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This comment came in from R2D2:
I think that this is an occasion where editorial balance did Anglu Farrugia no favours.
He did such a good job of scuppering his own credibility that nothing Simon Busuttil said could do more then he did himself.
If he had been given less time to speak then perhaps he could have just weathered the storm of being pulled apart by someone else.
Apart from being flummoxed, flustered and utterly clueless at various stages, he seemed to have a very tenuous grasp of basic matters of fact.
It seemed to take him a few seconds to remember what indirect taxation was. When he finally remembered, the only example he could give was VAT, to which he had no response at all as to what Labour planned to do with it.
This is apart from the obvious flaw in his reasoning – if the government’s income from VAT is increasing, surely this is by no means a bad thing in itself, as it is a sign that people are spending more and that the economy is moving.
At one stage, when asked about how much Labour’s tax plans would cost, he actually said: “They will cost however much they cost”. Very reassuring.
Things got even more bizarre when he referred to Malta’s standing in the Corruption Perception Index, claiming that it was behind both Zambia and Colombia and “many African countries” and “every European country”.
In reality, Malta is 43rd, while Zambia is 88th and Colombia is 94th. There are several European countries behind Malta; Italy is 72nd.
http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2012/results/
What is hilarious is that he actually produced the piece of paper he he didn’t refer to Colombia, Zambia or European countries or even “African countries”. The best thing he could fish out was Bhutan.
Shortly later in the debate, he stated that where Malta was actually behind Colombia was in the World Bank’s Doing Business report. So he knew Malta was behind Colombia in something important, but he wasn’t sure what.
Anyway, Colombia has moved on a lot since the drug cartels had a stranglehold in the 1980s and is one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America.
Which is not to say that Malta’s position in the Corruption Perception Index is not of concern, but what is also worrying is that the person who is blustering his way through a discussion about corruption, taxation and business, like some whisky-soaked Labour Party kazin blowhard, spewing out half-remembered, muddled facts, is very likely to be the next Deputy Prime Minister.
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Does ETC provide evening classes in general knowledge for prospective politicians? If Anglu is the best the PL has, then classes should be organised pretty soon.
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Any of the above is a small price to pay for peace of mind.
Anglu Farrugia is in no place to act all holy – he was a very integral and active part of Lawrence Pullicino’s police force. To those of us old enough to remember, enough said. For the young ones perhaps it is worth going into the detail of his not too illustrious past.
This was indeed a top comment. I fully endorse the content. Well done.
So many things have happened these last few days, I don’t know where to start. What has stuck in my mind is Dr Busuttil’s clear-headed thinking, sober comportment in face of unexpected adverse conditions and his sheer common-sense intelligence and personal transparency and honesty. I’m glad the PN councilors chose HIM as deputy leader.
As a detached PN sympathizer (forgetting what Muscat had to say today at Rabat to PN sympathizers), rather than lambasting Dr Farrugia’s poor performance last Saturday, I’d dwell on a couple of comments Dr Busuttil made about the (M)LP:
1. Faced with Labour’s ‘unexpected move’ in presenting Franco Debono instead of Anglu Farrugia for the Xarabank debate (was this a replica of the PN’s move in presenting JPO as a ‘journalist’ facing Alfred Sant in 2008?), Simon called the LP a “party of gimmicks’.
This description fits them well as I thought of Mintoff’s pledge (way back in the 1971 election campaign) to provide “work for all within 3 months” only to find out that what he meant was a ‘work corps’ with minimum-wage and military- discipline conditions.
A series of similar corps, under different names but with the same underlying conditions, followed as his government consistently stifled private entrepreneurship and economic growth – a term which JM, Anglu and their economic gurus are now using profusely without having the least idea or policy how to achieve it (except by reducing bureaucracy and discussing it with the “imsiehba” (!) (social partners).
Their track record on economic growth has been consistently abysmal!
Another Labour gimmick much closer to us in time involved Alfred Sant’s pledge to withdraw VAT. On Labour’s winning that election, we saw several cash registers being smashed and towed during the celebratory car-cades, only to find out that it was only the name of the tax that was withdrawn and replaced by a more complex and archaic tax regime.
