Joseph Muscat: a real user

Published: April 12, 2012 at 10:12am

In the current Mintoff storm I realised that the best possible insight into the peasant utilitarianism of Joseph Muscat’s character is afforded by his treatment of Alfred Sant.

Alfred Sant made him. Muscat was a two-bit newsroom functionary when he perceived Sant’s lonely susceptibility to flattering overtures, burrowed his way in, clung to his coat-tails and became Sant’s poodle.

He echoed Sant’s voice, was forever at Sant’s side, repeated Sant’s mantras and sucked up to Sant relentlessly. Even if he hadn’t been voted in by the Labour delegates, he would have been Sant’s anointed.

Once he is done with using Alfred Sant to get what he wants, what does Muscat do? He begins to champion and lionise the man who was Sant’s nemesis, the man who brought down Sant’s government and tossed him into ignominy: Dom Mintoff.

It’s all about Mintoff now, and a return to Mintoffianism. Muscat even ran after Mintoff’s daughters and brought them on board. To do this, he had to wipe out the memory of Sant. Sant was Labour leader for almost two decades, but his creation Joseph Muscat has managed to pretend those two decades never happened. You’d think Labour segued straight from Mintoff to Joseph with nothing in between.

So at the last Labour general conference it was Mintoff’s daughter, not Sant’s daughter, who spoke. It turns out that Joseph wasn’t so much a wolf in sheep’s clothing as a shark in a poodle outfit.




13 Comments Comment

  1. Roy says:

    You forget to mention the convenience of dating and eventually marrying Sant’s PA. Coincidence or not, we’ll never know.

  2. ciccio says:

    The backbench of Joseph’s government is going to be more interesting than his front bench. Can you imagine Yana Mintoff sitting next to Alfred Sant?

  3. the chemist says:

    He’s evolved from a two-bit reporter to a two-bit ‘leader’.

    If he gets elected it will be thanks to the PN’s stupidity and gullible floating voters and not thanks to any serious insight he might have into what’s needed for the country.

  4. Lomax says:

    Well, I hope that title will, one day, read: Joseph Muscat, a real loser.

  5. Jozef says:

    He was embarrassed enough to remove all the symbols, doing away gradually with the one created ad hoc. Greedy enough to cheat those gullible enough to vote via sms out of their money, inducing membership and its fee as one of the conditions.

    He’s as stingy, making redundant any self-respecting copywriter in Maltastar, whilst condemning mediocrity.

    He did his doctorate whilst away in Brussels, which subject was convenient for his European Socialist friends.
    He was elected to party leader after an internal turmoil was engineered to oust the only capable contender.

    He calls himself a liberal but wouldn’t condemn the massacre in Libya or manage a divorce bill.

    He keeps repeating to himself how he’s destined to govern this country, cowering behind his police inspector when his classmate offered it on a plate.

    His foreign policy depends on which wind blows strongest.

    He is faithful to the style.

    The question is whether he’s capable of resisting the urge to pacify those he owes so much. Unlike Mintoff, who, it has been said, was his own man, he does ingratiate himself to whoever comes along, let alone, I suspect, his owners.

    Yana’s inheritance could have pushed him to overcome any notion of political convenience. When did they last publish their accounts?

    It’s 2012 and their age of Aquarius has taken the proverbial hook, line and sinker. Unbelievable.

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