Stop it with the “36,000”. It means jack.
Can we stop this ‘36,000’ business, for all our sakes? It’s mathematical and political nonsense.
A majority of 36,000 is the result of a movement of 18,000 people, not 36,000 people. I’m bored with explaining this.
If you start off from a draw – an equal number of supporters for each party – and you take 18,000 supporters from the PN and give them to Labour, PN is down by 18,000 and Labour is up by 18,000, which means that the GAP BETWEEN THEM, which is what the majority is, is of 36,000. But only 18,000 people have moved.
And another point: it’s not ‘36,000’ who voted Labour, but a hell of a lot more than that. What was it – 166,000?
If I hear another idiot say that ‘36,000 voted Labour’, I am going to walk away with my drink before I deliberately spill it over them. If it were only 36,000 people who voted Labour, then the Nationalist Party would have practically the entire parliament to itself.
And if it really were 36,000 people who moved from the PN to Labour, then Labour would have had a majority of 72,000, of course allowing for the 750 people who made for the majority in 2008.
I keep hearing Simon Busuttil’s voice saying “36,000 people can’t be wrong” and wondering why he didn’t get the maths right, to say nothing of the philosophy, as obviously, any number of people can be bloody wrong.
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Yes, I remember when I heard him saying that, I felt personally insulted. I’m still waiting for his promised ‘home visit’ to give him a piece of my mind about that particular gaffe.
Simon is really getting on your nerves isn’t he?
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The gap itself is not even 36000.
35107 rounds down, not up – to 35,000.
The Elve (sic) handbook includes guidance for comments on timesofmalta.com with that as a standard reply. Eg. Comment 1 – JPO punched a kid. What kind of idiot does that or worse what idiot appoints him to public office? Reply – 36,000.
Other variations / guidance in the elvin bible:
A) comments / articles involving money / corruption, mention €500 per week (can be increased to €600 to further emphasise / once memories fade) also can use Swiss account reference.
B) comments / articles involving back to the 70s/80s, mention the 40s/50s or 87.
C) comments / articles involving individual ministers, mention Austin Gatt.
D) comments / articles involving anything else or if stuck for reply, use 36,000 reply or negative attitude reply (ma tghallimitu xejn).
Chapter 10 includes a note to elves to also post supporting comments on MaltaToday, Franco’s blog and Maltastar using creativity provided references to one of A to D is included.
It’s not just language skills where the challeges are; there’s an even bigger one in math. Simon Busuttil seems to have fallen victim to it too.
Frankly, I am starting to prefer Joseph Muscat to Simon Busuttil. There, Simon, you have just made the Labour majority greater by 2.
Daphne, for heaven’s sake let Simon Busuttil think it is 36000.
The moment he realises it is half that number, he will start devoting all his time to presenting FORCINA.
Of course they can be wrong. And how. As if truth has ever been determined by majority vote.
Frankly, I don’t know what’s wrong with Simon Busuttil and the PN. I can only think that it’s one of three possible scenarios.
1. The PN couldn’t be fagged to fight back because they are still enjoying their holiday after 25 years (minus 18 months) of governing.
2. They are biding their time. These are still early days of the legislature after all and with a nine-seat majority there is no way they’re going to pull a Mintoff as they did with Sant. This “tactic” is so misguided it’s not even funny.
3. Simon Busuttil’s leadership skills are as puny as his physique and the only guy who’s a fighter worth his salt in the PN and who seems to be doing all the heavy lifting is Jason Azzopardi.
I would argue that in all three cases, for varied reasons, we’re as screwed as the cap on the bottle of Earl Grey on a certain chairman’s bedside table, and we won’t come unscrewed as easily either.
Majteswel disband the whole sideshow and just keep the new cafe’/restaurant at the Stamperija. Hopefully Busuttil makes a decent capuccino at least.
20k at a stretch, as of 2008. A swing is a swing.
