I see. Muscat is going to get the PN to disarm unilaterally, while he stockpiles weapons.
The leader of the Labour Party visited the new PN leader today at the latter’s HQ. The Times of Malta reports:
Muscat calls on Busuttil at PN headquarters – leaders call for less aggressive political media
Parties to hold meetings every two months
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Opposition leader Simon Busuttil have agreed that their two parties should hold open-agenda meetings every two months.
The two leaders had a meeting at PN headquarters this afternoon, with Dr Muscat reciprocating a visit by Dr Busuttil a few days ago, after he became PN leader.
During the meeting’s introduction, Dr Busuttil also called for a less antagonistic approach by the political party media. Dr Muscat agreed.
Dr Busuttil said he was ready to contribute to making politics a positive experience, adding he was willing to see the party media “calm down”.
(…)
I am so unimpressed. The Labour Party’s viciously malevolent – not merely aggressive – media are its single most valuable weapon in the battle to gain and maintain power, given that neither policy nor ability are on its side.
Over the years, it has concentrated more of its money and efforts in developing its media weapons of warfare and using them for a full-scale ceaseless assault that ran like a constant electoral campaign between one election and another, than in developing policy and politicians.
Also, the sort of people who are magnetically attracted to Labour are the kind who love that brand of malevolence and who are vulnerable to its negative seduction.
Just look at the last five years of conversations you have had and those you have overheard to see evidence of this: endless numbers of people, even supposedly intelligence ones, repeating Super One lies and propaganda, sometimes even at at several removes and without having any idea that they are parroting Super One.
With the rampant aggression of Super One, the Labour Party would not have been able to build that ‘zieda ta’ hames mitt euro’, scrapped in 2009 and all the money refunded, into a major electoral issue four years later.
That is just one example of hundreds.
There is no way the Labour Party is going to give up this weapon or make it any less aggressive. Instead it will carry on becoming more and more aggressive even as its consummate paranoia increases, oblivious to the fact that attacking individuals viciously when you are the party in Opposition is one thing (though bad enough already), but attacking them relentlessly when you are the party in government is a violation of democratic norms associated with totalitarian regimes.
But still they will do it, and get worse, because they are demonstrably paranoid.
As for the PN-owned media, they have never been aggressive. Their main problem has long been far too much timidity and mealy-mouthed tiptoeing around issues precisely because of this very fear of being the party in government that is ‘attacking’ individuals. So instead they went to the other extreme, with even actual news reportage suffering the effects of too much niceness.
And look what happened. The Vile Machine won the battle against the Nice Machine.
There were other reasons, but believe me (as somebody who’s been out here scrutinising the whole thing for my sins), that’s the main one.
Everywhere I went, I would hear the most surprising people parroting Super One, and Malta Today, and they would even say things like, “But it’s true; I heard it on television/read it in the newspaper” without making any distinction between which television or what newspaper.
Incidentally, I disagree with those who say that Simon Busuttil is too soft and that he is being too nice to Muscat – there are comments to this effect in respect of this visit and Muscat’s reception there.
I think Busuttil is more likely to be fixing on lulling Muscat into accepting an invitation to dinner, so to speak, and then doing a Borgia on him. I speak, of course, metaphorically. I also think that Muscat is well aware of this, and knows through experience that he is now dealing with a very different character and personality type.
Muscat’s joke tal-hamalli (there’s no other word for it, it was such poor taste and such appalling manners) to Busuttil about Lawrence Gonzi being the predecessor they have in common (“taghna lkoll”) may have been met with a smile for the cameras, but that smile was edged with frost – a civilised response to highly uncivilised behaviour.
It’s the frost beneath the smile that you have to look at, and not the smile on the surface. Muscat knows that, and it unnerves him already. Prepare yourself for more awkward jokes by Muscat in the face of Busuttil’s composure and inscrutable facial expression. These will be interesting times, in the Chinese meaning.
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He thinks politics are the medium. Change the tone and reality follows.
Pretty please.
I disagree with your reasoning, Daphne. It is so much easier to criticise the party in power than it is the party in Opposition.
Muscat is faced with a powerful weapon without a clear target.
Super One cannot possibly spend 5 years criticising a party in Opposition and therefore, it is in the PL’s interest that the PN media withdraw their weapons in the coming months, for the PN will have loads to shoot at as the PL stumble from one cock-up to the next.
Couple that with the fact that the resources at One are totally depleted and are likely to be even more depleted come the V18 and EU presidency initiatives.
Make no mistake – the EU Presidency will severely strain what resources are available to the government and they are going to have a hell of a job coping with the Presidency, then V18 and running the country.
Chuck in a power station that cannot deliver the 25% reduction in tariffs off its own accord and the resulting strain on public finances (we seem to have forgotten about the VAT refund on cars).
