She has vested interests, so, no.

How about Botox-lips Ciantar, La Redoute?

@Jo

Irrespective of what you may have or have not read between the lines of my comments, I am not overly idealistic nor naive.

And believe you me – neither is Simon Busuttil.

Don’t think I don’t appreciate Dr. Busuttil’s appeal for an ethical approach to politics – but in life one has to learn that one has to watch out both above as well as below the belt in order to keep standing.

Angus, Mintoff’s motivations may not have been personal, or perhaps they were, I don’t know – and neither does anybody else for that matter.

I very much doubt that he went through all that trouble because the Cottonera waterfront was so close to his heart, however – his hate of Sant was quite obvious and if that isn’t personal, I don’t know what is.

But apart from the respective enfants terribles’ motivations, in all cases they found encouragement as well as moral and physical support from the benches of the opposition – in the case of Mintoff, the PN going so far as to allocate him parliament time of their own for him to elaborate at length on his arguments as well as giving him air time on Net TV.

True, they did not put forward a no confidence motion – Sant quickly did that for them, thank you very much.

My point about candidate selection and approval is that perhaps there should have been a lot less “trust” involved in the process and a lot more hard-nosed investigation into the motivations, personal issues, psychological make-up and potential grudges.

I am sure that even a relatively cursory look at all of the three PN backbenchers would easily have revealed potential problems.

I’m sure that it had already been decided before the last election that Mugliett would not be given a ministry – that should have lit up a red light given his personality.

Similarly, Franco Debono’s obvious personality problems and his grudge towards Carm Mifsud Bonnici should have been noted.

And isn’t even just JPOS’s “sleeping with the enemy” and the company he keeps a big red flashing light all on its own?

The PN knew that the last elections would have been a close shave if they won – they knew that they could only expect a one-seat majority. Given that fact, they should not have risked putting forward personalities who had reason and inclination to take personal advantage of the precarious situation.

Of course with “hajndsajt” everybody’s an expert, but the glaring deficits in these three people’s personalities would have been obvious in the eyes of their colleagues who see them every day at the party headquarters and who had known them personally for years.

In a similar way, with regards to Mintoff, it was obvious from the guy’s personality that he would not willingly relinquish control of the party he considered his own creation, especially to a man who seemed to be doing his utmost to negate Mintoff’s influence over the party that had been accruing over decades.

The difference is that Sant could hardly have denied Mintoff a MLP ticket during the ’96 elections – it would have been instant political seppuku for him. Not so with the three PN upstarts.

Who, in the PL, is clean enough to vet the party’s candidates?

If Labour wins the general elections, we will be back to vindictive, personal politics, based on suspicion, envy and mud slinging, to divide the nation once again.

Most people take the PN’s achievements forgranted and that after all it doesn’t take much to get such good results in most spheres. Until an MLP government is elected and very quickly dismantles all that. But then to some people having “il-korpi tax-xoghol” is the acme of job creation.

Simon’s main point was ‘putting ethics back in politics’, therefore there is a direct link with blaming the LP and the ‘Gang of Three’ for their actions in the last couple of months.
That’s because ethics in politics would preclude the aiding and abetting errant MP’s whose aims were not political at all but so strikingly personal.

1. Franco Debono declared publicly that he would not work with the PM (his Boss!) and that he deserved a ministry more than Austin Gatt and CMB. Personal stuff, no doubt.
2. JPOS worked on the attainment of Divorce in Malta because he needed one himself and would not spring for a few euro and get one in Sicily. Again, personal stuff.
3. Mugliett was still sore about not retaining his previous ministry even if he was ruled incompetent and was allegedly embroiled in some doubtful dealings. Personal gripes, again.

All three expect no repercussions from the party or its leader! Thick skinned as he is, JPOS also wants one of the victims he helped boot out of his position to be also thrown out of the Nationalist Party! This appears more than a case of personal antagonism, it reeks of insanity.

The Mintoff-Sant rift bears no resemblance to the present situation except that Mintoff was labeled ‘traitor’ and was ostracized for 14 years and our Three Amigos will be unceremoniously booted out at the appropriate time.

Unless you have prophetic powers which few if any have, then how can you blame ‘those responsible for letting the three run under the PN banner in the 2008 election’? Then similarly you would have blamed the LP for letting Mintoff run in the 1996 election!

Candidates are approved trusting that once they run under a particular political banner, they are men and women enough to accept the party’s principles and be loyal to the Party Whip. Of course, they can change their mind during the course of the mandate, but in order to respect the wishes of those who voted for them in the first place, they should do the only moral thing and resign their seat and let the runners-up take their place.

As for two in particular who may have had some valid points, they should be reminded that it is the Prime Minister’s prerogative to set priorities and that which was not included in the electoral programme of the last election, would by necessity be low in the list of priorities. There were no extenuating circumstances warranting changes in plans or the speeding up of the ‘wish list’ at the expense of the ‘to do’ list.

The PN did NOT adopt the same tactics during the Mintoff debacle.

They did not put forward a single motion to try to topple the government.

Please do not tarnish all politicians with the same brush.

The PN definitely needs to vet new candidates better but if the PL were to vet their own properly they’d have no one to contest any election.