Try to understand this notion, Mr Minister: nobody’s ‘attacking your wife’. We’re criticising YOU.
Konrad Mizzi (left) with his father, Air Labour’s Lawrence Mizzi, beneath some lovely photographs
Konrad Mizzi has told Times of Malta that “the Nationalist Party” – which, ironically, has been the most muted of those criticising his wife’s appointment as Malta’s special envoy to Shanghai at ambassador rank – is “attacking” her because he is “doing a good job in the energy sector”.
How daft. But he thinks it is true because “many Nationalists have told” him. I can imagine what sort of people those are: the sort who ring me up to say something nasty about Bobby or Mary, and then ring up Bobby or Mary to say something nasty about me.
Malta is full of them; they are the equivalent of bored courtiers in the suffocating hothouse of a restricted environment, looking to entertain themselves and seek advantage for themselves by undermining others with whom they concurrently attempt to curry favour, and they can make Maltese society absolutely intolerable.
The energy minister is terribly naive.
Now that he is perceived to be in a position of influence, people will be crowding up to make him like them and to win his trust. They will do this by telling him things which they think make them look concerned and thoughtful, caring and insightful.
The usual tactic is pseudo-confidences: “Look, I really feel I shouldn’t be telling you this because it’s disloyal to my own, but I respect you so much that I must tell you. The Nationalists are doing this because you’re doing such a good job.”
You can see what’s being done here: they’re signalling their willingness to be taken on board by flattering the minister, while at the same time signalling that they are not that supportive of the Opposition, even though they would like to be seen as supportive. It’s code for “I’m yours if you want me, but please don’t tell the others, because I’m theirs if they’re ever going to be in a position to want me too.”
The energy minister’s contention is sheer bollocks, and he’d better understand that fast if he is to survive in that snake-pit. Muscat certainly understands it, and he plays those people like a harp. He knows that what they want is not the well-being of the energy minister, or the prime minister, or the leader of the Opposition, or the Labour Party, or the Nationalist Party, but the well-being of themselves, their own.
The energy minister has to keep people like this at arm’s length and develop a few frozen ripostes for those who try it on. I can give him a master-class in the subject if he wishes, given that I have had to deal with crap like this for years. Amazing, really, what it teaches you about people – not just how cheap and shallow they are, but primarily, how desperate and needy for approval and above all, status and acknowledgement, though money trumps the lot.
Ultimately, Konrad Mizzi fails to understand that nobody is “attacking” or even criticising his wife. We barely give a damn about her. We don’t even know what she looks like. If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t even figure on the horizon.
And that’s just the point. It is HE who is the butt of the criticism, the subject and object of it. His wife’s appointment is wrong precisely because she is married to him (and that’s before we’ve begun looking at her qualifications and her job description).
He thinks that if he is being criticised at all, it is because we think he got her the job. WRONG. And by arguing in his defence that he didn’t know about it either he just makes himself look ridiculous: his wife pulled off this stunt in league with Mario Vella and Joseph Muscat, and they all left him out of the loop. “Don’t tell Konrad. He’s only your husband and my cabinet minister. What’s he got to do with it?”
He says, too, that he never discussed it with the prime minister. Is that something to boast about, in his defence? Of course not. It’s shocking. It shows what low standards these uncivilised people have.
The prime minister gives a cabinet minister’s wife a job without first discussing it with the cabinet minister, even though the implications for him and for his standing are going to be horrendous and the public reaction unrelenting. That the prime minister gave a cabinet minister’s wife a job is bad enough; that he left the cabinet minister out of the loop is worse – if we believe that, of course.
Did they imagine that they could go ahead with this and nobody would say anything? The Labour Party itself should be at the forefront of those objecting vociferously, given the high standards of behaviour it led people to think it adhered to when it criticised the previous government over so much less than this.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131001/local/opposition-walks-out-after-speakers-ruling.488559
Pathetic when he mentioned having discussed the matter ‘bhala familja’.
I mean, does he harbour a fetish for everything overly sweet?
He did prettify renderings of Joseph’s chimneyless Marsaxlokk in green curly wurly frames during that business breakfast.
Pity they’re putting up another one as high.
Qed idahlu mentalita’ u tradizzjonijiet tal-biza’
Qishom dawn:
http://valdaiclub.com/media/main/fa/13875.jpg
What’s funny in this whole saga is that the Government didn’t know about this appointment (Minister Cardona said he had no idea), the husband Minister Mizzi said he had absolutely nothing to do with her appointment; feels like the country is being governed by some sort of auto pilot.
His name’s Shiv Nair. His boss is China.
What is Nair’s relationship to Patricia Hills, London Executive Assistant to Edward de Bono, who is registered at the same address at 135b, Holland Park Avenue, whilst her husband Richard Hills is listed with “Shiv Shankor” at 135a, Holland Park Avenue?
Who is Nair?
Who is Sai Laing?
Who is carrying out security checks?
The first “attack” on his wife, that I know of, was from Arnold Cassola, Alternattiva Demokratika.
Now you are the minister Mr Mizzi. Shame on you for not being able to withstand the heat. How easier it was when you spoke to the gallery.
