The affairs of state: government reduced to the mentality of a band club committee
Now even meetings with the public are being used as branding opportunities rather than to meet the public. Those banners, eh? Lovely.
So let’s get this straight. When the prime minister holds a press conference, he keeps journalists on the steps to the office and he needs protection from a large lectern and a couple of threatening cannon.
But when he invites the public in for a faux meeting, he allows them as far as the courtyard at least (the meeting rooms upstairs are for fashion shows) and sits unprotected and ‘open’ on a stool.
Except that he isn’t open. Nobody there looks like they feel able to ask a difficult question. Even Milica Micovic (back row, orange shirt) kept her mouth shut for once, which is highly unusual. She only feels able to shout derogatory remarks at Nationalist politicians, I suppose, whereas she is politeness personified with the ones who actually stole her family’s bank.
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Look at the faces. There isn’t a single expression of approval.
It’s their presence that is an expression of approval. The audience are props.
I wonder how long these will last? Is he now going to bring in people’s courts too, to give more ” power to the people”?
Muscat cannot possibly listen to everyone’s complaints. And besides in this picture he seems to be doing all the talking. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way round?
Geez, it looks like that baldness in Maltese males is guaranteed.
Don’t include me, I am in my mid-fifties and still have a full head of hair.
That older lady in the orange has that “I was one of the Maltese nobility at one time but now I hang out with these working class losers ” look to her face.
Milicia Micovic: her mother was a Sant Fournier, major shareholders in the National Bank of Malta, stolen from them by Dom Mintoff’s Labour government in December 1973. How ironic.
Vera kaz ta’ sawwatni ha nitpaxxa.
Vera kaz ta’ Milicia Micovic: iddur ma’ kull rih, tmur fejn jitfaghha r-rih u malajr tiehu r-rih; sens ta’ ftit (ftit) logika xejn. Timxi mal-folla u tghajjat skond kif tghajjat il-folla.
Din tajba ghal mal-Labour. Halluha hemm please ghax mara bla logika bhal tal-Labour u mal-Labour sabet ‘home’.
So spontaneous; an old man puts a question and our dear Joseph reads the prepared notes .
Why didn’t he meet the press in that shaded courtyard instead of erecting that expensive platform on Castille’s steps in blazing sun?
Why that expensive big blue banner shouting at us that the government hears?
So people who are hard of hearing can read the big blue banner ?
Oh he’s wearing a suit, and the shirt has long sleeves.
This year’s Isle of MTV was a flop. Labour reduced its budget – bad sound, bad organisation…no name singers.
Janet Zammit
Good lovely morning my family and friends dalodu nixel fb u inseb li norman ta tvhemm tkecca mill pbs u hadt mifs kbir ax bdejna naraw id dawl lolll — feeling great.
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Janet Scicluna, Janet Zammit and 6 others like this.
So who will be replacing him ? John Bundy ?
Kollox ‘Like’ – pajjiz immexxi minn bicca buttuna tal- ‘Like’.
I think that the country is being run like a circus. The animals are there in their seats staring blankly at their trainers whose attention is directed solely to the public arena and its media.
When the show is over, all return to their cages. Nothing of substance is accomplished but the dream is saved, the pitchfork dream where Joseph and Lady Michelle cast out the evil Gonzi and happiness is returned to the forest.
Although I totally agree with you in substance, Daphne, I wouldn’t brush off the branding and marketing onslaught by the PL gurus because it works to convince the non-thinking and/or ignorant which, alas, makes up the majority of the population here.
It also convinces the illogical part of the brain of the “switchers” that they did the right thing, even though the logical half tells them.
I wish the PN did more trumpet-blowing when in power because Muscats’ marketing machine had everybody focussing on the cock-ups rather than the massive achievements of the PN. That’s what marketing does.
The Times today is full of non-news that is bound to impress people into thinking that they’ve elected a team of movers and shakers. They’ll be most impressed that Muscat intends to embarrass the islands and do a Mintoff by threatening the EU with a veto on unrelated issues if they don’t do as he says.
They’ll oooh because the government wants to revise the CVA scheme, and they’ll aah that the government wants to change parliament times.
They’ll marvel that Mallia intends to continue with his spot checks and surprise inspections, and they’ll be most impressed with Karmenu Vella’s insightful proclamation that “Tourist Satisfaction is the Way Forward” (duh!).
I have no doubt at all in my mind that most of the country find the tagging-along of the twins to official functions and even to non-official ones like last night’s MTV fest endearing … And fail completely to see the bigger picture.
