I am thinking of nothing other than the facts I presented earlier, which at the very least bring Mallia’s competence into question.

Whether plans or consultancy, my point is one and the same. Competence. Liking or disliking a person does not feature anywhere.

If you get your facts wrong, then, yes, your competence comes into question, whether you’re a car mechanic or a physicist, manicured yuppie or not. Personal appearance and likability does not come into it at all.

I enjoy discussing anything technical with anyone, be it a Sandra Bullock or a Quasimodo. Wherever Mallia sits along that scale is immaterial. Please stop measuring me with that yardstick.

What makes the LNG incident serious for me is not the error in itself. Everyone is prone to that, and it comes with the job of being human.

But correcting an error made by someone less competent than yourself with an even greater error, and being convinced of what you’re saying to boot, then it’s not a question of human error anymore.

It becomes a question of competence. And the higher your profile, the worse it gets.

They are hedging – just in case.

They will not press Labour for answers just in case they win.

They fear a repetition of what happened in the 80s.

They don’t need to press the NP because they get most answers most of the time.

Research and expert opinions cost money and it takes time to do either (or both), properly.

http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/ghubbard/Articles%20for%20Web%20Site/Natural%20Gas%20Contracting%20in%20Practice.pdf

What more was there to it? What are you thinking of?

I’m talking of stuff that happened in the 1990s and early 2000s. I can’t write a whole report about what happened because this isn’t the right place, so I have to turn to literary language.

I must correct you on one point. Edward Mallia never presented “plans”, so it’s not a question of flaws in the plan. Like any other consultant, he presented facts, options and recommendations. Those recommendations were ignored time and again. So what was the point of consulting him in the first place?

You seem to have taken a dislike to Edward Mallia, along with most of Malta. I can see why. In Malta you’re allowed chirpy optimism, or loudmouthed anger, but never sad disillusionment.

I think nothing of the sort, and I don’t care about manicures, present or absent, HP.

I didn’t know about any of the treatment you mentioned, and I’m glad I didn’t. Goes to show that I have no prejudice against the man.

I took the technical jargon to task, irrespective of who Edward Mallia is, except that he IS of course a (more than) technical person whose opinion people take as fact and base arguments on what he says.

Now that I know more of Mallia’s fate, my opinion does not change one iota. It is evident that he should heed his own advice he gave to politicians that “għandhom jinfurmaw ruħhom aħjar” before he himself lays down the technicalities.

Keep in mind that in this instance, he was correcting an engineer. And the latter, with the respect due to a person like Mallia, took the humiliation thinking that surely Mallia must know better.

There lies the risk.

Your “They sought his professional opinion on an energy plan. Then they proceeded to ignore it.” makes one think, doesn’t it?

Was it really that simple? Did they ignore him, just like that? For no reason? Did they, perhaps, find obvious flaws in his plan?

I have no idea about the hows and the whys, but recent events make me think that there was more to it than a simple “then they proceeded to ignore it”.

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Ah, in ideal world yes. But Maltese politicians are not used to being grilled, and would have a fit if this would occur.

Have a look at how Lou Bondi is demonised by a section of the media, just because he tries to corner a spokesman on some point or other. Elsewhere he would be admired.

I’m sorry, most interviewers or journalists either resort to heckling (that offensive lady who seemed hell-bent in shoving a mike up Simon Busuttil’s nostril when Simon was leaving the TV studios is a prime example), or else you get a journalist who has to appear independent, as per editorial policy, and knows that if he asks awkward questions, his head will roll, if not today, certainly tomorrow.

That said and done, we have made some progress from when a person (I can’t use the term lady in this case, as not enough sarcasm can be implied by the use of apostrophes) tried to use her admitted attractiveness to put a speaker off his stride (I’m sure quite a few can remember that particular episode).

[Daphne – No, I can’t.]

For the record, Edward Mallia is no longer a member of staff at the University of Malta. He left under less than happy circumstances.

The way he’s being used by Labour is shameful. More shameful still is the way he’s being understood by the audience, including you, FP.

You seem to think he’s a doddering old professor. Remember that he was screwed over badly by a PN administration. They sought his professional opinion on an energy plan. Then they proceeded to ignore it.

They came back to him again, commissioned further reports, and again they ignored the result.

Like most Maltese decision-makers, they were not looking for information to help them make a decision, but for information to confirm a decision they’d already taken.

So he has no reason to be cheery and businessmanlike, as has become the norm with all our experts. I think we should all understand that we’re seeing the husk of his former self. A manicured brown-nosing yuppie he isn’t.

At the moment their added value over the party media channels is nil.