While you are right that 36,000 means a swing of 18,000, a 36,000 majority means that 36,000 more people voted Labour over PN, which means that Simon Busuttil is also right when saying 36,000 who preferred Labour must have had their reasons for doing so.
Whether their choice was right or wrong with the benefit of hindsight, may today be a completely different issue altogether.
How can you make the assumption that they started off from a (near) draw with an equal number of supporters? I don’t think it’s mathematically correct to use the previous close electoral results as the baseline.
In each election they all start off from zero, technically, and the votes simply add up from there. Therefore there is nothing mathematically incorrect when saying that PL won with a 36,000-vote majority.
If a third major party sprang out of nowhere in 5 years’ time and they garner 18,000 votes, would it be correct to say those 18,000 are a result of the movement of 12,000 people from the other two major parties then, since they all start off from a draw?
[Daphne – The core vote of both political parties is roughly equal. Whether this general election represented a seminal shift away from that remains to be seen, at the next general election. But all the evidence indicates that the shift, though magnificent, was superficial. It was largely related not to policy but to the loss of glamour by one party and its acquisition by another.]
The PN is honoured with a bold and tenacious leader for whom swinging 18,000 voters is like mixing flour, eggs and butter: a piece of cake, when baked.
Suffice to say that if he gets a third of a vote for every hand he shakes at festas, it’s Joseph who’ll be shaking by 2018.
“Ghal xofer,” he will say, Joseph will.
That will be a close shave indeed. But come 2023 it’s no-more-xofers time for Joseph, and he’ll have to deliver the proof before he eats the whole pudding, or it will be Simon all the way by 2028, unless Joseph somehow survives till 2033, which is not unlikely but for the tenacity of the PN leader himself, which ensures, assures and reassures that Joseph will stand no chance at all in 2038.
Another glaring truth is that it is not the success of PL tactics which made the switch but grassroots power. Judging by the force of political power, politicians still do not believe they are not the only source of power. The political feat would be keeping a balance of power.
Not a fan of Vassallo but he was very right here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsRiZC6jL4w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03IjT064woc
PL brought 36K more votes than the PN. An unprecedented fact by Maltese electoral standards. Dr. Busuttil is referring to the majority and he cannot be wrong.
[Daphne – ‘Brought more votes’. Gab izjed voti.Stenna halli nhabbat rasi mal-hajt.]
I will not say that if I were you. True Labourite supporters will start flooding this site with grammatical errors, until you sustain concussive injuries.
Next time I’ll be more attentive, lest you hurt yourself.
Ehmm, everyone can be wrong, even Dr Busuttil.
And this 18K (or as you would have it 36K) is especially wrong and Joseph Muscat appears to be spending all his waking hours giving us further proof of how wrong they were.
Has anyone ever had an argument with a Laburist who kept on using “36,000 disagree with you!” as if it somehow invalidates your opinion?
God, it makes my blood boil, as does the thought of Simon Busuttil saying “36,000 people can’t be wrong.”
36,000 means that 18,000 + people were stupid enough to swallow Joseph’s deceit and bile. Being part of a crowd does not make a person right; it might make give that person safety in numbers and the comfort of knowing that others think like him or are as gullible as him but it does not make him necessarily right. Think of those millions who in the past voted for such people as HItler and Mussolini.
I must admit that I’m one of the guilty using that term even though I know it’s not correct, but let me explain my reasoning.
People won’t understand 18,000 but they can relate to 36,000. Besides 36,000 is more dramatic when you’re trying to drive home the message that a large number of disgusting people chose their own interests over the better good. It also includes people who think they’re clever but in reality are not.
The rest of the 166,000 are hopeless cases who will vote Labour all their life.
I am a horrible mathematician but I always knew that that number was wrong. I felt it in my bones that there couldn’t be so many stupid people in Malta.
Most Maltese can’t divide by 2.
The time was ripe for a Labour win. You had a PN weakened by a couple of scoundrels, an extensive time in office, useless PM advisors – and a host of other problems which poor intellect and gullibility ‘solved’ by voting in the glitzy Red Brigade.
