In their determination not to quote me, Malta Today misses out on the real news
You’ll find this story on Malta Today’s front page, today:
MUSCAT MED CRUISE KEPT A SECRET
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s current holiday on board a cruise liner in the Eastern Mediterranean has been kept a secret. The prime minister has been with friends and family on a cruise for the last week. A spokesman from the Office of the Prime Minister was unwilling to confirm or deny that Muscat was on a cruise.
The decision not to announce the destination of the PM’s holiday parts with protocol and tradition. His predecessors preferred a break in the Dolomites to a trip at sea.
It wasn’t a secret. I broke the news last Sunday, which is how Malta Today found out, though they won’t say so, of course. I gave the name of the cruise ship, the local agent, and the port from which the cruise departed. If by ‘secret’ Malta Today means that the PM’s office didn’t make the obligatory announcement up ahead of departure, then it should have said so specifically. It’s not the failure to announce the destination which breaks the rules, but the failure to announce the fact that the PM is away from the country and on holiday, full-stop.
It fits right in, however, with his dictator approach: “No need to accord the electorate the basic respect of telling them that the prime minister is absent. The prime minister does what he likes.”
Link below.
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http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/08/do-not-disturb-il-prim-ministru-michelle-soleil-u-etoile-marru-cruz-local-agent-maltas-envoy-to-the-court-of-st-james/
Infatti. Qisu l-iblah.
At least we know that if this cruise ship sinks, the captain will not be the first one to flee for safety.
…flee to safety…
Muscat was accompanied by Norman Hamilton etc.
The flipside to this story is that we don’t officially know who is acting prime minister while the official one takes a break from being on holiday.
I’ll have a go for a couple of hours.
Yes, right. In effect, Malta is without a resident prime minister. The great unwashed couldn’t be expected to understand the seriousness of Muscat’s offence, but the switchers,carpers, and pretentious laburisti can’t claim not to know better.
The fact that he can leave without anyone blinking an eyelid shows how pretty useless he is anyway.
The country has been left to its own devices. On cruise control.
The thing is that to Joseph Muscat and his wife Michelle, being prime minister (it’s a joint operation) is some kind of a great adventure for a couple of hicks.
How can the electorate be incensed when it knows nothing about protocol?
And how are they supposed to know when the Opposition, whose role it is to hold the government to account, does not inform them of these serious shortcomings?
We’ve been Prime Minister-less since March 2013.
Muscat has never worked in his life – or to be factual, never did any actual work where it counts.
Consequently, don’t expect him to work in his 40s if he did not perform when he was supposed to be full of energy and initiative in his 20s and 30s (sucking and hanging to Sant’s tailcoat does not count as initiative).
Accompanied by Norman Hamilton and Josette Grech I am informed. Is that correct?
I think we’re missing one important characteristic of Muscat’s time in office.
He only wants to enjoy it. Even his wife admitted a few times that she’s going to make the most out of these next five years, already giving her husband a shelf life of one term.
Yes, and make the most of it they will. For them, this is not a chance to serve the country, it is a chance to live it up, be seen and go on holiday.
Sure, the Maltese can’t afford to buy meat and the PM thinks that it’s perfectly all right for him to go on a cruise. If what he had said was correct, and if he was serious about it, then he wouldn’t even dream of splashing out like that.
But none of it was true. He just wanted to appeal to the ignorance of the masses just so that he can get into power and be Prime Minister and live it up in the Med for five years.
Well, we knew that already, didn’t we?
The Muscats see a term in office as five years of freeloading, poncing about with The High Society, imagining they’re among the world”s elite. Syria? Where’s that? Unemployment? Who, me? Corruption in the justice system? Ghax ma tarax x’taghmel int.
Yes we knew that, but how any people actually worked to show their intentions for what they were?
Few if any worked hard to get round their ignorant come-backs and just sat there defeated thinking that Muscat must be right if he can say something like that.
Kids should be taught to stand up against bullies, so that as adults we can stand up against people like Muscat.
The system in Malta rallies round the bully – even this is a lesson learnt at school.
Last I heard on more than one count, it’s not the bully who’s pressured by school administrators to correct his behaviour, but the victim – to change school.
Shocking that discipline by the feeble school administration isn’t stricter, but some children are safe in the knowledge that they won’t ever be expelled.
Outside of school things don’t change: from one profession to another, in Malta and out, the credentials of a Maltese bully earn him a false but legalised respect.
If kids in Malta are to learn anything one should start from basic definitions.
I bet Joseph will put on a few more kilos during this cruise and many more by the end of his term in office.
On my last cruise I gained three kilos in a week, stayed on the deck and in my balcony room reading Herbert Ganado’s “Rajt Malta Tinbidel”.
Please note that “free food” and restaurants plus free deliveries of food to the room are too tempting. I only touched the water in Cannes.
I bet that we will see tight clothing on Joseph in the wreath-laying ceremony next Sunday, the 8th of September.
Can always borrow a suit from Mallia.
What a waste of time.
@ Harry
Too late. Mallia is borrowing his clothes from Joe Grima.
Joe Grima is borrowing his from Hagar Qim.
Mintoffjani bhal Joseph thrive on freebies. We’ll probably have another Tony Zarb as PM when he comes back.
I bet my bottom dollar that the first question Joseph Muscat asked himself after taking the oath of office was “What do I do now?”. Five months on and he still does not know the answer. We do.