He/she who is totally brainwashed cannot see through the trappings of the PL government.
People see what they want to see and are deaf to what they do not want to hear.
Four years and some months to go with this circus.
The way you put it, it just seems that it is going to be an eternity not just four years and some months that we have to endure this unbearable charade.
There is no doubt that these “Listening” sessions are a branding/marketing ploy. People in general and Maltese in particular prefer talking to, say, thinking or reading. It gives them a sense of importance and if the talking involves a complaint of sorts it is relieving.
With all the branding and marketing there is it is still axiomatic that you can’t fool all the people all of the time because ultimately ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating’.
This is after all the Labour version of the PN “Djalogu” but whereas the PN’s slogan suggests 2-way communication, Labour’s is just one-way. The former involves an effort on both interlocutors; in the case of the latter ‘a government that listens’ (what were they doing while in opposition?) is doing just that, hoping to provide some relief to the one talking (complaining?).
I’d say let them enjoy the circus and let us ‘enjoy’ the show. What they’re doing is giving the people the chance to examine the proverbial pudding. Sooner or later they will have to eat it, though some others still (dawk tal-qalba) will be spared the experience.
Hopefully the majority will be able to tell the difference between the taste of one pudding and the other. I say ‘hopefully’ because we’re talking of human behaviour and there’s nothing scientific about such behaviour.
Anyone who thinks these “listening” sessions achieve anything should look at the PN’s activities during the last five years. And then at the electoral result.
QED
The VIP section at the Isle of MTV concert yesterday was full of very important Labour people, including the government head of communications and Kurt Farrugia, the Labour mayor of Qormi Nuxellina and her boyfriend Quinton Jo of Super One TV, Alex ‘Tander’ Saliba, and with them Hugh Anastasi.
Mrs Kurt Farrugia was the worse for wear and felt ill. Kurt had to half-carry her out. Somebody tried to film the scene using a mobile phone, and Nuxellina went hysterical, shouting and trying to snatch the phone away.
They are surely making the most of it. I suppose the tickets were for free courtesy of the MTA or rather the Maltese taxpayer.
Sounds like one of those Soap Operas of the 90’s. ‘Ipokriti’ was it called?
What’s with Laburisti? They always look so grim and sullen. They should be in the seventh heaven now that they are in government.
This has nothing to do with this subject.
But i would like to ask some enterprising journalist to check:
1. How many delegations has been to Brussels on official business since the election;
2. What hotels were used and their cost.
3. Which hotels were normally used by the previous government officials and the cost.
4. How were the journalists that joined the delegation picked? If by ballot, who audited the ballot?
Ask your MP to ask those questions in parliament.
Yes – ask your MP to make a formal PQ and make sure he does get the correct answer. If not, keep on pestering him with the same questions over and over again.
Are those prompt cards that Muscat is holding in his hand? If so, were the questions pre-screened and approved?
What do you think ? No tele-prompter, so prompt cards and no impromptu questions.
I wonder whether Milica Micovic has the guts to repeat to Joseph Muscat what she said on several occasions about John Dalli and the National Bank of Malta saga.
You got this spot on. Even their official trips look like a band club holiday.
Why does the audience look so miserable after just 100+ days ?
They’re waiting just like the other 35,960 are. They are there, looking like suckers. I am here looking at the suckers.
Why can’t he do anything without props?
The audience’s composed of well known canvassers for the Labour party.
‘The people’.
‘The people’ look rather bored to tears. One lady in white dozed off while Rev Joseph was evangelising
I can see that Joe Dimech is showing his true colours now.
Joe Dimech is not into partisan politics. He’s just doing his job. If they picked him up to present the show, what could he do?
[Daphne – Decline politely, or accept politely.]
Look at the chairs they are using for this courtyard meeting.
I doubt they had enough upstairs to fill the courtyard, maybe topped up from the palace.
Bdabad.
That’s Joseph trying to show how non elitist he is. Unfortunately not only are we not going to survive the next four years and nine months, but neither is our heritage, with the amount of over weight people gracing those chairs with their fat arses.
The first 100 years of Joseph Muscat
http://www.scribd.com/collections/4175998/Joseph-Muscat-Prime-Minister-of-Malta-11th-March-2013
Gvern li jisma’ lil min? Almost everyone around him is a politically appointed person or closely knit to the PL. Basically the yes men and lick-asses.