How Joseph works

John Bundy has invited candidates from both political parties to talk about their “home visits” tonight on Super One TV.

I’ve just heard that bullfrog, Manuel Mallia, talk about how he met “Joseph” and came to be a Labour candidate (he failed to add “after years of smarming up to Guido de Marco…”).

He got to know the Labour leader when they were both at a restaurant with their twins, which gave them an ice-breaker – not that there would have been any ice between these two opportunists.

“Oh look, you have twins.”

“Yes, I have twins too.”

“Mine are girls.”

“Mine are boys.”

How crass. I went everywhere with a double-buggy for a few years and never felt the slightest urge to strike up conversations, still less opportunistic alliances, with other people pushing infants and toddlers around on the same sorts of wheels.

I don’t think it was a coincidence they were in the same restaurant either. I think some fuzzy-haired tart who occasionally sits in judgement over others engineered this ‘bumping into each other accidentally on purpose’ thing as she has been doing for years in return for useful credit.

Anyway, Manuel Mallia continued that “Joseph” and he happened to be at the same New Year’s Eve party (no prizes for guessing whose, and certainly it will be no surprise to my regular readers) and “Joseph” asked him “in front of lots of people” whether he would stand for election on the Labour ticket.

And he felt he had to say yes.

This immediately brought to mind the time JPOS and Carmen Ciantar told me, around three years ago when I was at their house watching JPOS knock back the whisky, why he felt he had to vote against the St John’s Cathedral Museum project.

JPOS: “We were at Robert Musumeci’s birthday party.”

Carmen: “Tiskanta, kien mimli Laburisti biss. Lanqas Nazzjonalist wiehed ma kien hemm. Jiena l-vera skantajt. Kien hemm anke Joseph Muscat”

Me: “Why are you surprised? Consuelo is a manipulative control freak who is 10 years his senior. She obviously wrote the guest list and she equally obviously had a plan, as she always does.”

JPOS: “Dahru mieghi, inkluz Joseph Muscat. Tawni drink wara drink u bdew jghidu dwar il-progett ta’ San Gwann. Jien kont xrobt hafna sa dak il-hin u bdejt nghid kontra ukoll. Then they asked me, kif se tivvota? And because of all I had been saying, I said that I would vote against. Then I had to stick to it.”

Yes, he had to stick to it, because he had Joseph Muscat right there as a witness to his drunken stupidity (to say nothing of his now well-documented hatred for the man he voted against last week, who had worked to secure the millions in funding for that museum).

And there you have it.

This explanation upset me so much at the time that as I rushed, all flustered, to leave, I scraped the entire side of my car against their gate, and had to get it resprayed. It wasn’t entirely my fault, because I expected the gate of a progressive person to have standard sensors which halt or reverse movement, like our gate at home, and not to carry on closing as somebody tries to drive through.

But that’s just a minor point. It’s the other bit that’s important.