I’m sure other people can come up with more, if less spectacular, GIMMICKS which Labour dangled before every election. The latest one seems no less gimmicky: electricity bills! I just can’t comprehend how by lowing the cost of electricity (for the consumer) will automatically lower the cost of the supply of water (at a national level) which heavily depends on electricity.
With Labour’s record history of electoral gimmicks it is really dangerous and insane for level-headed people to vote Muscat in government.
2. The other comment which Simon made on several occasions to Peppi (which we all would do well to ponder): don’t expect clear answers from him (and from Labour) – it’s useless because they don’t have any! They can only give nebulous answers and arguments (usually even contradictory), couched in populist clichés and slogans that only appeal to the lazy-minded who couldn’t be bothered to stop, think and analyse statements.
3. Thirdly, I personally think Simon hit the nail on the head when he described Muscat as the product of ONE Newsroom that spent 3 hours of vile character-assassination against him following Labour’s planned debacle of Friday’s Xarabank debate.
I say this because I (almost) regularly follow the first 15 minutes of news starting 7.30pm on OneTV. I have been doing this for a very long time, probably since the liberalisation of the airwaves and it has always struck me that the choice of news items, the delivery and the innuendos surrounding the main items on the labour station is phoney, alarmist (depending on who’s in government, of course), sensational and blatantly biased.
Some might say that this has been Labour’s trademark (more or less) ever since the Mintoff days. And I will have to agree because that was one of the reasons why I changed my political loyalty at the polls.
There were other points of substance brought up by Dr Busuttil who, in the opinion of many, gave an excellent performance (as expected) in his tête-à-tête debate with his counterpart(s) last Saturday but to sum up:
All level-headed voters who are considering voting J Muscat and his party in government ought to consider also (not just for the sake of change): 1. Labour’s track record of electoral gimmicks on issues of national interest; 2. their lack of clear policies and vision for the “change in direction” they’re advocating for the future of our country – forget the ‘roadmap’ which so far has only been a bird’s-eye-view; and 3. you cannot forget history because you’re very liable to repeat it.
Labour’s history is still relatively recent and all the “changes” successive Party Leaders claim to have made may very well prove (again) to be merely cosmetic. The blunders committed by Mintoff, KMB and Sant (don’t forget his stance in Parliament on the ratification of the EU referendum – another Busutill point made during the debate when dealing with the Divorce referendum) still weigh heavily today on Muscat’s Labour.
He may superficially discard them, but never loses an opportunity to bring them again to the fore when it suits him to drum up enthusiasm among his supporters in his public mass appearances. The same arrogance and defiance, fiery and insolent language, double-talk and re-interpretation of history are still there among many of his ‘team’, many of whom have been aptly described as ‘political dinosaurs’.
So much for the ‘change’ they’ve been promising us!
PS – Apologies for the long tract. I envy (positively) many of your light-hearted post-ers, but this is how I am (and write).
“In reality, Malta is 43rd, while Zambia is 88th and Colombia is 94th.”
Maybe he was holding the list upside down.
What really worries me is the very low level of intelligence displayed by PL’s deputy leader Anglu Farrugia.
He was trying to make the PN look bad but the graph he showed regarding indirect taxation showed a very large increase in income from VAT.
Now considering that the VAT rate has been unchanged for many years, the impressive increase in income from VAT simply shows that people are spending much more and that we have a very healthy economy.
M’hawnx flus fl-idejn. Qeridna il-gvern…. U halluna. Tigdbux iktar.
The key point Anglu Farrugia missed is that Transparency International issues a corruption PERCEPTION index so if corruption control mechanisms are improved – which means corruption is kept in check – the perception of corruption actually increases.
Maybe it’s all just a bit too complicated for Inspector Gadget.
This Corruption Perception Index has been quoted many times but I think its a very useless index.
The perception of corruption is not the same as corruption. Of course it is very difficult to measure corruption but the perception of corruption is a very vague measure.
When Labour’s deputy leader said that Malta is behind Zambia in terms of corruption I said who the hell can actually believe that.