Comments on: Doesn’t this wonderful picture fill you with hope for the immediate future under a Labour government?

By: xmun

xmun — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 21:51:39 +0000

After the photo shoot Joseph Muscat probably thanked Tony Zarb for providing some point which Karmenu Vella and Aaron Farrugia could include in their still empty electoral manifest. In a few weeks time, Tony Zarb will commend Joseph Muscat for having the same proposals in the electoral manifest.

Kemm huma helwin, qishom zewg namrati u l-familjari.

By: GABS

GABS — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:49:03 +0000

How can that be? 20 yrs + in the opposition and not a clue regarding politics. They are good for throwing mud. Nothing else. Squeeze their words and nothing comes out.

By: edward clemmer

edward clemmer — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:06:26 +0000

And we thought that the worker-committee “in charge” of the Dockyards under the Malta Labour Party and GWU tandem was an anachronism of days gone by after the ultimate privatization of the dockyards (formerly subsidized by the Malta taxpayers and its debts absorbed by J.Q. Citizen)–and with the ever dwindling numbers of the GWU (because of the changing nature of productive work). Workers of the world, unite (GWU)! Rally around the (newly invisible) retouched and recoloured torch & flag.

If there always was a “Tweedledee”, there must be a “Tweedledum”: under the PL, the future is a blast to the past, or its a trip back to the future, or nostalgia for the “Golden Years”.

By: PhiliP

PhiliP — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:11:20 +0000

“he’s in private business with the GWU through Orange Travel, an arrangement he made with S Mifsud & Sons, to feather his nest even further.”

WHAT? this is news to me.

[Daphne – Well, you should make a point of checking this site several times a day, or risk missing the real news.]

By: ciccio

ciccio — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:06:46 +0000

Joseph’s only credible guarantee to the Maltese electorate:

“Il-passat garanzija tal-futur.”

By: Fido

Fido — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 12:35:22 +0000

In reply to Angus Black. I think that there is a slight slip in the first quote. I think 'realistic' should read 'elastic' since Joseph Maximus is promising everything to everybody; even what is in Maltese proverbially impossible, "triq fil-baħar" by his sea reclamation brainwave to appease developers.

By: Lilla

Lilla — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 10:36:28 +0000

You’d think with all the money he’s made during the PN reign, Karmenu Vella could afford a tailor-made suit.

The jacket falls nearly halfway down his thighs, and he looks like he raided some one else’s closet.

By: AJS

AJS — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 10:08:12 +0000

Let us assume that, at most, elections are to be held in about a year’s time or, at least, weeks after summer recess ends. Then, surely a political party intent on winning must have a plan on how to win voters.

The Malta Labour Party is banking on (a) partisanship (hence, rallying the Golden Oldies because Maltese are suckers for the days gone by (“O zmien helu kif ghaddejtni”)); and, (b) Maltese ‘gemgem’ – people incessantly grumbling and assumed to be a reflection of the mean voting direction. By destabilising the MLP appear to be banking on transforming (b) into a winning majority.

My question is, what is going to happen after they win? It is easy to say that a government will not reduce spends on social aspects. However, that means reducing infrastructural spend so as to reduce the deficit and increasing taxes or creating a progressive tax.

The immediate implication of progressive taxation is tax avoidance by the rich (because they can afford and do have accountants) and heavier burdens on the middle and lower income earners simply because some form of indirect taxation will be introduced to make up for the bleeding (and because this is what the Golden Oldies did).

We have not heard anything about increasing spend to get foreign investment – the trip to Dubai was to ‘appease’ investors – that is, someone there is getting scared. The more modern intelligent approaches to economic growth centre around innovation. I have heard nothing about this from MLP.

Conclusion: I am scared!

By: Bubu

Bubu — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:32:51 +0000

“the PL’s electoral programme will be built on realistic proposals that will form a roadmap for economic growth, rather than on a wishlist of grand proposals which could not be implemented.”

Hmm. I guess his “wishlist” of 51 grand so-called “proposals” is out of the window then. How did I not see that coming?

By: Angus Black

Angus Black — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:15:51 +0000

“the PL’s electoral programme WILL be built on realistic proposals that WILL form a road-map for economic growth…”

So, he is now using the future tense, hinting that the programme hasn’t even been started yet!

So, it seems it’s not Karmenu Vella, not Charlie Mangion, not Edward Scicluna and not even Aaron Farrugia writing it, but Toni Zarb?

We had better start a novena to all the Saints in heaven, maybe a miracle will protect Malta from a catastrophe of cataclysmic proportions.