Best brains, indeed
In The Times, yesterday:
The PL regretted (Simon Busuttil’s) comments, saying the prime minister was proposing to nominate members of the Opposition to government boards and other entities. His purpose was to involve everyone in the running of the country, thus using the best brains in the interests of the country.
If the prime minister’s aim truly is to have the best brains on government boards, why in God’s name is he going for Opposition MPs and not the best brains?
Does he mean the best brains among Opposition MPs or the best brains in the country, because the two are not the same thing?
Best brains be damned. What he wants are those Opposition MPs, and if he gets any at all, it definitely won’t be the best brains. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine the freshly elected Albert Fenech waltzing into the Office of the Prime Minister and booming “Yes, Mr Prime Minister, I’d love to take up your position. When do I start?”
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Although I think that the Nationalist Party needs some more time to regroup at this stage, I see Simon Busuttil’s clear statements on this matter as a much-needed break from the pussy-footing of the last few years.
Frankly, I previously found the man to be too soft for leading the Party, but the position he has taken on Muscat’s mermaid’s song so early in the campaign is the sign that I was waiting for from him.
Don’t you worry about Simon Busuttil being too soft. He’ll be so much tougher by the end of this legislature. He will quickly adapt to the manners of the Maltese parliament, as opposed to the European one.
And the most important thing to evaluate is what a person says and the stance he takes. The way he says it can be improved by time.
Notice also that there are many more attacks coming Busuttil’s way than there are against others. I have always believed that the more they attack you, the more afraid they are of you and the more they don’t want you there.
Have a look at how they tried to crucily Joe Cassar, ex- Minister for Health. That’s because he was VERY good at what he did.
http://www.taghnalkoll.com/?p=371
Now this move by the PL is truly worrying. They are trying to annihilate the Opposition. That would lead to what type of political system then? Right.
Muscat is using two tools : One to drive a wedge in the PN and thus creating a division within the Party. The other tool is using the past experience of the PN in government, for HIS OWN benefit. He dose not want to seem inexperienced in governing. – that, I think, what the PL is at.
In less than a month’s time the PN shall have a new leader. First step he should take is warn all PN members of parliament that if they accept nominations to government boards and other entities, they shall be asked to resign immediately.
It wont make a difference whether there will be a difference of 9 seats or more but it will show that the new leader means business and wont tolerate any similar Frankie tantrums.
Agreed.
You are absolutely right! The new leader must show he means business and act like it!
Has anyone considered that Raymond Bugeja’s candidature for PN leader could well be a PL Trojan horse? One side of a pincer movement, the other being the PL attempt to suborn individual PN Opposition MPs by appointing them to government office.
He has no chance. One half of a pincer or otherwise.
just like Frankie Tabone
Evarist Bartolo
Kemm hadt gost il-bierah niltaqa’ ma’ adoloxxenti tfajliet u guvintur bid-dyslexia biex jghiduli xi problemi jhabbtu wicchom maghhom fis-sistema edukattiva taghna. Irridu nahdmu biex intaffulhom dawn il-problemi ghax inkellna se nkomplu nkissruhom u ncahhduhom milli jizviluppaw u jimxu ‘l quddiem.
X’inhi din ta’ “adolOxxenti”? Dan ministru? Dan illitterat.
It’s a Freudian slip.
Evarist Bartolo
Il-bierah kelli laqgha tajba mal-MGRM dwar x’ghandu jsir biex ma nhallux bullying isir fuq studenti gay u trans u biex naghmlu lill-ghalliema u kapijiet izjed sensittivi ma’ dawn il-persuni.
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ehh, anzi jaf juza l Facebook mela, old people generally tend to be scared of technology.
Skopra l-Amerika.
The Home Affairs and National Security Ministry has denied that it intends to change the Head of News at PBS.
Now, why cannot one bring oneself to believe that statement?
Now doesn’t that sound all wrong? Home Affairs, National Security and the Head of News all in one sentence … shades of living behind the Iron Curtain
So Muscat is admitting that Labour’s are not the best brains …
For a party that produced so much hot air over the high minded ideals of a Whistleblowers’ Act, it is ironic if not downright evil to advocate emasculating the opposition so that it has no teeth to be an effective whistleblower.
Clearly Muscat’s Press Officer hasn’t been using their ‘best brains’ when they wrote this bollocks.
Don’t you get the feeling they are still in election mode?
Maybe they’re stuck, unable to adapt to the fact that they won, giving us five years of drivel.
And where is Gonzi?
He owes it to the thousands who voted for him to at least make a token gesture of defiance.
Naqra rispett – sakemm ma tmurx tiekol kirxa mieghu kuljum, dak hu Dr. Gonzi.
That will come next Monday, in the reply by the Leader of the Opposition to Joseph Muscat’s speech, this Saturday, adopting the Gonzi Budget that Muscat shot down five months ago, the figures and projections thereof consequently being five months out of date with all the attendant negative implications on Malta’s financial standing.
The circus came to town on the 10th of March, by the 10th of April the Fun Fair will be in place as well.
Ther are not in election mode. They are amateurs.
I agree with your last sentence. It feels like he has abandoned those who DID vote for him and for the PN.
If JoeMus is so eager to involve the opposition, why didn’t he nominate the Speaker from among their members?
