The Leaders’ Debate
Published:
February 26, 2013 at 10:25pm
I’ve watched it from the beginning, but it’s this bit now that I find most interesting: Herman Grech is asking both leaders the exact same questions, requiring brief answers.
Q. Was closing down the drydocks a good move?
JM: No.
LG: Tajba, tajba hafna. Hafna, hafna.
What is Muscat saying here – that we should still have the drydocks open and bleeding us dry to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros?
The true soul of Labour. And this from the man who goes on about waste at Enemalta.
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Well spotted. Muscat thinks that his NO answer will have endeared him to the working class.
Wrong answer, Joseph… this shows just how incompetent you will be as our Prime Minister.
Muscat said that closing the drydocks was not a good move. Why? Because the drydocks used to produce PL’s STEEL SOLDIERS.
He just misses the Drydocks of old from hearsay because it was held ransom by the GWU of old that was chock full of Mintoffian brutes that did the bully boy work for the MLP.
These are from more Golden Years ™ reminiscing tall tale stories as told to Joseph by the old dinosaurs that surround him as he is far too young to remember all that horror or goodness, depending which side of the fence you stand.
Also the soft pinkish boy youngster Joey never came from a tradesman or dockyard labouring class dynasty from the Cottonera area to actually give a damn about the Drydocks in reality.
On that set of 20 questions alone, Gonzi won hands-down.
Well done, Dr. Gonzi. The electorate would really be cutting off its nose to spite its face should it vote you out come the 9th of March.
Here goes Muscat again, harping on about “persuni omosesswali”. Enough already. There are straight people too, you know.
Well said….Bravo, Grezz.
I honestly hope that the Maltese are mature enough to choose our next Prime Minister.
There’s a word in Maltese which describes Joseph’s attitude – kemm hu zorr. The complete opposite of serene.
The complete opposite of the mild-(and well-) mannered Dr. Gonzi.
My dear elderly neighbour calls him aspru, I must admit I do not quite know what the meaning of that is, bitter perhaps?
This would have been a typical KMB reply.
Once it is closed down Muscat has nothing to lose by answering that it was a mistake.
Basically it’s professional against amateur. No contest really but the ‘poles’ still say Labour is ahead.
Joseph Muscat’s eyes are fixed and glazed as he performs his rehearsed speech
The timesofmalta.com comments are impressive – kulhadd jfahhar lil Joey – must have been watching a different show.
They had done the same when Anglu Farrugia went up against Dr. Simon Busuttil on Xarabank. Anglue Farrugia himself later complained that he had been pitted against Simon Busuttil completely unarmed with any facts or knowledge of the PL’s energy plan.
No surprise that Muscat refused to confirm that he would resign should he not achieve what he promised re the new gas terminal within two years.
The hall seems packed with Laburisti.
It is becoming increasingly clear that unless Joseph is surrounded by his own he doesn’t feel comfortable.
And yet without a shred of bias I can objectively say that Gonzi was by far the better prepared to answer some of the tougher questions.
This was by far the best debate of this campaign.
Muscat won’t engage on past decisions. All he does is speak on behalf of the different lobbies.
He won’t consider pension reform unless private companies deem it a viable market.
So, Joseph was not the butter speaker? Shame.
You noticed the furrow at the point when he said that criticism does not bother him? The deepest ever
Pity they both pretend to not want euthanasia for the time being.
Oh hell no. That would be the last straw. If you are what you say you are you will surely know the evil that eats away at you while waiting for that bloody doctor to administer the killer dose on your loved one, or at least you should have heard of it from friends. To hell with euthanasia, there is no greater evil. And please do not get me started on freedom of choice and all that crap the Dutch hold so dear.
What about the ‘evil that eats away at you’ while watching your father bed-ridden, in pain, unable to communicate and looking at but not recognising you? I agree that administering the killer dose is an act I dread to think about (hell, my heart felt like it was being wrenched out when I had to put down my dog) but I at least would want to have a choice between the two!
It was not my bed ridden father, and I need not go into the details. You san safely assume it was someone we cared for and a father nonetheless (though not mine). Helplessly watching anyone in pain is sickening I agree, but it does not feel wrong. There is no fine line between the two, it is a deep chasm that rocks you and your basic human values to the core.
Two moments when Joseph’s face said he was lying: when he spoke about reconciliation with Anglu Farrugia, and one very clear instance in the Yes – No part, which I can’t for the life of me remember. That vertical furrow between his eyes was deepening away.
Well done, Gonzi.
Dan il-bniedem tal-biki. Irid jinhabb ma’ Alla u max-xitan.
Flok ma jghid li Austin Gatt kellu bajd ta iljunfant li kien kapaci jiehu wahda mill-aktar decizjonijiet difficli li kwalunkwe Ministru kemm ilu jezist l-Parlament Malti ha, jigi jghid li kien zball li inghalqet it-tarzna.
