And then some people take issue with me for saying that Labour is the Crazy Party
So Labour has the opportunity of two or three hours of prime-time TV on a Friday night – Malta’s most-watched TV show and this particular edition was really heavily promoted – in which to talk about how great Labour is and how wonderful and amazing its policies are, and what a fantastic government it will be, and how we should all rush out and vote Labour.
Unfortunately, it has no policies and its deputy leader, who is scheduled to represent it in this face-off with his opposite number in the PN, has a brain like an over-boiled school-lunch cabbage and is barely articulate.
So Labour panics. It has already pulled out of a couple of debates scheduled between the two deputy leaders. It can’t pull out of this one as well because it is running out of excuses.
My God, what to do? A deus ex machina arrives in the form of Franco Debono, suggesting that he goes on the show instead of Anglu Farrugia.
The ex and current Super One reporters who now run the Labour Party put their heads together and decide that this is fantastic. Nobody tells them that it is not, that it is the worst possible move on so many counts that we will be here until tomorrow morning if we list them and explain why.
The move is sprung on the show’s producers, on the Nationalist Party and on TVM as a surprise, when Franco Debono turns up to the studio accompanied by Labour’s Poison Dwarf of Communications, Kurt Farrugia.
Meanwhile, Labour supporters, who have been told to be proud of their party and its superiority to gOnziPn, are asking themselves in bewildered voices why their party is sending a Nationalist MP and Nationalist Party member to sound off for two or three hours on prime-time television about his great aborted plans and how much he has suffered.
Why isn’t their party sending its deputy leader to tell everyone how fabulous Labour is instead, they want to know?
The whole thing then blows up into Joseph Muscat’s single biggest public relations disaster since 2008.
Is Labour really so pathetic that the best it can do in a planned debate with the PN deputy leader is to send one of the PN’s rejects to represent it?
Franco Debono representing Labour: that’s what Joseph Muscat’s party has been reduced to. And then Muscat repeats that he has a brilliant and united team to work with.
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Because PBS has never had the dignity to give quality air time to a rebel MP who just voted against the budget.
[Daphne – A vote against the budget, which then renders you politically irrelevant, does not entitle you to a heavy presence on the state television station. Super One gives Debono plenty of exposure. Anything more would be overkill, don’t you think? Most people have had it up to here with him, even Labour supporters. He is extremely tiring.]
What? We’ve heard nothing but Franco Debono for the past year. He’s done.
Of all the MPs in both parties who stood in two districts he was the one who got the least votes of all.
If he stands as an independent he can get airtime with other independents. Otherwise maybe he can stand with Labour and maybe he can get some airtime on a ‘new junior candidates’ special.
Doubtful if anyone has had as much media exposure as Franco Debono these last couple of years. We all know what he thinks and what he wants. If anyone on this blessed rock still wants to hear him, then emigrate with him to Filfla and start up a sect in the wilderness. There’s where he belongs.
If this reject is still hot under the collar he’d better find another pastime as he is now insignificant, irrelevant and politically dead.
What do you mean by quality air time?
[Daphne – Apparently, xewka is a Laburist who thinks that Super One is NOT quality airtime. Tsk tsk.]
Franco had ample opportunity to explain his position before voting against the budget, when probably most of the Maltese population was listening.
His angry rant was repeated at length on SuperOne a couple of days later, adding to it fresh ridiculous allegations.
Say that Chris Said was appointed Minister for Justice, Dialogue and the Family because he was Debono’s ‘close friend’ or that Gejtu Vella was being rewarded for trying to mediate with Debono for PN.
Debono’s obsessive, aggressive, ego trips may be entertaining to watch – if not so very tragic – but it does not mean that a producer should scrap weeks of preparation with two minutes notice to accommodate him.
Peppi Azzopardi was prepared to give him a few minutes of airtime to vent his frustrations, but not to replace the whole debate.
If Anglu Farrugia had actually turned up, they would have had the debate and then Franco would have been granted talk-time, or vice-versa.
But PL decided that a no-show was better than having the debate, then they rant on Super One that PBS is monopolised by the PN.
They really are something else. And if, God forbid, they are in government come March, it will be they who start controlling PBS and deciding what is to be aired or not, just like in the 80s.
That’s why that Cauchi guy said they already had discussions with people interested in PBS. It will be THEIR people.
Rejoice! Salvation is at hand! Baldrick is alive and well, and dwells in the midst of the Labour Party.