Then you had a little batch of disheartened sensible people who faced the dilemma of “I’ve had enough of my partner, but my only alternative is shagging a whore”. In moments of crisis, carnal bounty is hard to resist.
Frankly, this was one election when not being eligible to vote in Maltese elections was something I appreciated.
“A majority of 36,000 is the result of a movement of 18,000 people, not 36,000 people. I’m bored with explaining this”. No, your argument is only partially true though basically correct. For it to be completely true, all but those 18,000 would have had to vote exactly as in 2008 and those 18,000 switched from voting PN to voting PL. In actual fact, some of the 18,000 did not move from anywhere because they had abstained in 2008 or were first-time voters in 2013 or had voted for candidates other than PN ones in 2008. How many voters switched from PN to PL is not all that important. What matters is the 36,000 majority. Obtaining a majority of 36,000 is a difficult feat indeed and — using your argument — it is a difficult feat indeed to get 18,000 to switch from party A to party B because the two things are simply two sides of the same coin. This means that, at the end of the day, it makes no difference whether one speaks of a majority of 36,000 or of 18,000 switchers — both hypotheses are equally easy or equally difficult to realize. If you get 18,000 switchers, you get 36,000 majority and vice-versa. It does not diminish the PL victory if you say they only got 18,000 switcher rather than 36,000 majority.
[Daphne – Oh for God’s sake. Dealing with this website is enough to make me top myself at times. Diminishing the Labour victory? No. I just find it offensive when people bandy numbers about in a meaningless way. Numbers are numbers. They’re not ‘an opinion.’ No wonder so many people fail their maths O-level here.]
What I wrote is not an opinion but mathematical reasoning and it is correct. If you can detect a flaw, please go ahead and shoot the logic — try not to hit me in the process, if you don’t mind. I did not fail my math “O” level, that much and some more I can guarantee. The gist is that speaking of a majority of 36,000 is the same as speaking of 18,000 switchers (barring those who did not switch from anywhere). If your argument is that it takes 18,001 to overturn the 36,000 majority, you’re correct, of course. That’s all there is to it. Mathematical certainty. QED.
[Daphne – Yes. That’s my argument.]
Dan Simon se jqabbizieli.
He needs to go if PN hope to win the next election.
jqabbizhieli
And half of 1500 is 750. Phew!
[Daphne – Yes, Anthony, and I take it you weren’t one of them. And then when I tell people who aren’t from our neighbourhood that Stella Maris parish in Sliema is a den of Labour voters, almost as bad as the Lazy Corner, they think I’m joking.]
The phrase “36000 can’t be wrong” is wrong.
Yes, they can be wrong and in the first six months it has been proved almost every day that these 36000 where wrong with their choice on the 9th of March, Democracy is a good thing but it is far from perfect.
If Simon Busuttil ever tells ME that, I would retort: ask the Jews whether 36,000 (sic) can be wrong.
I’m finding the man insufferable.
36,000 can’t be wrong …. says Simon … but we, who proudly voted the Nationalist Party and believed that it was the right choice in the last election, are wrong?
I am rapidly losing faith in Simon.
Not only is he turning into a Muscat doormat, but he is now failing to protect those he was elected to lead.
May I remind him of a quotation from The Art of War by Sun-tzu: To fail to take the battle to the enemy when your back is to the wall is to perish.
No, Vanni, do not give up on Simon. Allow me, please, to Sun-tsu you back twofold.
Sun-tsu said:
“To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”
“He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious.”
Do you Sun-tsu what I mean, Vanni? Simon has been Sun-tsuing the situation well.
Faith in Simon, brother. In peace. For Simon.
The party was and still is led by lawyers. This makes them good wordsmiths but not necessarily best at interpreting or crunching numbers.
And it is not only the issue of the additional 18,000 phantom voters that Simon harps on about. The state of the PN coffers also serves as evidences of this.
Alas, for all his strong points, both the swing and the precarious party finances are the legacy of Lawrence Gonzi and his team.