Voldieri Joseph Muscat kien lest li jibqa jerda demm il-poplu Malti b’dawk il-miljuni kollha li konna nhallsu sabiex inzommu it-Tarzna miftuha, u inhallsuhom l-overtime talli jorqdu.
Int f’sensik Dr Muscat ghax issa qed niddubita kemm int qed tirraguna sew. Nahseb qed taghmel taghha il-pressure ta l-elezzjoni, u wisq nibza li sakemm tasal l-elezzjoni tkun hadt xi zewg gambetti ohra.
Ghal li jista jkun mhux ser tghid li kienet decizjoni tajba wkoll hux li Gvern Laburista ghamel sew ukoll li mpjega 8000 haddiem qabel elezzjoni? Veru partit tal-misthija. Il-poplu mhux cuc u jien ninstab fiducjuz li s-sewwa ser jirbah.
I think our Prime Minister was very wise in letting things stay the proper course in this run up, despite having been placed under tremendous pressure to call early elections.
A quiet confidence in the stability sown and the longevity of good decisions is well transmitted. Thank you, Dr Gonzi.
Almost every question put to Muscat he lobbied with an air of smug superiority back into the Prime Minister’s court. Every answer was a deflection.
I watched the debate from start to finish…. and I learned nothing – absolutely nothing – from Labour.
@ grezz
Ghax cool hi, noqghodu il-hin kollu insemmu LBGT jew x’inhi.
L-aqwa li cool u x’jimpurtana mill-invesmtiment massiv tal-PN fl-edukazzjoni, fit-turizmu, fis-sahha, fi progetti – mhux dawn joholqu il-gid u ix-xoghol ghal familji imma l-omosesswalita u il-gay marriage. Spiccajna.
Never thought I’d say this, but I have newfound respect for Gonzi after this evening’s debate
Joseph ended the debate white in the face, enough said.
After the big debate, my conclusion is that Dr Muscat should be sent to Alfred Sant’s repeater class – he needs to learn more. I do not want him to learn at my expense, at my family’s expense or at my country’s expense. My conclusion, on the 9 March I shall be voting PN for a “Futur fis-sod”. Punto e basta!
Din ma nistax ghalha li jghidu li l-impjegati tad-drydocks, lil tal-linja u lil ta l-Air Malta dahaq bihom Gonzi PN. Dawn in-nies ma tkeccewx bl-addocc imma Gonzi qaghad attent li jaghtihom somom kbar ta’ kumpens u hafna minnhom regghu sabu job.
Fil-fatt ma jidhirx li kien hemm zieda ta’ qaghad. Mal-privat jekk mhemmx xoghol titlaq mhemmx somom.
Somebody told me that labour’s adverts on Youtube will only be billed if one clicks on them? Is it true?
That is what I was told by an expert this evening…….. and I shall be clicking on them
MLP Google adwords campaign is very very expensive. Whilst some adverts run on a Pay per Click basis, most adverts are running on a Cost per Thousand basis.
Without any clicks they could be spending up of €2000 a day.
Google ads (on YouTube) work like this:
The longer one watches a video, the more the page owner earns. If you instantly click away, much less.
If one clicks on an ad, the page owner earns more.
So Labour’s ads must be billed regardless if one clicks or not. The fact that they are visible means that money is being transferred (in this case from PL to Google and Google to page owner).
If you click on them the page owner will be pleased.
Labour ads? Just make sure they are not billed to you.
On the Drydocks question, Joseph showed that he doesn’t know that EU was not allowing any more subsidies. How would have he financed the losses? Through taxes?
Is Muscat going to re-nationalise the drydocks?
In his thesis for his doctorate Joseph Muscat inter alia pointed out that the Dry-docks losses where being paid with the taxes and National Insurance contributions of the factory girls working in the jeans factories.
He is saying that we should have kept committing this injustice.
Is this what he means with “Malta taghna lkoll?
Which doctor Muscat shall we believe?
The thesis attributed to Joseph Muscat is here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/127035781/Joseph-Muscat-PhD-Thesis
‘attributed’, a key word.
Page 81 Joseph Muscat refers to the macho Dockyard shipwrights whose wages together with the Dockyard’s losses were financed by the female machine operators’s wages and social contributions.
Interestingly Muscat refers to the Dockyard militants “whose manhood had already been challenged by Mintoff (ref3 on xx/xx/xx in a rally for Dockyard workers, Mintoff literally asked them to prove they had “meat balls”.
http://htmlimg3.scribdassets.com/10c6ebzpmo25xjx5/images/96-18ffb5a0ef.jpg
The next PN billboard should be:
AGHZEL BEJN QABZA FIL-KWALITA’
JEW QABZA FIL-VOJT (BHALL-ITALJA)
AGHZEL BEJN QABZA FIL-KWALITA’ jew Girja Ghal Gol-Hajt
Very wily of Joseph Muscat.
Now that there’s no bringing the dockyard back, he can easily say that he would never have closed it down. He’s obviously trying to win the votes of all disgruntled former dockyard workers.
