Mintoff got a THIRD at Oxford
Published:
April 11, 2012 at 6:31pm
Mintoff at Oxford, where he scraped a third-class.
Time to bust another myth about that sad failure Dom Mintoff, who failed as a husband, failed as a father and failed, most spectacularly, at running the country.
He left Oxford with a third-class degree, which effectively means that he failed, but miskin, full marks for trying hard.
The Rhodes scholarship? No brilliance was required. High IQ and a scintillating mind were not requirements. You got that scholarship on the basis of your potential for becoming a well-placed ‘friend of the British empire’.
Isn’t that just beautiful?
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How did he expect to play bocci on that? Mela vera konna qeghdin sew.
A third class? Isn’t that a “gentleman’s degree”…
Do you really think the Mintoff-worshipping rabble even knows what Oxford University is, let alone a third? And the literate Mintoff-worshipping minority will dismiss it as “Daphne trying to distract us from GonziPN’s track record.”
Wenzu Mintoff once said that when playing bocci, Mintoff never accepted defeat. So when the referee went to measure the distance, the cord used to measure this distance used to get longer and/or shorter depending on the circumstances of the moment.
I’m not sure whether you will print this or not. but here goes.
Mintoff was playing Bocci and when he was exactly in the same position,as in your photo, SOMETHING decided to come out from his shorts.
One of the onlookers was heard saying:
“Look Duminkun is going to land, his wheels are down.”
[Daphne – I’ve shifted that picture to the next post.]
He got a third, and he made Malta a third-world country.
P.S. Mela kien jilghab bil-bocci?
What was he studying?
One day, someone should also take the trouble to investigate how Mintoff became so wealthy. I’m not sure about his wife’s situation but the popular rumour is that he made his money as an architect, during the post-war reconstruction.
Except that during the post-war reconstruction Mintoff was minister . . . for reconstruction.
[Daphne – Mrs Mintoff came from an impoverished background. If she had her own money she wouldn’t have had to live in those conditions he imposed on her. And quite frankly, if she had her own money, she would have left him permanently – and probably wouldn’t have married him in the first place.]
Anyone knows if there was any war-damage money earmarked for the re-construction of the tejatru l Imwaqqa at the time that il Perit was minister of the then works department?
I wish someone would prove it. I had heard this from an elderly gentleman.
As soon as Malta enters into an the agreement with Switzerland to revoke its banking confidentiality clause, on grounds of tax evasion.
It can be done.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120410/opinion/Labour-Mintoff-s-prime-victim.414849
Mintoff was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in 1939 thanks to the intervention with the colonial government of his mentor Pawlu Boffa.
Pawlu was then the only Labour member on the Council of Government and consequently a very influential person.
Mintoff subsequently repaid Boffa for his help by publicly accusing him of incest.
I know very well what Paul Boffa, in his later years, thought of Mintoff. I knew Dr Boffa and even more so his brother Anglu who was an old friend of mine.
Out of respect for the long-departed Boffa brothers I feel I should not betray their confidentiality.
I can only say that, sadly and tragically, in the seventies and eighties I had the dubious opportunity of confirmng their opinion of the man.
The Bonham Carter Diaries chronicle this episode. The choice was between Mintoff and Sir Augustus Bartolo’s son. The Governor (in his infinite wisdom) thought that Mintoff had a better chance of making a name for himself, whilst Bartolo junior could afford to go to Oxford regardless of whether or not he got the scholarship.
I never knew Gustu Bartlu had a son.
This is most intriguing.
My mistake… it was his nephew.
Well, the Brits sure got this one wrong then! Mintoff didn’t turn out to be chummy with the Brits, at least publicly.
[Daphne – Not so. Their investment turned out very well at first. He was so chummy with the Brits that he wanted Malta to be MADE PART OF Britain. It was when his suggestion was laughed out of the meeting-room that he rounded on them and turned vicious. ]
Mintoff’s real ambition was to have a seat in the Commons.
The nearest he came to achieving that was through his daughter and her horse manure.
He’s lucky he never made it to the Commons. His daughter could have thrown the horse manure on him.
And someone should check whether the manure came from the Police stables in Marsa.
Mintoff was as lousy an architect as he was a husband.
I remember that flight of steps zig-zagging all the way down from Castille to St. James ditch on his specific instructions . It stuck out like a sore thumb against the majestic bastions. Thank God that since then that eye-sore got covered by trees.
When he had a go at relieving the water flooding at Msida by constructing those water culverts, the flooding worsened because sea water got in to add to the level of the rain water flooding instead of having the rain water drain into the sea.
He did not inherit a fortune, nor was he such a resounding success as an architect. From where then, did he get the money to build those houses of his, send his daughters to exclusive UK schools and universities and amass his fortune?
“L-ewwel sold ghal Mintoff”. A well-known phrase uttered in the post-war period in one particular ministry.”L-ewwel sold” referred to part of the tax levied on every can of paint imported into Malta.
I believe this is entirely synonymous with the period, when politicians could and did line their pockets without the media scrutiny they fall under now. Unfortunately the present administration has been boxing with kid gloves for way too long.
My mother’s brother Victor Bartolo, nephew of Sir Augustus Bartolo, referred to on p.279 of The Bonham-Carter Diaries simply as “Bartolo, the youngest of the family, aged nineteen, capable, a good deal of personality, altogether a strong candidate” was in the running for the Rhodes scholarship in 1938 with Cremona (is this J.J.? I think so), whose praises were highly sung by Bonham-Carter but who was seen to be too Italianate, and with Mintoff.
There is no mention by B-C of Mintoff having a better chance of making a name for himself, even less that “Bartolo junior could afford to go to Oxford regardless of whether or not he got the scholarship”. Bartolo’s parents were both dead and his family could never afford to finance his studies at Oxford.
Bartolo was described as “still a bit young in character” whereas Mintoff, who was 22 and already a science graduate (1937) and in 1938 an engineering student was seen to be “more mature and more likely to make his mark at Oxford than Bartolo”.
There he is, the great socialist, doing his toff for the album.
So did Christopher Hitchens. I am not impressed by degrees and exams stuff. Studying hard and getting top marks will not mean that you know it all or that you are the best fit for that job etc.
The outside world is totally different for the educational one and i still believe that our educational systems fails miserably in this regard (by putting all emphasis on marks, grades, exams and classes of degrees).