I just hope that the European Union is keeping a close tab on the way Muscat’s government are riding roughshod over the rest of the country, as we slide down precariously towards dictatorship.
The EU is our only trust and we expect them to issue due warnings to Muscat, as it did to Hungary some time ago.
It is not the EU who should keep ‘a close tab on the way Muscat’s government are (is) riding roughshod over the rest of the country’ but those who swallowed Muscat’s rubbish unquestioningly and voted him in.
What – Mario Vella and Joseph Muscat discussing the wife of a cabinet minister behind his back? Tsk tsk.
Was always taught to be ‘Leary of the eerie’.
If Mizzi honestly believes that there is one single person in Malta who is attacking his wife, then he is confirming my overall assessment of him.
That is that he is clueless.
Mrs Mizzi is the only person who appears, prima facie, to have done nothing wrong in this god almighty shameful debacle.
In my opinion, she’s a guilty party too – technically, she should know that any position given to her is untenable because her husband is a Cabinet Minister.
There again, she was not born and raised in a democratic country, and when she moved to Europe, it was in the company of a Malta Labour Party man, so she probably wouldn’t understand.
Sai Liang moved to Europe as a student at the University of Nottingham, where she met Konrad Mizzi.
Criticism of his PERFORMANCE?
The only tangible thing we’ve seen so far is him sneaking off to sign an agreement with China behind our backs. The rest has been waffle and bluster.
Shame on you Mr. Minister, for not knowing the difference between being in opposition and being a minister. Now you’re at the receiving end of criticism because of your status. You’re in the limelight all the time.
Sometimes critics will be unfair but did you expect that no one would say anything after what happened? Thank God, Malta is not China and we are free to express our opinion – let’s hope it stays so.
Those photos above Mizzi’s head look ridiculous.
They look like photos placed above books of condolences.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=375982665865086&set=a.292934947503192.1073741828.292908410839179&type=1&theater
http://www.flickr.com/photos/live-ness/8939369110/
And who is this stupid Konrad Mizzi who decides for himself that he is “doing a good job in the energy sector”?
Dear Mr Konrad ‘shame on you’ Mizzi, please let the people decide whether or not you are doing a good job.
He’s the same Konrad Mizzi who said that Enemalta employees are on board his ship of reforms, a claim immediately denied by Toni Zarb of the General Workers’ Union.
“You’re being very rude, ministru. Shame on you.”
Something is not quite right in all these explanations being given by the PM and the Minister.
So now we know that the PM employed Mrs. Mizzi Liang as an “Ambassador.”
And we know also that the Minister and the Prime Minister did not talk about this appointment.
1. First of all this means that the PM is now the employer of BOTH Dr. CONrad Mizzi and Mrs. Mizzi Liang. The couple is employed by the PM. Why would that be exactly? What is so particular about this couple? What mysteries or knowledge or connections could they have for being both so indispensable to the PM?
2. Does the PM expect us to believe him when he suggests that he sent for the wife of one of his cabinet Ministers, behind the back of the Minister, and offered her a job at a location somewhere on the other side of the world – such that she would have to leave her husband (who, remember, is one of the PM’s Ministers) behind here in Malta while she lives overseas? Separating a couple just like that? Is the PM so insensitive, or is he just lying?
I am forming a different political view. I am starting to believe that what we have here is an emergency plan, although I am not sure who may be involved in it.
We may be assisting at the preparation of a scenario in which the Minister of Energy will resign, quoting personal reasons, i.e. that he has to follow his wife in Shanghai.
It is quite possible that the Minister is under immense stress and pressure because of the electoral promise to reduce tariffs and to deliver a gas plant within 2 years from 9 March.
It is also quite possible that the Minister may have realised that this is not “doable.”
It is also possible that the introduction of China into Enemalta, and the claim that China can service other plants in the Med (does it really have any that we know of?) could be a change of plan – will China approve that Enemalta enters into a power purchase agreement, or will China import electricity from its other plants in the region?
It is also possible, therefore, that the government may have worked out a way out for the Minister that would permit an honourable exit.
I am sure that Minister Conrad Mizzi will forgive me for making some hypothetical statements. I took this habit from Edward Zammit Lewis.
Some tea before croquet would be nice, pity it’s not a gas hob. Off with his head then.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-10-01/news/pn-annoyed-at-strong-performance-of-energy-sector-mizzi-2772140036/
I think I understand Mrs.Mizzi’s voyage across eight time zones.
Minister Mizzi has been quotes as saying that the Nationalist party are picking up on him because of his success as a Minister.
Is this man for real, what success? What has he done? He just sold more than one-third of our sole energy provider to a foreign country to make up a fraction of the debt of Enemalta.
After so much talk of a cancer factory before the election the power station is still running on HFO, so it was a cancer factory before the election and now miraculously HFO is no more carcinogenic.
Does he expect us to believe him? I am sure many would believe him but those with just a pinch of salt know that nothing has been done and that he is not fit for purpose.
The photograph is more revealing than the contents of what was said.
The minister has the moral support of his father, whose presence is otherwise irrelevant.
His background depicts the leadership of the Labour Party.
Is this what the government of Malta is reduced to?