Back to the Mintoff years: Official Labour Party tweet: “The Opposition is working against the national interest”

Published: June 1, 2013 at 1:19am

back to the mintoff era

I feel like telling them to go right ahead and dig their own ruddy grave, but the result of all this isn’t going to be pretty.

One hundred days in, and they’re lost, confused, panicking and paranoid already. Just a hundred days and the siege mentality has set in.

“Min muhiex maghna, kontra taghna.”

“Mhux fl-interess nazzjonali.”

“L-Opposizzjoni jahdmu kontra l-interess nazzjonali.”

“Il-Maltin flimkien kontra l-barranin.”

“Indhil barrani.”

“Ghedewwa tal-istat li jahdmu kontra l-interess ta’ Malta.”

To those of us who lived through the utter hell of the Golden Years, those words strike a chill to the heart. But even those who don’t remember them should be able to recognise them for what they are. But perhaps that’s wishful thinking. 160,000+ people either couldn’t see Muscat for the dangerous, incompetent and malicious sham he is, or they liked it.

What did I tell you? Mintoffjani are Mintoffjani are Mintoffjani are Mintoffjani.

And no amount of wishful thinking is going to change that. What – did you really imagine you could fantasise Muscat into anything other than a Mintoffjan? For God’s sake, he TOLD you himself that he was raised on a diet of Mintoff mass meetings by his Salvatur-obsessed grandmother and father.

You HEARD him adulating Mintoff. You SAW him kiss and mope over Mintoff’s touring coffin, like a character in some film about Hugo Chavez and a bunch of backward Venezuelans.

It’s bad enough that you couldn’t see, hear, read or bother with the evidence that was screaming, blaring, glaring right out at you re Joseph Muscat.

But when it comes to the others – the first generation Mintoffjani, the real McCoy, the ones who faffed around Mintoff, tacked themselves to his shirt-hem, sat in his cabinet – you really have no excuse. Dn’t tell me you actually thought dyed-in-the-wool, authentic Mintoffjani Mark I specimens like Louis Grech, Leo Brincat, Karmenu Vella, George Vella, Edward Scicluna, and Marie Louise Coleiro had somehow morphed into something different, despite their being at an age when people just don’t change.

Those are pure Mintoffjani, the real thing. We are being governed by Mintoffjani. There are six of the original lot actually in the cabinet (I may have missed out others; it’s late).

Paranoia and panic – after just a hundred days. They have five years to get through (and we with them) but they’re already taking hostages, pulling up the drawbridge and shooting all perceived enemies. Only a matter of months now, and they’ll all be carrying Thermos flasks with their own tea and coffee, as a precaution against being poisoned, just like their cheap, squalid and malicious hero Mintoff did (may God rot his soul).

I just can’t believe so many people didn’t see the inevitable. What was it that happened – the 21st-century, Maltese version of Tulip Fever?




30 Comments Comment

  1. P Shaw says:

    Recently I watched the mini-series documentary “House of Saddam”. This four-part series highlights the paranoia and siege mentality that overcame Saddam gradually over the years, where he ended up killing members of his own family out of this paranoia.

  2. Admin says:

    First they accused Tonio Fenech of ‘working against the national interest’ by speaking to the IMF (as though the IMF base themselves on what any politician says, rather than on their own research).

    Now it’s Simon Busuttil who is working against ‘the national interest’ and committing the heinous crime of ‘being negative’.

    http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130531/local/pl-accuses-pn-leader.472021

    • Jozef says:

      Note how the national interest may be hindered in Brussels.

      Ah, so it is the ‘Government’ that will be providing Maltese families with a power station then.

      Oops. Or better, are the two above inextricably linked?

      Somehow, this salesman’s election to office may carry some pretty tight conditions.

  3. ciccio says:

    They’ve got to blame someone when their plans to reduce the electricity tariffs and to deliver a gas power plant by March 2015 fail. So they are preparing for the eventuality with the first overtures.

  4. Makjavel says:

    Will we start seeing cabinet hangings?

    Soon enough they will start suspecting each other of leaks and betrayal, and cabinet meetings will involve instructions to leave phones at the door after a swift brush-down.

    The honeymoon isn’t over. There wasn’t one to begin with.

