Why Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando Smith sabotaged the St John’s Cathedral museum project

The leading article in The Sunday Times today raises the spectre of the aborted St John’s Cathedral museum project, three years ago, and more or less says that it is now looks as though Jeffrey Pullicino (Orlando Smith) sabotaged it not for the environmental, geological or cultural reasons that he claimed back then, but because he saw it as Richard Cachia Caruana’s brain-child.

At the time, Jeffrey Pullicino (Orlando Smith) had told me why he did it, though leaving out the crucial bit that it was mainly to spite his perceived nemesis, because back then he was still pretending they had a civil relationship.

I wrote about it earlier this week in a blog-post which some of you might have missed. So here it is again. I said nothing at the time because I do not report on private conversations (no journalist is supposed to do so).

But given the current circumstances, those considerations no longer apply. The man has lied blatantly and repeatedly, abused other people’s trust and good faith, and drawn down opprobrium to which he would like us to believe he is oblivious.

This is what I wrote a few days ago.

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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, 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.