I’ll bet he didn’t – he’s a know it all who isn’t aware of his own intellectual limits.
So all hell breaks lose when a minister goes to watch a football match with a businessman, but it’s just fine for the prime minister to go on a cruise while his police minister hounds a police officer for doing the right thing.
The party propaganda apparatus may be trying to make Muscat and associates appear cool like some Drake finishing his game of bowls as the Spanish Armada approached England.
He only succeeds in projecting himself as a Nero playing his harp while Rome burned and the Christians were being framed for the emperor’s misdeed..
Is-soltu, fl-assenza tal-Prim Ministru mill-pajjiz, ma jithabbarx l-isem tal-Agent Prim Ministru fil-Gazzetta tal-Gvern jew stqarrija tad-DOI?
Karmenu Vella
The Prime Minister’s holiday on board a cruise liner in the Eastern Mediterranean was no secret. Daphne told us about it a week ago. Perhaps nobody desired to publicise the event not to alarm the poor local population with the spectre of the great man’s absence.
Had somebody from Malta Today bothered to read the Government Gazette, he would have come up with:
Government Notices published in Govt. Gazette No. 19,126 of the 23rd August 2013 No. 768
ACTING PRIME MINISTER
IT is notified for general information that, acting on the advice of the Prime Minister, the President of Malta has directed Hon. Karmenu Vella, B.A. (Arch. Stud.), B.Arch. (Hons.), A.&C.E., M.Sc. (Tourism), M.P., Minister for Tourism, assumes the additional duties of the Prime Minister, on Friday, 23rd August, 2013, during the absence from Malta of the Hon. Joseph Muscat, K.U.O.M., B.Com., B.A. (Hons.), M.A. (European Studies), Ph.D (Bristol), M.P.
21st August, 2013
Why is it that Louis Grech is never acting PM when Muscat is away? This time it was Karmenu Vella and last time George Vella.
http://gov.mt/en/Government/Government%20Gazette/Government%20Notices/Pages/2013/08/Government-Notices-23-08.aspx
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130901/local/president-on-private-visit-to-italy.484449
Why is the president making a point of being away on 8 September?
That’s when a pontifical mass is celebrated at St John’s Cathedral: 8 September marks the victory of the Knights of St John in the Ottoman siege.
Now some bright spark in Maltese history wants to do things differently and has demanded that the bishop(s) celebrate a pontifical mass first in Senglea, next year in Naxxar and then in Mellieha – all these places celebrate the feast of Our lady of Victories better known as Il-Bambina.
I don’t think this can be done because there are probably written obligations to which the Maltese Curia must oblige.
So on 8 September the government MPs will probably go to the pontifical mass at Senglea while the Archbishop will celebrate the official pontifical thanksgiving mass for the 1565 Vit(t)orja over the Turks.
Now we will see if there is a separation between the church and the state. This time round it is the government which is presenting the church with a fait accompli as to where the mass should be held.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151846343115469&set=a.76571780468.113804.69858080468&type=1&theater
http://www.maltadiocese.org/posts/detail/2-8-ta-settembru.37595
Is-Sibt
8.30 a.m. L-Arċisqof jiċċelebra Quddiesa u jbierek l-oqbra tal-Kavallieri, fil-KonKatidral ta’ San Ġwann, il-Belt Valletta.
9.30 a.m. L-Arċisqof jippresiedi l-ewwel laqgħa ta’ sessjoni ġdida tal-Kunsill Presbiterali, l-Kurja.
7.00 p.m. L-Arċisqof jiċċelebra Quddiesa Pontifikali fl-okkażjoni tal-Festa Nazzjonali ta’ Jum il-Vitorja, fil-Bażilka tal-Isla.
Il-Ħadd
9.30 a.m. L-Arċisqof imexxi Quddiesa Pontifikali fl-okkażjoni tal-Festa tal-Vitorja fil-Konkatidral ta’ San Ġwann, Valletta.
So the archbishop will preside over two pontifical masses one in Senglea on the eve of the feast and the traditional one which has always been celebrated on the day.
Now we have five national feasts and one of them will have two pontifical masses.
In The Sunday Times today:
Archbishop’s engagements
Saturday
8.30am The Archbishop celebrates Mass and blesses the tombs of the Knights at St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta.
9.30am He presides over the first meeting of a new session of the Presbyteral Council at the Curia.
7pm He celebrates Pontifical Mass on the National Day of Our Lady of Victories at Our Lady of Victories Basilica, Senglea.
Sunday
9.30am The Archbishop celebratres a Pontifical High Mass on the Feast of Our Lady of Victories.
6pm The Archbishop celebrates Mass at St Paul’s Bay parish church on the occasion of the perpetual religious profession of the Augustian Sisters Roseann Azzopardi and Sandra Gauci.
So here we’re differentiating between national day and feast, where the national day will have a pontifical mass while on the feast day pontifical high mass will be celebrated.
What a mess.
Who will be acting president when George Abela is away next week?
Louis Grech would be acting prime minister. It should have been published in the Government Gazette.
The PM being away on holiday has now become a real embarrassment for the PL. It is no wonder they attempt to conceal the fact.
Nobody notices his absence, which is a good thing.
This means that he is totally ineffectual.
This is also a good thing.
I wouldn’t mind contributing to a fund intended to foot the bills for him to stay away on holiday for the next four years and a half years.
His occasional presence on the Island so far has only been somewhat of a liability.