Not that they should be disgruntled at all. They were all given very generous retirement packages and most of them found alternative employment in a reasonable time.
The shutting down of the dockyard was completely necessary because it was bleeding the country dry. Who knows whether we would have survived all the economic turmoil of the past five years had the dockyard stayed open?
Hopefully, people will see through this blatant vote catching exercise by Muscat and realise what awful economic decisions he would make.
One must also remember that the government didn’t just close the yard but sold it to Palumbo to run a slimmed down, profitable venture.
The government dealt with this thorny issue brilliantly if you ask me.
I think it will be the question he’ll have to avoid for the rest of the week.
Let’s hear the kif kemm u meta for this one.
If only someone from the PN were to read his doctoral thesis.
The thesis attributed to Joseph Muscat is here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/127035781/Joseph-Muscat-PhD-Thesis
Its not worth the paper it is written on.
It is a historical account and apparently with some howlers.
It’s not a historical account. It’s meant to be one, but isn’t.
Joseph needs a few more years to admit that, with hindsight, closing the dockyard was a good idea.
Likewise, with hindsight, he will eventually realise it was not really possible to build a power station and gas terminal within 24 months.
With hindsight, he might also come to accept that it was not a good idea to plan only as far as election day.
I pray that Maltese electors have the foresight to give him the chance to do all this from opposition rather than suffer the inevitable consequences with him.
No, the same NO, to us joining the EU.
Thanks to Dr. Gonzi, Malta has never been this prosperous post independence. Time will tell for sure. Too bad the people fail to notice their upward level of standard of living. The PN has turned Malta into a modern European state to be proud of.
If one looks at the overall successful performance of this government then it should be re-elected with flying colours this time around as well as it has been so many times during the past 90 years.
But alas, the cultural fibre of the Maltese in a political duopoly remains polarised to a large extent, with no party ever registering less than 46% of the polls in the past 40 years.
In this context, Malta Taghna Lkoll is not realistic or positive and progressive, but merely an election meaningless slogan.
This is my first comment here ever after having watched the Big Debate last night and having followed some of the comments and tweets. I must admit I am amazed and astonished at how gullible, unfortunately many fellow Maltese are.
Q. Was closing down the drydocks a good move?
JM: No. (Note that it was a decisive and very strong NO)
LG: Tajba, tajba hafna. Hafna, hafna.
First it was his role years ago as an MLP journalist.
Then it was his strong and militant views and parade against EU accession.
This has been followed by his views on how Malta should follow the steps of Cyprus.
Recently we have all heard of his biased treatment of potential drug dealers in a labour party club and his continuous lies in this particular case – imbasta Malta taghna llkol.
And NOW we have a clear statement on how he would have handled the Drydocks!
THIS LAST STATEMENT IS WORRYING. It is a clear sign to all that Joseph is unable to provide the required direction and leadership. It is yet ANOTHER clear sign of what is more to come!
Dear Daphne, do tell that opposition leader to take note.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21598206
Muscat qaghdlu wiccu. Waqa ghan-nejk fuq l-Ewropa, fuq Cipru u kif mexa fil-kaz ta drogi f’kazin Laburista. U qisu mhux hu. Jhawwad dati w statistici ekonomici, jigdeb u jinqabad. U frisk bhal hassa, qisu wiehed cert u determinat milli jghid.
Gonzi kompletament l’oppost. Tried and tested. Tista tafdah.
http://htmlimg3.scribdassets.com/10c6ebzpmo25xjx5/images/96-18ffb5a0ef.jpg
‘Q. Was closing down the drydocks a good move?
JM: No.
LG: Tajba, tajba hafna. Hafna, hafna.
What is Muscat saying here – that we should still have the drydocks open and bleeding us dry to the tune of hundreds of millions of euros?’
Worse still, Joseph was so adamant in his answer that he may actually be contemplating the re-Nationalization of the drydocks.
Many socialists believe that public ownership enables people to exercise full democratic control over the means whereby they earn their living and provides an effective means of redistributing wealth and income more equitably.
This is a fallacy. The true motives for Nationalization are purely Socialist Policy and the economic improvement is merely the excuse.
Jien iddahqunu dawn in-Nazzjonalisti.
Jekk id-Dockyard kienet il-baby ta’ Mintoff ( ghalkemm ma’ bnijiex Mintoff ghax dik l-Inglizi bnewha imma prova jiehi l-elogju Mintoff bhas soltu) kif tippretendu li Joseph Muscat jghid li kienet ideja tajba li inaghlqet?
Jekk id-Dockyard kienet iz-zejza tal-GWU kif tippretendu li Joseph Muscat jghid li kien sewwa li inaghqet?
Jekk il-haddiema Laburisti kiienu jithallsu pagi enormi ta’ xejn kif tippretendu li Joseph Muscat jghid li tajjeb li inaghqet?
Hawn wiehed irid janalizza u jixpruna u jsaqsi, fejna il-bidla li ghamel Joseph Muscat fil-Partit Laburista?