Or, better still, since he is set to adopt the Gonzi Budget and is seeking the services of PN MPs to help him sort things out, why didn’t Muscat just eff off before the election and let Gonzi-led PN get on with successfully running the country?
I just bloody well hope that the new PN Leader will give a good kick in the pants to any Nationalist MP who dares take up the Prime Minister’s offer. ISSA DAQSHEKK.
The future leader of the PN party is going to have a tough time. Hopefully he is well geared for it and will be clear in his communications within his party – that anyone from the PN who will accept appointments will be doing so in his/her own name and not in the name of the party, i.e. he/she will have to resign from the party if he/she accepts any appointments.
Just read this. So 500 Euro increase was probably not enough, then.
http://www.independent.com.mt/mobile/2013-04-05/news/ministers-aides-employed-in-higher-salary-scales-than-predecessors-1330479104/
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-04-05/news/ministers-aides-employed-in-higher-salary-scales-than-predecessors-1330479104/
Where is the dosh coming from ?
Your pocket and mine.
If Muscat wants the best brains to run the country, he should resign and take his shoddy cabinet with him.
Exactly. Didn’t he say, BEFORE the elections, that he had the most “cutting edge” people with him?
It’s not so much a contradiction when you understand that Labour’s ‘best brains’ reads as ‘subservient brains’ (to them).
In an unrelated post, apparently overcrowding in the casualty ward at Mater Dei has been reduced by the new minister for health: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130405/local/minister-reports-progress-in-reducing-casualty-ward-overcrowding.464228
Some would suggest it to be miracle due to the new minister’s efforts, but I have heard things which make me doubt it:
(a) certain nurses and practitioners at Mater Dei apparently picked up the slack only once PL came to power and began to work as they should have from the start, and
(b) some of these same employees actually caused overcrowding previously by bringing in patients with relatively minor ailments, with the intent of showing the PN in a bad light
I am convinced too. A ‘funny’ thing happened to me with MEPA where my PL-supporting neighbour (and the one who reported me) attended a tribunal sitting hearing my case while I was informed about the sitting 2 weeks AFTER the event.
I’ve heard other cases in other departments – I am convinced there was a strong network helping each other and putting as many spokes as possible to show the PN administration in a bad light.
Similar acts of sabotage were evident long ago, in state pharmacy services, in billing sections in ARMS, in the Vat Department, and notably and flagrantly in the failure of more than 50% of duty bus drivers to report to work on the very first day that the new bus service started operations, causing commuters on the following day to resort en masse to the use of private cars that turned bus service timetables into a shambles from which Arriva has not yet completely recovered.
And what about the ‘vanishing’ queues at the Mater Dei pharmacy?
I can tell from experience that, after quite a wait in the corridor to enter the crowded waiting hall and be given a serial number, it used to take me much more than one hour waiting for my number to be called.
I happend to call for my medicines last Monday – it took me only a few minutes’ wait in the corridor before being ushered into an almost empty waiting hall. And not more than 20 minutes before being called to the respective position to be served.
April 1st joke? A miracle, perhaps?
Or was it some sort of directive from somewhere, or someone, to stop putting spokes in the wheels there to?
Yes, the problem at Mater Dei was caused by the Labour-leaning employees. I had questioned many a time why 100 people had their appointment at the same time and the answer was that, that was the practice take it or leave it.
The opposition working collaboratively on issues when it agrees with them is sensible. This does not mean they should be part of the government nor that they are nominated by the prime minister. If the prime minister wants the best brains and not the best stooges, when it comes to nominating members of the opposition to sit on committees etc, it should be the opposition who appoints them NOT the prime minister. This would also ensure that the MPs selected are those with the greatest knowledge and expertise in the area, because judging by most of the prime minister nominations so far we need some people some where who know what they are saying and doing.
Why don’t they grease themselves and bend over with a huge ‘ready to be fucked now’ hung round their necks while they’re at it?
Do you not understand what landslide means?
Muscat doesn’t need the Opposition for anything except to gain a two-thirds vote.
He is simply rubbing their noses in it, taking the piss and using buzzwords like irrelevant.
But only because with a 9 seat majority, they ARE irrelevant.
Muscat is so happy reveling in the glory.
I am just waiting for his ‘no divorce on my watch’ moment.
[Daphne – It is not the government which needs the Opposition. It is the country and the electorate. The Opposition is never irrelevant. If it were, then it would be optional under the Constitution. Whether it is nine seats or two makes absolutely no difference in a parliamentary system like ours. One seat is the problem.]
The stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Malta needs the opposition to have an unrelenting protector of democracy otherwise the socialists are going to take us back to the Dark Ages.
They need to rip the government apart, as does any opposition — indeed, it is in the government’s best interest too of course — so as to ‘keep the bastards honest’ as they say in Australia.
Calculator is absolutely right. I have observed these practitioners in action, and can only conclude that something has gone horribly wrong in their moral development.
Best Brains of course: And he started with Franco Debono
I don’t agree with the idea even if it had to be passed on to the Opposition leader for his endorsement.
The electorate voted for JM and elected him as Malta’s Prime Minister believing that his party has the best brains within it, better than the ones in the previous administration, to manage the new government.
In fact the PN was voted out of government with the biggest electoral bang ever since Independence. So JM has to deliver and manage the country with the kind of brains in his fold good or bad.
It’s not fair now that the same people who voted the PN out of office expect the Opposition to make up for JM’s shortcomings.