So are Saviour and Roger baling out to Labour?

Published: February 6, 2013 at 1:28am

The word about town right now is that Saviour Balzan and Roger de Giorgio have entered into a private agreement with the General Workers Union for the sale of their newspapers to that organisation after the 9 March general election.

I thought I would ring either one of them or both for their side of the story, but then I said to myself, why bother? Given that they so clearly think there’s no need, duty or obligation to ring the person or company they’re writing about to get the side of the story, they’re not going to complain when somebody does the same to them.

Do their employees know they stand to be sold down the river to a Labour union? How does Raphael Vassallo feel about getting a pay cheque from the GWU?

What a joke.




41 Comments Comment

  1. Min Weber says:

    There’s more to it than meets the eye. Where will the GWU get the money from?

  2. Jozef says:

    Does it mean we’ll get Toni Zarb spluttering on the video blog now?

  3. Matthew says:

    Can someone please ask Joseph Muscat whether he will introduce a living wage? I clearly remember him giving up on the idea but I’m getting very confused.

    “Earlier Dr Muscat said that a Labour government would introduce a system enabling teachers to switch from State, private and Church schools without losing salary progression.”

    The Times, February 1st 2013

    Does this mean that he will make state schools or private schools pay more just so that a teacher’s salary will never decrease?

    Will Joseph Muscat interfere with private businesses and how much employers pay their employees?

    And if one teacher gets paid more than another so that he doesn’t lose his salary progression, will the other teachers at the same school also get a raise?

    Is it just me or does Joseph Muscat contradict himself every five minutes?

    • bystander says:

      Tell him you are a single parent gay pro-abortionist hunter Muslim and ask him why you should vote for him and see the word ‘TILT’ light up his soulless eyes.

    • Tabatha White says:

      It’s not just you Matthew. But his trick is to do it so frequently that no body can quite keep up with the myriad mounds of them. Little ones. Bigger ones. Big ones. He’s learnt from the master of lies.

      Let’s see what further role this person has to play out. Once you get rolling the only thing that stops you are brakes. That’s when they all catch up and fall short. Bit like Robert Maxwell.

      Some barely find yesterday’s news interesting,and some sell their souls to pave the way in providing guarantees for tomorrow’s ‘creaseless’ society.

      NB. Not the first time Roger has made a suspect call either.

      • Tabatha White says:

        Had another thought. The motivation must have been high. Price of sale conditional on victory?

        Trust polls Saviour? Yeah right.

    • Angus Black says:

      No contradiction at all.

      It is Joseph’s plan for a complete takeover of church and private schools requiring them to adopt the same rules and salary scales as government schools making their independent existence irrelevant.

      Labour didn’t manage to go through the door in KMB’s time, but Joseph is sneaking through the window.

  4. village says:

    Not surprised. Malta Today, like so many other newspapers which closed down or were sold because of financial difficulties and unsustainability, probably has to go down that path sooner or later.

  5. Lord Lucan says:

    Raphael would have no problems getting paid by the GWU. The question is what would Roger do?

    [Daphne – How would be come into it? If you sell, you’re out of the picture. He’s not an employee; he’s an owner.]

  6. Jonathan says:

    Is there a single businessman or woman who is supporting the Labour Party because he/she believes Joseph Muscat is the best prime minister for Malta, rather than simply being in it for personal gain because they’re betting on a winner and want to be in first with their influence?

    • Lestrade says:

      Perhaps Grace of the red talons ? She is gagging for a tax/surcharge/prohibition/whatever on internet purchases to revive her outdated business model. She must have never heard of HMV, Jessops, Comet and other enterprises in the UK which went to the wall for the same reason local retailers are complaining vociferously about.

    • observer says:

      The answer to your question is simple:- NO, none at all!

  7. maryanne says:

    Apparently, it’s all for a good cause.

    If I understood well, Alfred Grixti answered Andrew Borg Cardona with these same words. They were on TVAM this morning.

    “Ma jimpurtax, it’s all for a good cause.” they were talking about Anglu Farrugia.

  8. Lestrade says:

    The PL/MLP and its poodle, the GWU, has for many years been trying to get its very own English newspaper to counteract The Times which up to a few years ago was 100% hostile (not so sure now, with the advent of Kurt and other fellow travellers).

    In the 60s and 70s, the GWU used to publish the Malta News but this went bellyup because readers argued that it they were to get a newspaper in English, they would get The Times not a badly translated L-Orizzont.

  9. mandango70 says:

    Roger de Giorgio? How would you call him, “another half reject into Labour’s skip” right?

    [Daphne – I don’t call him anything.]

  10. pablo says:

    There are sure signs that there is a lot of horse trading going on between Muscat and his clique and interested lobbies. Looking at the list of converts and knowing their gripes there can be no doubt what is going on. Its like Germany in 1931.

    And speaking to a PL high up yesterday, he tells me basically, how stupid we people are, “we are going to be able to reduce the bills of electricity when the PN’s interconnector starts operating next year” – which messaged to me that the PL’s power plant is nothing but bullshit, that’s going to be dropped as soon as they acquire government.

    Dishonesty – Anglu Farrugia is so right on this.

    • Chris Ripard says:

      You don’t know how right you are, pablo – Adolf was democratically elected in 1932. The rest is, quite literally, history.

  11. old-timer says:

    It would be interesting to learn how Tony Zarb took the matter of big businesses and the PL. Are they now with the big businesses or are they with the “workers” – Tell us Tony

  12. mark says:

    Word on the street is that Roger is desperately trying to reconcile with the Nationalist Party.

  13. bob-a-job says:

    Could this be foresight on someone’s assets possibly being frozen?

  14. Chris says:

    Surely you mean bailing not baling?