  5. canon says:

    Do you remember during the election campaign when the Nationalists speakers used to bring up Labour’s past in the discussions?

    Labour speakers were always quick to reply that the Nationalists were not thinking positive and they were still living in the past.

    Now, less than 100 days of Labour Government we can say that we have already been here with Labour 25 years ago. History is reapeating itself so soon.

  6. Ramona says:

    The upside being that the number of people already saying ‘OMG what have I done?’ is staggering. After just 100 measly days.

  7. Mandy Mallia says:

    “Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox”

    “Suldati ta’ l-azzar”

    “Nitnejjek mill-Kostituzzjoni”

    And let’s not forget that this vocabulary was the verbal manifestation of a slowly, then rapidly, deteriorating reality of violence, corruption, human rights abuses, extreme control, oppression and fear perpetrated by a paranoid government.

    People have argued with me that it is wrong for children to be involved in politics, but it is only with them knowing about the past that we can help avoid hstory repeating itself. Look at what so many adults have done, and how easily they were taken in when they were told what they wanted to hear.

  8. anthony says:

    This is far worse than 1971.

    Then Mintoff did get going, implementing various ideas he had in mind. It wasn’t really disastrous right from the very start.

    You did not necessarily have to agree with the way he went about doing things. It is undeniable,however, that he managed to get things moving after the lethargy that had clouded the last months of the Borg Olivier administration.

    This time the PL seems unable to extricate itself from opposition mode.

    Three months into a PL government and the PN is already being blamed for all things going wrong.

    This stance does not forebode well at all.

    It is an attitude that spells disaster.

  9. Min Jaf says:

    Next will be the hotels and catering establishments, for damaging the state finances by employing foreigners, i.e. EU citizens, when there are so many Maltese out of work; businessmen for importing goods instead of producing them in Malta; banks for refusing to lend money to prospective property purchasers whose career is living on social benefits; and, eventually, compulsory hours of community work for students as a condition for receiving stipends.

  10. edgar says:

    Of course that the switchers saw through all these Mintoffian skeletons but most of them voted PL because they are born losers and were jealous to see people doing well in life.

    Joseph Muscat knows this and that is why he keeps on mentioning that people on boards will be paid much less. This will satisfy their sick minds but at the same time piss off the people appointed who will get less than they expected.

  11. P Sant says:

    Daphne, you should have seen the new Police Commissioner addressing a press conference live on TVHemm yesterday in all pomp and explaining that “unlike previously” he will be addressing such press conferences in future “to put the people’s mind at rest”.

    FFS, our mind will be at rest when we see the Police Commissioner get off his effing seat and get to work so that the murderer is caught.

    [Daphne – It was a gangland killing. Why would anybody want their minds put at rest? This isn’t the Yorkshire Ripper we’re talking about. Great start to his new job.]

    • P Sant says:

      It’s on 9:08:00 on Friday’s screen.

    • maryanne says:

      Teatrin. He didn’t tell us anything of news value. On the contrary, he couldn’t answer the first question put to him about the ‘area’ of the murder case.

      I am still waiting for his press conference on Dalligate. Don’t we deserve an update on what’s happening?

    • Snoopy says:

      A full press conference to tell us that this was a premeditated murder directed against the victim only – you need to have three Ph.D.s to reach that conclusion.

      [Daphne – Bil-mod, Snoopy. Don’t forget how many people thought that Joseph was the smart choice.]

    • ciccio says:

      Did anybody call a press conference with the identikit of a “political murderer” who is still on the run after striking last Christmas?

    • V Brincat says:

      Il-Kumissarju taghna lkoll is adopting the taghna lkoll strategy… full of gloss hiding the load of crap.

  12. Melita says:

    I have to say it in Maltese – English is no comparison in this situation- wicchom u sormom xorta.

    So they spend five years being destructive and duping his followers that elections were on the doorstep. They put spokes in the wheel at every opportunity. If I remember well, the PL even sent a delegation to Dubai to try and stop the Smart City project and they have the brazen face to say that opposition doesn’t have the national interest at heart.

    Isthu jekk tafu (including the switchers).

    • Josette says:

      Another Maltese saying comes to mind: “il-qaħba milli jkollha ttik”.

