained in the average Maltese mentality.

        What Chris Fearne is dishonestly claiming, however, is that they are a product of the present government.

      • Jozef says:

        Not if mediocrity becomes a collective, excusing individual responsibility.

        This country is like its roads, the outer lanes hogged by those who won’t give way to those who need to get somewhere.

  4. ciccio says:

    Is Joseph suggesting that Alfred Sant did not win with a majority in 1996?

  5. Rover says:

    They left us waiting five and a half years before we unceremoniously swept them away from power. Five and a half years ikkakmati u iggranfati mas-siggijiet.

    This is the same Labour Party that is now crying foul because they weren’t granted a measly two-hour debate on a no confidence motion.

    It looks like they have to wait a while longer before an election is called. And then one never knows how people react to buffoons like Debono.

  6. Jozef says:

    Such a lovely line up of candidates he’s put together.

    Charlie Azzopardi the ‘family therapist’ thinks we’re worse off than we were in 1971, and that women are, by nature, unsuitable for work.

    Silvio Parnis is now the purveyor of the middle class. Oh well, if he can’t get a ministry.

    Chris Cardona was trying so hard to push the buck back to the PM. It seems Joseph cannot stomach his motion and has to seek all possible excuses for bringing down a government.

  7. Canon says:

    It seems to me that Joseph Muscat is not good in remembering figures. Now imagine him in a summit with other Prime Ministers and starts confusing figures and statistics.

  8. Nina says:

    Brainwashed by nanna to a T! Only Mintoff’s glory years count – Alfred Sant was not Labour enough.

    And Joseph will be taking us back to the 70s – retro party time, get your Afro wigs out everybody.

    [Daphne – The Maltese never needed Afro wigs, Nina. Those Afros were real, I remember them. Maltese hair is naturally Afro. We’ve lost sight of that because the men get it cut short and the women blow-dry it to extinction and use Japanese straighteners. But Maltese hair in its natural state is mainly Afro.]

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      Too bloody right. Take away our hair products and we’re back to Maltasajf 86.

      • MMuscat says:

        Maltasajf’86? Sorry Bax, what you saw in those videos are all perm jobs – as I knew most of the people.

        Our hair is naturally wooly or long locks. We have great texture, until the balding or peroxide starts.

        One cannot say that Maltese hair is mainly Afro, but there is one very large extended clan in Malta which has those attributes.

    • Iz-Zanzi says:

      Styles that attempt to Latinise Maltese hair have always been popular.

      However, I would say we have NAFRO (North african root orientated) rather than AFRO (African root orientated) hair. The difference being a less thicker and spongy texture , but nevertheless still curly.

      Maltese fashion history dictates clearly that the 70s was the golden period for Maltese hair.

  9. Ghoxrin Punt says:

    Daphne, in fact Joseph did acknowledge that they did not get the majority of votes in 1981, there was that nudge, nudge, wink wink, moment…. you know the one, where the men smirk in acknowledgement of a wrong doing, but because they’re ‘cool’, or whatever, they think they can get away with it.

    And what was that Azzopardi idiot on about?

    Women work so as not to allow GonziPN to appear a ‘mazetta’ in Europe? I wonder why he works? Is it to try and prove that he has a penis?

    [Daphne – The worst thing about him is those black sunglasses which are welded to his head, summer and winter, night and day, indoors and out. And he’s a psychologist and family therapist, if you please. A family therapist saying that women are ‘forced’ to work. Whereas the men, one assumes, get a choice.]

    And Fearne, what was that whole mediocre spiel about. Just because he and his ilk are mediocre (or worse) it doesn’t mean that everyone else is.

    He might wish to up his clientele or move in better circles; that way he’ll get a more rounded view of the Maltese capabilities.

    Ah, but the cherry on the cake..Sceberras Trigona..we are poorer than we were in 1971… wtf?

    [Daphne – It was Charlie Azzopardi who said that. AST lamented the fact that nobody says ‘Malta Gonzi’ when he travels, unlike the glorious days when people he met abroad used to say ‘Malta Mintoff’.]

  10. anthony says:

    For all intents and purposes the PN has been in power for 30 years. That is, since 1981.

    This is history.

    These are the incontrovertible facts.

    The KMB and Sant interludes were just sad glitches.

    Never to be repeated again. One hopes.

  11. rowena smith says:

    Azzopardi also said that the Government is encouraging women to work just to please the EU in terms of figures related to female participation on the labour market.

    How low can these star candidates go?

  12. tbg says:

    If the (ML)PL has lost 6 out of the last 7 elections then there must be a very valid reason.

  13. Joe Micallef says:

    Is Cardona supposed to be one of the star line-up? God help us if he is. Devious, continuously trying to paraphrase and redefine comments by the other stars, with an annoying grin.

    Fearne and Azzopardi are really up to scratch too.

    A constellation of morons in the making.

  14. Joe Micallef says:

    Shape of things to come.

    The other star Franco ‘Jump-the-Queue’ Mercieca, is denigrating the work of another professional on his Facebook wall.

    “Hbieb tieghi, is-surveys tal-Misco International qatt ma kienu maghmula biex jghinu lill-Partit Laburista. Sehibna Lawrence Zammit tal-Misco huwa pedina importanti fit-team ta’ strategija tal-Partit Nazzjonalista”

    • Jozef says:

      The cataract specialist who keeps harping about the waiting lists at Mater Dei. The longest one being for cataract operations.

      Issa ngibulu lil Schettino mal-Gozo Ferry.

  15. Sarah says:

    As Lou Bondi told Chris Cardona on the show last night, if Labour don’t win the next election he doesn’t know which election they could possibly win.

  16. Antoine Vella says:

    The 1976 election was won by Mintoff and, since Joseph Muscat sees himself (and would love others to see him) as the new Mintoff, he often hints at similarities between them.

    By exaggerating the length of time and the magnitude of Labour’s loss of popularity and power, he will also make his own victory appear all the greater.

    A Labour Moses leading his people out of GonziPN’s Egypt.

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