Ah! Here he is! And with his trusty white electoral lectern, too.
Today Brussels opened excessive deficit procedures against Malta, so the prime minister’s chief of staff, personal assistant and puppet-master Keith Schembri – taking a break from brokering mega-deals with Libya for his company, Kasco – thought it would be a great time for his ‘boss’ to give a press conference.
Not to talk about the excessive deficit procedures, you see, but to attempt a little obfuscating exercise by trying to blot out that piece of mega-news with the kind of small-minded rubbish that worked in Opposition but doesn’t work in government. The PM announced the lifting of the statute of limitations on crimes of corruption involving politicians.
So….wow. What are we supposed to say, exactly? That we’re underwhelmed? All the politicians worth investigating for corruption while in office are either dead, in a wheelchair, or have wormed their way back into government and are sitting in Joseph’s cabinet.
I shan’t mention names, of course, but you can always work it out for yourselves.
These people make me sick, really sick. They give a press conference about lifting the statute of limitations on prosecuting corrupt politicians, when only last week they appointed to the board of Malta Freeport a retired thug and hooligan called Ronnie Pellegrini, who for long, long years was the right-hand man and fixer for the most corrupt politician in Maltese history, Lorry Sant.
Too bad Lorry’s dead, eh, Ronnie? You’d have been a star witness in Joseph Muscat’s persecution of him…I don’t think.
And as for Louis Grech, I never fully understood how little self-respect he has. Look at them all in these pictures, trying to look ‘serji’ u ‘importanti’ bil-‘gravitas’. For heaven’s sake – these are the very people (and in Louis’s case, he himself, given his age) whose families voted in, three times over, a pack of robber-barons and crooks who broke Malta’s back with the rampant corruption from bottom to top.
And we are supposed to take them seriously, because Malta Taghna Lkoll.
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“However, he said, people who committed corruption in the past may now not sleep easy.” http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130530/local/political-corruption-cases-no-longer-time-barred.471849
Was he talking to his own?
Another iced bun.
http://tvm.com.mt/news/2013/05/godwin-vella-appointed-maltas-digital-champion/
The digital world is full of young twenty-somethings who are radicalizing (you know what I mean) the world by their digital innovation and creativity.
In Malta we appoint a dinosaur of the digital age as a champion.
This is becoming more and more like Alice In Wonderland.
The rabbit disappears down the hole to appear again with his tricks.
So to dissolve away the mess-up Professor Scicluna made, Joseph pulls out the prosecution of corrupt politicians card.
Will he start from 1964, from the arrival of colour TVs in Malta, from the import substitution times and import licensing of everything, the times when telephones were installed when the minister was served, when building permits were issued against sharing agreements using proxy representatives?
Which politician in Malta died a millionaire?
Will those “Dear Philip” letters be investigated?
And how about pulling out those old detailed Malta Today dossiers from the hat for the next trick?
It was placed near the door of Castille today, ready for easy collection.
Qabda ridikoli. Min jahsbu li qed jimpressjonaw. Ghaddewa l-ligi ghax ma tistghax tkun retrospettiva.
Dawk il-Laburisti li kienu abuzzaw kemm felhu fiz-zmien helu tad-deheb issa qeghdin ‘safe’.
My thoughts exactly.
M’ghandhomx ideja. Pajjiz ta’ l-Addams family.
I’m sure Karmenu Vella will have some explaining to do, in terms of this act, then.
I wonder why they all look like they’ve just been sentenced to death.
Mamma mia, what a sad lot.
Or as they say in the language so spin, ‘good day to bury bad news’.
Izjed ma jghaddi iz-zmien izjed nindunaw kemm kien tajjeb Lawrence Gonzi u xi zball kbir Joseph Muscat.
Another propaganda spin to show us his Moviment whiter than white.
OK then let’s see the composition of some commission to handle this and they surely have a long list on their hands to investigate.
They can of course start from the close partners within their ranks such as the Lino Cauchi murder involving il Hawsla Piju with his backers and the investigators can start by collecting material from Savior the Maltatoday liberal.
Not to mention the property gurus who developed places like Fgura, Qawra, Mscala, Qajjenza etc. These issues are just the tip of an iceberg.
In Maltese we say its all “Bzar fl-ghajnejn” because if one starts investigating a particular corruption case then one should investigate all.
This charade will out to be a witchhunt for some particular case Muscat holds dear to spin for alienation and will stop. To say it all the PN had 25 years to prosecute the corruption of the previous 20 years and very little happened with the scum keeping their ill-gotten prizes.
Joseph Muscat had dropped use of the lectern when he took office. He spoke on different occasions without resorting to that prop.
Now the lectern is back in prominence, of all places, bang in the centre of the main corridor in the Palace.
Looks very much like harsh reality is rapidly taking its toll. Joseph Muscat is losing his self-confidence.
The lectern doubles as his security blanket and as a psychological force-field when confronting the media.
The sombre expressions of the whole bloody lot are ominous.
Do they know something that we do not….yet ?
PS That white plastic lectern stands out like a sore thumb in the late renaissance/early baroque ambience of the Palazzo Zerafa.
Oh boy, they are certainly swimming out of their depth now.
‘The PM announced the lifting of the statute of limitations on crimes of corruption involving politicians.’
Well here is the surprise.
Cronyism is a form of political corruption in which political officials show preference to friends when appointing people to positions of power, awarding contacts, and delegating tasks related to their office.
Friends who benefit from cronyism are usually awarded a position of privilege regardless of their skill level, ability, or suitability for the position, which means that better choices may be passed over.
This means that the appointments being dished out now and the people accepting them are liable to arrest, arraignment and sentencing forever.
As a legal scholar would say ‘strict in theory, fatal in fact’
Corruption in Malta is endemic. You can’t eliminate it until the mentality of ‘wanting wishes to be granted at all costs’ disappears.
With the exception of the head, Manuel Mallia has the same width from top to bottom
Well said Daphne and God bless you.
A pack of ministers and MPs for a silly press conference! These people have nothing better to do?
They are always running after each other in twos, threes and in packs. I mean, take this example, this is a press conference called by the PM to announce a change in the law of crimes of corruption.
Therefore, you expect the PM to be accompanied by the minister of justice and the interior and the parliamentary secretary for justice at the most.
So why the hell are the other five present?
[Daphne – The PM and deputy PM shouldn’t even be there. That’s something that should be announced by the Justice Minister, and certainly not by his PS.]
Take a clos look at the dirty shoes of some and especially at Deborah’s bare feet. Disastrous.