Labour’s nutters from the past are part of their problem today (i.e. George Vella, Anglu, Karmenu Vella and so many others).
Debono is a not an MP any more and is not on the PN ticket.
He is irrelevant.
Typical Labour brain washing their supporters to celebrate. Some months ago Joseph Muscat congratulated North Korea may be he wanted to copy their so called achievement this week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20722638
Hope the PL continues with this enlightened moves. In this way, the floaters and switchers will vote PN.
In true Christmas spirit, the Labour Party decided to turn Xarabank into a circus.
Luckily, PBS, the Xarabank producers and the PN did not permit this. And the audience was saved from a 2 hour rant full of negativism by Frankie Tabone.
Labour is slowly but surely demonstrating that it has become a far-right party. Rather than protecting the weak, it is using them and abusing them. This is what it is doing with Frankie Tabone, who at this point seriously demonstrates the need for psychiatric attention. They keep parading him in front of television cameras to be ridiculed by the public.
But I have the impression that Franco Debono said that he was on his own and was not replacing Anglu Farrugia. So what was Labour’s intention?
@ ix-xewka
That same vote you mention rendered Frankie Tabone irrelevant and something of the past.
Ara veru Partit tal-Laqx.
Autogoals going into Labour’s net at a fast rate.
The Xarabank debacle should be a ‘Road-to-Damascus’ moment for all voters who were still in the dark as to whom they should vote for.
You are too kind to Anglu. He is not ‘ barely articulate’. He is unintelligible.
The next billboard:
PL promises Anglu Farrugia and delivers Franco Debono.
The joke is that Franco’s their new deputy leader. Some very sarcastic tones as well.
Nice one Joseph.
As for giving Franco the space to express himself, HE JUST DID, with his vote, in parliament.
Pull the other one will you?
If I recall correctly, Franco Debono was in Italy Friday-before-last and so could not pull the stunt then when the debate was originally scheduled.
Is that why Anglu postponed it to this week?
Do the PL really expect me to believe that Debono asked to replace Farrugia just HOURS before the debate was due to start?
Yeah right, pull the other one.
This has been planned to a tee for a while now.
The only thing I’m not sure of is who was the director of this farce, Debono or Labour.
Il-prim ministru ma jridx jisma’ diskors fuq l-immanigjar hazin tal-partit tieghu minghand il-bekkbencer ribelluz tieghu li kixef u qed jikxef il-borom kollha. Din xihaga li qed tirrita n-nies. Ma nahsibx li l-arroganza ghandha x’taqsam.
Nemmen li ebda MP tal-PN ma jrid jiffaccja lil Franco. Wisq anqas Busuttil li certament ma hax pjacir bl-ahhar teatrin li nqabad fih fuq ix-xandir tal-istat. Dak li qed jixkef Debono qed ifisser telf kbir ta’ voti ghal PN – min jahseb b’rasu u hu leali lejn il-poplu u mhux lejn il-ping-pong medjokri tas-soltu bejn iz-zewg partiti l-kbar qed janalizza mhux jintilef bil-passjoni fil-loghba partigjana.
Infakkar: billi Franco Debono ghandu personality diasorder ma jfissirx li ma jafx jartikola ruhu fuq it-tahwid mikxuf fil-Gonzipn kif filfatt qed jaghmel b’mod li jdahhal lill-PN f’qoxortu. U nahseb li dawk l-eluf kbar li xxiftjaw mill-PN ghall-MLP (talanqas skont l-ahahr servej tal-Maltatoday) qed jaraw lil Gonzi tal-imghoddi f’dawl gdid: idoqq itt-rumbetta fuq l-affarijiet tajbin hafna li ghamel tul dawn l-ahhar hames snin imma b’fommu sieket quddiem il-vulkan li imploda fil-partit tieghu. Is-silenzju bhalissa u l-biza’ milli jigi kkonfrontat Debono qed ifissru hafna.
Ma nafx kif il-”beauticians” imhallsin tajjeb tal-PN se johorgu liil Gonzipn minn gaziba wara l-ohra.
Qed nistenna tkaxkira kbira ghall-PN.
I would love to be the cell in Joseph Muscat’s brain, just to see what he thinks about Franco’s rise in the Labour Party.
You would be very lonely, Tinnat
I have seen and heard so much of Franco on the media this past year.
If I see or hear him just only once more I will puke.
U dan Frankie Tabone jew x’ismu ghax ma naghmlulux bojkott ufficjali ha nnehhulu l-qziez li ghandu? Meta se jitkecca mil-PN?