I can see where the PL are coming from – they won’t cope and won’t be able to fend off the assault from a well managed PN media machine. Their best bet will be to coerce the PN to disarm. It will be fatal for the PN if they do.
Caesar (aside to Anthony) :
….. He rarely smiles, and when he does smile, he does so in a self-mocking way, as if he scorns himself for smiling at all. Men like him will never be comfortable while someone ranks higher than themselves, and therefore they’re very dangerous……….
You realise, of course, that they were talking about you?
[Daphne – They were obviously not, as they were specific: “party media”. That means Super One TV and radio, KullHadd, Maltastar, NET TV, Radio 101, Il-Mument, In-Nazzjon and Maltarightnow. I am not a medium, but an individual newspaper columnist, and I work for The Malta Independent, not the Nationalist Party. As for this website, it falls into the category of independently-owned media, just like the newspaper for which I work.]
This is exactly what I commented last Saturday.
Skuzi imma jien naghti tort lil Net News li ghadhom ma TAGHLMUX IKUNU PECLUQA bhal ma kien One TV ghal kull cucata….too much politeness from PN media
Will Simon swallow the bait? I don’t think he is so naive.
Some say Labour changed.
Others see no difference between Mintoff and Muscat.
Still (I hope many others) see Muscat worse than Mintoff.
I am with the last group, largely because Muscat is unable to rein in his own people or tell them what to do and have them do it.
The result is already confusion.
This will be his downfall, and the sooner the better for all.
Daphne, that were my thoughts exactly as soon as I saw the article on the online news sites.
Brass neck doesn’t even start to describe them. After a decade of relentless, unscrupulous crap being pumped out of their miserable Super One, now they want to tone down the political media.
Let’s see what Busuttil does. If Net don’t grow a pair soon I’m afraid we’re in for a rough couple of administrations.
Thanks, Daphne, for this post and especially the metaphoric reference to Borgia.
It saved me sending a reply to a respectable gentleman, whose comments I often look out for but not always agree with.
I believe he went overboard in a previous post and probably the words he wrote about Busuttil are a reflection of his own sentiments rather than the Labour ones.
I hope he allows the PN leader a little more room to prove himself and doesn’t take everything at face value.
‘Muscat is going to get the PN to disarm unilaterally while he stockpiles weapons’ – how true.
This is what happened in the past and there is the probability that it will happen in the future. A few words which should be read by the PN leadership.
Those who experienced the harsh realities of Malta under the MLP in the 70s and 80s are under no illusions that Joseph Muscat is only testing the waters to assess how far he can go down the same road.
Unlike the “switchers” they were never seduced by the propaganda lie of a “new” reformed Labour promising a Malta Taghna Lkoll but actually delivering a “Malta ghall-Laburisti Biss”.
Courteous diplomacy is one thing. Actually sipping a poisoned chalice is something else altogether.
Earlier this year, Joseph Muscat chose to make use of a US Presidential campaign style.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan’s Republican campaigners used a poster showing the picture of Jimmy Cater and Leonid Brezhnev kissing each other after the signing of the SALT II treaty on nuclear disarmament. Only that the Republicans added the words “You, too, can kiss off Carter” on their poster.
I trust that Dr. Busuttil and his team are old enough to remember this.
During these reciprocal visits I couldn’t help noticing Toni Abela’s sense of discomfort in the presence of Simon Busuttil.
Maybe, as you say, Toni (a lawyer himself) is aware that with Dr Busuttil “it’s the frost beneath the smile that you have to look at, and not the smile on the surface.”
How very true. Incredibly I still come across people who voted Nationalist and still have no idea what the honoraria issue really was about.
For them it was a ‘zieda ta’ hames mitt euro fil- gimgha’ and that was it.
They had no idea that it was in Lawrence Gonzi’s first term in office that MPs in Government employ were allowed to hold on to their government pay in addition to the ‘ hames mitt euro fil-gimgha’ they received as MPs.
Nor did they know that the issue wasn’t as underhand as it was made out to be.
Any MP or journalist worth his/her salt knew that the honoraria had been declared by the respective ministers and parliamentary secretaries in their Income Tax Return for 2008, and who conveniently left it under wraps for a couple of years.
The Labour media were also allowed to reduce important government initiatives that had merit but had also attracted a fair amount of criticism, to buzz words which stuck.
So the whole public transport reformation became ‘ bendy buses’. The Piano project became ‘ the roofless theatre’ and the power station became ‘heavy fuel oil’ or ‘ yellow pages’.
Ghidilhom PWG.
And here’s what those voters want now.
Look at the 5th and 6th comment on the Facebook link.
https://www.facebook.com/followsimonbusuttil/posts/651233058236503
[Daphne – If you mean ‘Frederick Buhagiar’, that is quite obviously a fake profile. Look at the profile picture and the 54 ‘friends’.]