Was last night pay-back time? Not sure. I think pay-back time might well come when Joseph is prime minister
Here’s Jeffrey on Super One, interviewed by Norman Hamilton, only three months ago.
Then yesterday he voted with his wife-to-be’s political party (she’s at practically every Sunday meeting nowadays, sitting behind Joseph and hoping for the best), without being at all ashamed or embarrassed to admit that it was all about personal vengeance.
At least Franco Debono made a show of hiding it with Carm Mifsud Bonnici, and only gave the game away with a throwaway insult when it was all over.
Well, to be honest I don’t really think it’s all about personal vengeance. That, and more besides. There are legitimate questions to be asked about whether some sort of deal was struck. We forget that pay-back isn’t necessarily negative for the recipient. There might well be positive pay-back when Jeffrey’s wife’s party – for she will be his wife by then – is in power and she is jockeying for position.
Given that Jeffrey is marrying, in August, a woman who is now actively campaigning for Joseph Muscat to become prime minister, and who has become an activist for the Labour Party and will possibly also be an election candidate, these are questions that reporters should start asking.
These are not “personal attacks”. These are important, crucial even, questions in a democratic environment, even though it has become extremely difficult to resist the anti-democratic pressures.
The public has to be reassured that a government MP did not vote with the Opposition, to force the spurious resignation of somebody who will be very difficult to replace, for personally acquisitive reasons.
Reasons of personal vengeance are foul enough, but promises made in return – or rather, the expectation of reward – is a whole other ball-game.
I find it very strange that nobody has bothered to put these questions to Jeffrey, if only to give him the chance to clear himself of suspicion.
I am left with the thought that it wasn’t last night that was actually pay-back time, as Malta Today so eloquently put it, and that pay-back time will come when Joseph Muscat is in government.
From that day forward, reporters would do well to monitor any possible activity around Mistra – or MEPA. This does not mean to say that there will be any such activity, but monitoring to raise the alarm is a must.
We should also wait and see what position the new Mrs Pullicino Orlando will be given in Joseph Muscat’s real or kitchen cabinet, or whether she will head up a major state corporation or similar.
It is not true that Jeffrey has been straddling a fence by living with, and now marrying, one of Joseph Muscat’s secret weapons. He is not straddling that fence at all. The damage he has done repeatedly makes it clear which side of the fence he’s on, even if he is in denial about it.
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Payback may also take the form that Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando will be regarded as doing ‘a sterling and indispensable job’ at the Malta Council of Science and Technology and retained as a chairman – who knows?
[Daphne – Rewards have to be equal to the price paid, ciccio. You don’t turn yourself into Prick of the Decade just to be chairman of a science council.]
Maybe JPO might get to keep his chairmanship of the whatever council he presides. I mean seeing the way he sucked up to Joseph Muscat very recently on the latter’s visit to the Kalkara offices convinced me that the guy will retain his appointment even under a Labour government and he truly wishes that to be the case as he himself said.
[Daphne – I repeat, for the umpteenth time: the woman Pullicino Orlando marries this August is regularly seen sitting behind Joseph Muscat at taht it-tinda meetings. She will probably be an election candidate. Pullicino Orlando does not suck up to Muscat only for himself, but also for the second Mrs Pullicino.]
Will the turncoat resign his various chairmanships or does he plan to “jibqa iggranfat” to it till the very end?
[Daphne – There isn’t going to be an end for Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. You seem to have missed my point. In August, he will be married to a Labour activist.]
Well, let’s put it this way. The name Pullicino Orlando seems destined to survive in Parliament, even if Jeffrey does not, and even though Marlene is back to Farrugia.
I am listening to 101 – of course, the speaker is addressing the Opposition with regards to this motion against Richard Cachia Caruana.
But what about members of parliament from the PN? How can the speaker/s ignore them? Sorry, but this not just about the Partit Laburista.
[Daphne – I agree. It’s ridiculous. Richard Cachia Caruana was not a casualty of the Opposition, but of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s spite. We have to be clear about this.]
Remember that Jeffrey said that there are at least 10 others. I believe him on this one.
Well, at least Jeffrey was being modest, and was probably thinking of himself as being a Nationalist 10 times over.
On his part, Franco Debono, who has a much bigger political ego, would have claimed that there were 350 other MPs wishing to vote like him.
Remember he had said that he was a Nationalist something like more than all the (government) MPs put together 10 times over?
Those were my exact thoughts when listening to the programme. It was the same line of reasoning when Carm Mifsud Bonnici was forced to resign. Pathetic.
There’s a link between Joseph’s opaque statements regarding development and the past four years.
A government risks its stability because of a set of blind interests surrounding a group of people. Alfred Sant challenged this state of affairs in 1998.
Joseph insists on stoking the same fire in the name of an as yet unquantifiable source. What happens when he’s in power supposedly upholding the interests of the state? Are we to step in to protect him from his own doing?
