The prime minister’s fishwife-style of responding to legitimate questions or accusations is getting all too predictable
Joseph Muscat, ever since I knew him back in the 1990s when he was a Super One reporter, has always had the exact same style of responding when he feels himself accused and in a corner.
This can best be summed up as “ghax ma tmurx tara x’taghmel int“.
Unfortunately, most people – rival politicians and reporters quizzing him – do not know how to handle this. They are taken aback, left unsure how to reply and so don’t respond at all.
They sense that the equivalent fishwife-style response, of course, would be a volley of abuse or sarcastic remarks, but that’s not acceptable. And so they say nothing.
The reality is that there is a perfectly acceptable and civilised response to his fishwife-style retorts which are basically all in the “ghax ma tmurx tara” vein (including his retort to Cecilia Maelstrom, which was, essentially, “ghax ma tmurx tohodhom int, mela“).
The perfectly acceptable and civilised response is to hold him to the question. “That’s not what you are being asked here.” And then to press your point home.
When Muscat feels he is under attack – and this was demonstrated throughout the campaign, in debates and press conferences, so we did not have to wait until he was prime minister to see it displayed – he becomes sarcastic and tosses off arrogant and supercilious retorts that have nothing at all to do with what he is being asked.
His tone and reaction are bitchy and not placatory. He does not acknowledge the fact that his rival politicians and journalists working for the free press are doing what they are meant to do. This in itself is offensive.
This morning we had the latest such incident. Timesofmalta.com reports on the prime minister’s latest foray into ‘ghax ma tmurx tara x’ghamilt int – mela int tista tghid xi haga‘ style of bitching-in-an-alley communication:
PM asked about declarations of assets
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning he always believed the declarations of assets submitted by ministers, including this time.
Asked if he believed the declarations submitted by his ministers last Wednesday, Dr Muscat said:
“I believe them as I believed those submitted in previous years.”
Asked whether he was worried that Dr Mallia had €500,000 in cash, Dr Muscat said what he was worried about were undeclared accounts in Switzerland.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130719/local/muscat-asked-about-declarations-of-assets.478679
In other words he admitted he does not trust those declarations. This is not what was promised.
The prime minister is practically stating that all those who voted for change have been fooled.
Is it me, or is a major reshuffle in the drug dealing sector nearing a conclusion?
And how dare he face trial, all those juicy details.
He is typical of the majority of Maltese.
No one picks him up on it because it seems perfectly normal, which of course it is in Malta.
He doesn’t give a monkey’s chuff what the Times readers think of his reply. He assumes all Times readers are PN voters and treats them with contempt. The ace up his sleeve is One media.
Unless the PN can get down and dirty, expect the equivalent of a one-party state in Malta indefinitely.
Tweedledum Mallia declared that his BOV loan amount would be disclosed later. What’s the big problem? A phone call to his BOV manager would have made all clear within 20 minutes, I’m sure, and he did not have to phone his PL buddy John Cassar White to intervene to enable him keep the 16.07 deadline.
B’min tridu tghaddu biz-zmien?
Pastaz zgur!
The PM is using the method that the best form of defence is to attack.
Therefore, when questioned about something for which he is unable to answer, he replies with a statement intended only at putting the party questioning him immediately in defence.
Say he is asked “Can Muscat explain how he worked out the Euro 7,000 p.a. compensation for use of his personal car,” Muscat would retort with “Can the PN government explain how they computed the amount of Euro 500 per week ?” And so on.
Now this is tricky, but childish, and it is only the attitude of a bully in the primary school. “U mhux int…”
This method works with the weak.
As Daphne says, it is up to the media to do its duty and expose this attitude and lack of serious transparency. This is also lack of respect to the media.
The duty of the media is to keep asking the question until it really gets no answer – this is to be expected in the case of Muscat – but it must be clear that it is getting no answer.
To keep our dear PM ‘accountable’ our national broadcaster is employing the best journalist around. She is the partner of ONE News boss and PL candidate Manuel Micallef.
Obviously there’s no need for a call for applications or a selection process. Issa ghandna l-power naghmlu li rridu.
And even worse, this sort of reply and tactic goes down well with half of the nation, so much so that I’m getting similar responses when discussing politics.
Maltese stock phrases to shut up your interlocutor:
“Tghidliex hekk ghax niehu ghalijja”
“Tergax isemmieha ghax niksruha”
“Mela ma tafdaniex?”
People voted for Joseph Muscat and Labour because they wanted change.
That was the mantra.
He cannot keep trying to justify his actions and choices by accusing the previous administration of doing the same or similar, sometimes even erroneously.
It is an insult to our intelligence.
[Daphne – Quite frankly, on the basis of how easy he found it to sell his false product to the market with overwhelming results, Muscat may well have reached the conclusion that we have little or no intelligence.]
Beware of men on white horses.
http://www.budapesttimes.hu/2013/07/19/analysis-2/
“What is perhaps most intriguing about Orbán is the distance he has travelled since the late 1980s when he identified as a liberal and mixed comfortably with civil society organisations. Fidesz, Gati points out, was “a liberal party that was a member of the so-called Liberal International, together with the Free Democrats, but they were more dynamic, more energetic. Orbán was a dynamo of a leader, and I understood even then that he had ambitions. He was a real politician – and I say that in the best sense of the word. Little did I anticipate then… that he would turn out to be a nationalist demagogue.””
http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/dof/italy/images/Musso/horse.jpg
A normal person would consider the inconsistencies in the Ministers’ declarations an insult to his/her intelligence.
The PM doesn’t seem to realise that those declarations actually make him look like a fool besides raising a number of questions about the activities of his ministers.
But then he is not exactly known for his well-honed analytical skills is he?
The problem is that he thinks that he is witty…..British humour?
I’m sorry, but do you actually even know any British people? This is as UnBritish as anything I can think of.
Ah sorry I didn’t realise Joseph himself thinks his humour is British. I have been out of the news loop for a while.
And yet he’s more popular than Simon Busuttil.
Let’s face it, Daphne, Maltese people love to be lead by bitches and drama queens. I see it in everyday life here. The more brazen and sassy you are in your arguments, the more Maltese people will love you.
On the other hand the more correct and right you are, the more insufferable, delusional or ‘dejjaq’ people think you are .
That is his legacy – Joseph Muscat the sassy bitch who stamps his feet versus Lawrence Gonzi the statesman.
This so called Prime Minister was not able to provide a simple form to his uncontrollable crowd of ministers and parliamentary secretaries where they can fill in the details of their immovable properties complete with addresses, the value of the shareholding in companies they and their spouses own, the detailed amounts in bank accounts, pensions, salaries and honoraria…not forgetting to include an OTHER ASSETS box so that Mallia can key in his half a million euros.
I read somewhere that the declarations of assets were handwritten, and that some were almost illegible or difficult to decipher.
It’s becoming evidently clear that Malta’s Prime Minister can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.
You vote Joseph on a promise of doing better than the PN and being the best in Europe and what do you get?
A cross between a Burmarrad redneck and Pythia speaking gibberish, interpreted to be “Wise words of the great leader or “British humour”, which not everyone can understand and appreciate.
When Joseph Muscat speaks that way, he turns my stomach. Bil-Malti, idardarni.
Muscat response indicates that he doesn’t respect the disclosure statements implemented by Dr. Fench Adami for the ministers. Obviously, he thinks it is a useless process. So it begs the question: with this in his mind why did he bother with the disclosure statements?
What a farcical government.