      Since they were constantly putting spokes in the previous Government’s wheels and to hell with the national interest, they think that the current opposition will act like them. Pathetic, immature, unscrupulous, power hungry, snide – one and all.

      My father is right – Labour will never change and only fools expect them to (or think them capable of doing it).

    • SA says:

      Yet their people are so gullible. They believe anything they tell them.

  13. Wistin Schembri says:

    Remember Orwell’s Newspeak? A suitable antidote to the evolving situation may be the compilation of a Maltese Newspeak Dictionary, eg:

    billboard: the springboard to a board

    eternal: between 6.00pm and 6.00am

    permanent: as long as the Leader wishes (eg permanent secretary)

    meritocracy: a centrally-controlled system whereby those who made life hell for Gonzi are rewarded using the taxpayers’ money

  14. PWG says:

    At a charity auction yesterday evening, very well attended mainly by the tal-pepe crowd, a watercolour by kenneth Zammit Tabona, set at half price, attracted no bids and was the only piece that remained unsold.

  15. Gahan says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNjQ2DqWTlc

    and to put the cherry on the cake:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wri7z8gmKUc

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIlaQh1JG7Q

    Weren’t all these speakers working against the national interest?

  16. Edward says:

    Here’s another little-known flaw in the ‘think positive’ philosophy.

    Thinking positive while out to persue one’s goals is a personal thing. It’s something you tell yourself when the going gets tough.

    It is not the cause of one’s achievement, should you ever get to that place you wanted to get to. It does not rearrange the universe so that you get what you want.

    Yes, that is exactly what these ‘think positive’ lunatics believe and if you don t believe me, you can see it for yourself in all their books and DVDs.

    Equally, those who point out what one is doing wrong are not rearranging the universe so that you don’t get what you want.

    A great example of this is X factor and BGT auditions: “I want this so much there is no way I’m not going to get it”, say the terrible singers who were only chosen to provide entertainment and give Simon Cowell a chance to say the things viewers like to hear him say.

    The mistake these auditionees make is they have deluded themselves.

    They haven’t realise the reality of the situation, that there are hundreds of people auditioning on that day alone and there are only a few spots up for grabs so wanting it has got little to do with the price of fish, you also have to be very very talented, have had some training (the pub doesn’t count) and, let’s not forget, be extremely lucky.

    Muscat and his followers have deluded themselves. Delusion is a common affliction among the Labour Party.

    They firmly believe that they have the identity of Malta, and anyone who criticises them is a threat to the forging of that identity.

    The PN isn’t another party, but a traitor, and standing in the way of their dream.

    The problem with Labour is that they believe in this dream so much, mainly because they are completely unaware that they are wrong about all their prejudices against the PN, that they will keep pushing it and enforcing it onto those who don’t want it.

    And those who don’t want it, and say so, are seen as traitors.

    • Joe Fenech says:

      Positive thinking is crucial for social engineering (wide spread philosophy in the USA and the UK).

      In lay terms it’s called ‘dangling a carrot’.

      • Edward says:

        I am so glad you said that. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about that:

        In his classic political science book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, volume I, The Spell of Plato, Karl Popper examined the application of the critical and rational methods of science to the problems of the open society.

        In this respect, he made a crucial distinction between the principles of democratic social engineering (what he called “piecemeal social engineering”) and Utopian social engineering.

        Popper wrote:

        The piecemeal engineer will adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evil of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good.[4]

        According to Popper, the difference between “piecemeal social engineering” and “Utopian social engineering” is:

        the difference between a reasonable method of improving the lot of man, and a method which, if really tried, may easily lead to an intolerable increase in human suffering. It is the difference between a method which can be applied at any moment, and a method whose advocacy may easily become a means of continually postponing action until a later date, when conditions are more favorable.

        And it is also the difference between the only method of improving matters which has so far been really successful, at any time, and in any place, and a method which, wherever it has been tried, has led only to the use of violence in place of reason, and if not to its own abandonment, at any rate to that of its original blueprint.[4]

  17. Wayne Hewitt says:

    Daphne, you forgot the proverbial ‘hofra’.

    Sibna hofra… daqshekk skejjel godda.

    Oops sorry, no thank you… you dug your own ‘hofra’ by recruiting the largest cabinet in history and employing hundreds of Labour voters in the civil service for payback.

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