I suppose when one refuses an organigram to wander alone and camouflage his constraints, rendering the opposition an object of his fancy, and the government an orphan of stimulative dialogue, this was bound to happen.
It’s clear where the mindset pushing for a dismantling of what we’ve managed to achieve regarding ethics and their visual effects, lies. The opposition happens to be an alignment of interests conflicting with those of each one of us. Why else would he remain a puzzle?
Reducing the party in office to a watchdog guarding civil society’s new found breathing space, that we can exist without having to reduce value to mass, has to be the salient point of the forthcoming elections.
Are the people of Sliema aware that as things stand, it’s mathematical they’ll never see their town free of tower cranes?
Only a few weeks ago, the opposition was reluctant to consider financial services as a working part of this country. Joseph, in a dark suit and cufflinks, tried to purge office work out of its productive aspect only last Sunday.
This is his limit, simply too rough and obtuse to understand. Let’s see what happens with Richard Cachia Caruana back.
Oops.
I’m really angry at the moment. I don’t know Richard Cachia Caruana but what I know for sure is that he is damn good at his job.
Our future is in the hands of three idiots and the worst Opposition since 1987. If the Opposition cares about us, it would have never did what it did especially now that we are dealing the budget of the EU. God forbid Joseph Muscat would be the next prime minister.
I am wondering – is it possible to PREPARE and PRINT a FULL special edition newspaper in a couple of hours on a theme which developed after 8pm? Oh and ensure its distribution? Or maybe JPO had given a heads-up to his buddy Saviour Balzan?
But what happens to the Laburisti who have been waiting on the sidelines for years to be appointed chairman? It will be an interesting period post-election to see their reactions.
Forcing the resignation of the Maltese representative in the middle of extremely difficult EU budget negotiations deprives Malta (not the PN) the possibility of obtaining the most advantageous package for the years to come.
By the time a successor is appointed, the negotiations would have been firmly closed and decided to the detriment of Malta (again not to the PN).
If as expected Joseph Muscat becomes Prime Minister next year, thanks to his own vote yesterday, Malta will be receiving less funds to spend on
projects for the benefit of our country.
In order to gain some political mileage and satisfy the personal agendas of a couple of disgruntled govt mps, Joseph Muscat fails to see the wood for the trees.
Are you still smiling Joseph, probably yes, because your short-sightedness has no limits.
All I know is that this country has definitely gone to the dogs. When we pluck the likes of Richard Cachia Caruana out of Brussels but retain the cabbage that is Joseph Cuschieri then we really need to have our collective mind examined.
You couldn’t have put it better.
A black day for parliament, even blacker for this divided nation of ours. But Richard still stands tall. His departure is Malta’s loss.
Those assholes have not won, they’ve just buried themselves into oblivion.
Min jaf ghaliex Alfred Sant ma hares bl-ikrah lejn Joseph Muscat fil-parlament – forsi jaf b’xi ftehim li sar bejn Muscat u JPO dwar il-Mistra, li Alfred Sant kien ghamilha il cavallo di battaglia tieghu precizament qabel l-ahhar tal-kampanja elettorali ta’ l-ahhar elezzjoni.
Hemm rieha ta’ korruzjoni tinten.
The scent of blood is too much for some.
Jo Meli
Today, on Times of Malta online comments board
Every SECOND that Richard Cachia Caruana stays on as the UNOFFICIAL Maltese Representative / Ambassador to the European Union is an AFFRONT to the Maltese Parliament in general and to the Maltese People in particular.
The IMPEACHMENT of Lawrence Gonzi is in order for defying Malta’s Highest Institution is now a MUST !
This is NO Party Affair now !!!
Is it scent for blood or is it totally sick minds?
A self-declared Fascist talking about an AFFRONT to the Maltese parliament.
Last Sunday Joseph Muscat criticised the govt for forging ahead with the Corporate Village development in Mriehel, citing that this space is badly needed by the manufacturing industry.
Lo and behold, an article has just appeared on Malta Today
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Smart-City-owners-in-Dubai-lament-promise-of-5-600-jobs-20120619
“The Dubai-based owners of Smart City, the internet village being constructed in Xghajra, have privately expressed their disappointment at the way the Maltese government had allegedly “abdicated” on their project, in favour of the Corporate Village development in Mriehel.
According to executives from Tecom and its subsidiary Smartcity Malta, there was some annoyance at government’s decision to forge ahead with the construction of new quality office space at Mriehel, ostensibly in direct competition with Smart City’s own development.”
More on the same vein :
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20070228/local/labour-officials-testify-on-dubai-visit.25075
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/blogsdetails/blogs/Why-Muscat-s-land-reclamation-idea-is-such-a-bad-idea
JPO is Malta’s Benedict Arnold, because it’s Malta he betrayed and not just Richard Cachia Caruana.