    [Daphne – No. I mean baling. As in baling out of a plane rather than bailing out a sinking boat.]

    • Chris says:

      ah the old American versus British English conundrum :)

      [Daphne – What does American English have to do with anything? I never even consider it. It’s a different language.]

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        They’re two completely different words. Nothing to do with British or American English.

        You bail OUT something. Transitive verb.

        But you bale OUT OF/TO/INTO/FROM something. Intransitive.

        Daphne wrote “bale out to”, which should have given you a clue.

      • bob-a-job says:

        Chris, forget it. Daphne and Baxxter are perfectly right.

        We take errors for granted so often that they become ingrained.

        For example, I am exasperated by the persistent use of the word ‘pretend’ lifted from the Maltese word ‘pretendi’ instead of the correct word ‘expect’.

        Imagine the most famous naval signal in British history and sent by Lord Nelson, to have read ‘England pretends each man to do his duty’. It would have been laughable.

        Nelson actually said ‘confides’ but because speed was essential and a three flag signal existed for the word ‘expects’ it replaced ‘confides’ which would have required a flag for each letter. ‘Confides’ and ‘expects’ roughly have the same meaning, whereas ‘pretends’ suggests a totally different thing.

        Erroneously using similar sounding Maltese words to replace English ones is becoming a regular mistake with all local newspapers, the Times included.

        Honestly, how reporters, let alone editors, acquire their jobs defies comprehension.

      • ciccio says:

        I initially read it as ‘biling’ – it must be the powers of the mind to make certain connections.

    • Chris says:

      OK, OK, I surrender. :) the clue is in the word TO

      But it seems I am not the only one:
      http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai2.htm

      Still it all makes a change from talking politiics

  15. Niki B says:

    In my line of work I get to meet many people who own and operate small to medium sized business. I am constantly surprised by how many have been taken in by Joseph Muscat, The reasons they give for voting PL are very similar-sounding, among which:

    1. It is time for a change.

    2. Joseph Muscat is a doer and is pro-business.

    3. It’s time that others have a “slice of the cake” (meaning government contracts/tenders/appointments).

    4. The Nationalists are “tired”.

    5. Labour has changed, it is not the same party of the 70s and 80s and the one that voted against EU entry.

    6. There is so much “corruption”.

    I ask them to consider this question. What would they do in their business if they have a well-performing manager or salesmen, and they are approached by someone who wants to take this manager/salesman’s job, but who has no track record or even a dubious one of bad decisions.

    Do they just replace their manager/salesmen, because they need a change, with the new guy and hope for the best – or do they very meticulously check his credentials and plans first to find out whether he can really do better?

    Do they change just for the sake of change? Do they investigate the claims of corruption and inefficiency? Do they assume that their business will remain successful even after the change?

    Most reply, “Ah but that is different!”. But it isn’t, not at all.

    Ultimately I think it boils down to one very Maltese emotion, lanzit (envy) towards those who they see as having been “preferred” by the government. It’s 1996 all over again.

    • Jozef says:

      I know someone who grumbles how business isn’t what it used to be.

      When asked to explain, it turned out this individual can’t even be bothered to market his product, which results, in this day and age, to have all but been superseded.

    • Reporter says:

      Then it’s the PN’s fault. It should have managed its image better. It should have not given the impression it was preferring some and shunning others.

      It’s MEA CULPA time.

  16. Nighthawk says:

    This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Its just the formalisation of the status quo. The editorial line has been ‘owned’ by the MLP for a few years. Printing and distribution is handled by Union Print (owned by GWU) for more than a year.

    All that remains is the formal transfer of shares. The money will come later. There’ll be a whole TVM schedule to dish out.

  17. Libertas says:

    Isn’t MaltaToday ALREADY l-Orizzont?

    And they take themselves seriously when they phone up people for their surveys, tell them they’re phoning from MaltaToday, and they get 14- and 12-point advantages for Labour!

    And they’re all happy in there rubbing their hands that come 10th March they’ll be able to say THEY brought down Gonzi.

    I’m seriously surprised any people at all tell MaltaToday they’re going to vote Nationalist.

    [Daphne – In fact, when they’ve called me, I’ve told them I’m going to vote Labour.]

  18. rosi says:

    Hi everyone, good evening. Saviour Balzan is an awesome. determined man – he would never sell his baby – For once Daphne you are doing a favour to advertise Malta Today – the newspaper that stands to no nonsense – I am sure that tomorrow more and more people will buy it. Bla bla bla to all of you.

  19. Alex says:

    Saviour aims to replace Lou Bondi on TVM.

  20. d_Riddler says:

    Actually, it is no surprise as this was bound to happen at some point. After the election seems to be the most appropriate time.

    1. The main aim of the newspaper was to make sure that Lawrence Gonzi was portrayed as badly as possible. All this coming from the ‘lanzit’ from Dalli and Balzan. Presumably, Lawrence Gonzi will no longer be Prime Minister after the 9th March so there is no purpose any more.

    2. John Dalli is no longer running for the PN leadership. He might try, but after the Snusgate, it is very improbable. Therefore the other purpose of the paper to portray Dalli in good light has gone off in smoke as well.

    3. The paper was intended to criticize the government in everything. Given that JosephMuscat.com will be in government after the 9th March, they will no dare do it.

    4. From the GWU point of view, not much change would need to be done to get it in line with the rest of its Labour-leaning media.

  21. CG says:

    There’s more to this – Saviour Balzan is so eager to have Lejber in government – we have to wonder why.

    [Daphne – He comes from a Labour family. Correction: family of Mintoffjani. His mother taught me and all my sisters at St Dorothy’s. We had to call her ‘Madam Balzan’ and not ‘Mrs Balzan’. Il-vera hamalla, miskina.]

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