Funny how some people are now blaming ‘GonziPN’ for ‘forcing them’ to vote Labour – talk about childish

Published: November 9, 2013 at 11:24pm

Pamela Hansen

I’ve been catching up on some other newspaper columnists, and I’m struggling to understand how they have got this far in adult life without some major accident.

First they vote for Joseph and the Forty Thieves, and now they can’t stop dissing them.

Where’s the sense in that?

It would have been far more sensible and logical if they had done it the proper way round, as I did: diss them and then not vote for them.

But hey, I was the crazy one, remember – and now they can’t bring themselves to say ‘Daphne was right’. It sticks in their craw. Well, let it.

For once I’ll spare that Martin Scicluna, who continues to repeat the mantra, even as he rubbishes this government’s decisions, that he does not regret his decision to vote for it and to tell others to do so.

That makes such a lot of sense.

When I voted for that sordid, drunken, sociopathic and ill-bred scum, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, discovered what he was far too late, and then proceeded to tear him to shreds, I made it quite clear that I will forever regret giving him the time of day, still more my vote. It was a huge error of judgement.

Grown-ups shouldn’t be afraid of the words mea maxima culpa. But this is a country of children, even if they are octogenarians, left Malta in 1964 and returned only when the coast was clear for a comfortable retirement under those civilised Nationalists they thought were so much less admirable than Dom Mintoff and the fireworks merchant from Burmarrad.

Instead, let’s take a look at Pamela Hansen, who voted Labour and – what do you know – just like her whining soul-mate Mrs Vella of the 1970s block of flats in Sliema is still moaning.

They’ve got what they thought they wanted but are suffering buyer’s remorse already. Too late, ladies – you should have seen it coming. Now we’re stuck with the crooks and pirates, and all those hundreds of familiars with their snouts so far in the trough they can’t breathe. So instead of kvetching and whingeing, how about you apologise to the rest of us who weren’t as stupid, petty, perverse, and ruddy-minded as you were, but still got what YOU voted for?

Here’s the way Mrs Hansen sees it, as described in her column of complaints about the sale of passports, the prime minister’s empty and meaningless rhetoric (NOW she notices?) and the chaotic ‘reform’ at the MEPA:

However, it is pointless for PN partisans to tell people who voted Labour in the last election that they are getting their just desserts when they complain about new government decisions. Voters had no choice at the last election. They knew the PN had to go.

Voters had no choice in the last election? Oh, so that was why there were two alternatives that could form a government – because there was no choice. I cannot believe somebody can reach the age of 70 without learning how to think straight, but apparently, it happens.

I won’t bother to spell out all the flaws of logic and reason in that short statement. Instead I’ll just reproduce a comment posted beneath Mrs Hansen’s column:

Antoine Vella

“. . . the PN had to go”

Ms Hansen, your attempt to justify your terrible political judgement is as childish as it is predictable.

Your Labour vote drove the PN from office but also brought to power the band of pirates (or, more precisely, josephmuscat.com) now busy looting our country.

So, yes, you too are to blame for the passport-trafficking, the development planning mess and, let me add, the nepotism, abuse of power, lies, cronyism, vindictiveness and sheer dishonesty that have become so commonplace that we now take them for granted and are no longer “news”.

In an election it’s not a question of voting for the perfect party but of choosing the better alternative of the two available.

You obviously thought this better alternative was Joseph’s ‘Moviment’ and that was your prerogative but trying to dissociate yourself from the consequences of your decision is immature and pathetic.

Ms Hansen, please grow up and own up. You cannot expect to be taken seriously when you copy Muscat’s favourite tactic and blame GonziPN for your own mistakes.




22 Comments Comment

  1. anthony says:

    So Hansen says the PN had to go.

    Did it really?

    What about her?

    It would have been much better if she had never lived –

    W S Churchill

  2. Makjavel says:

    I agree with Pamela Hansen that I had no choice in the last election.

    That is why I voted PN. It was obvious what Joseph was up to.

    To an interviewer worth his or her salt, he was an open book.

    He is a crook, a confidence trickster, and a pimp.

    I said so before the election and I was told off, with the comment that those times have passed never to come back.

    Well, those times are back.

  3. H.P. Baxxter says:

    Pamela Hansen is right. There really was only one choice. No one in their right mind could have voted Labour. So I followed her advice and voted PN.

    Damn shame about her somewhat childish approach to political analysis, because she does write well.

    I would love to see her and Daphne join forces, but alas, the twain will forever be cleft asunder.

    [Daphne – We have absolutely nothing in common.]

    • H.P. Baxxter says:

      She knows her grammar. That’s a sort of common point, isn’t it? I mean in a country where journalists can’t string two words together.

      [Daphne – Yes and no. Writing is almost invariably a precise reflection of one’s thinking. Clear, concise thinking is reflected in clear, concise use of language. Mrs Hansen’s thoughts and sentences are often like chewing-gum, and her subject-range is wholly unimaginative. In any case, I start off from the point that there is something wrong with people who choose to vote Labour after giving it a lot of thought. I cannot have much regard for any other opinion they hold.]

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        The worst writer, bar none, is Lino Spiteri. Talk about rambling.

        This being Malta, he is also the highest-paid columnist.

  4. edgar says:

    I also knew that the PN were going to lose the elections and my friends can vouch that up to two years before I declared so.

    BUT I would be damned if I had to help them get in with MY vote.

    I have been saying all along, much before the 8th March, that Muscat is much worse than Mintoff and at that time people smiled and thought that I was mad.

  5. Plotinus says:

    I am a grown-up who isn’t afraid of the words mea maxima culpa.

    I voted ‘yes’ in the EU referendum. Had I not, Joseph Muscat would have had nothing to sell.

  6. H.P. Baxxter says:

    I voted for Arnold Cassola in the 2004 MEP elections. There. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. Send me to the Tower.

    • Elena Bagollu says:

      It could have been worse. You could have voted for Sharon Ellul Bonici.

    • albona says:

      Mia grandissima colpa indeed!

      Still I would prefer to vote AD than PL any day. At least the former, regardless of how deranged they are, actually have good intentions.

      • H.P. Baxxter says:

        I put it rather differently.

        At least the former, regardless of how deranged they are, will never be in government.

  7. Historian says:

    There was no choice in the last election but PN. All the countries around us were going through severe economic crisis with unemployment reaching 20, 23, 25 etc per cent levels. Anybody who thought that Dr. Gonzi had no credit with steering the Maltese economy in the right direction was completely biased and wrong.

  8. Rumplestiltskin says:

    I cringed when I read this column of Pamela Hansen’s. Trying to exculpate herself from her horrendously bad judgement of voting Labour was pathetic and demeaned her. How can one retain a shred of respect for a columnist who resorts to an excuse for her wrong decisions akin to ‘the devil made me do it. ‘

    • albona says:

      If one good thing is coming out of having the Mafia back in power it is that the wannabe journalists, phoney liberals, pretend meritocrats and — even worse — the new ‘Laburisti’ are being revealed for what they are – non compos mentis.

  9. winston psaila says:

    The Labour Party died with the destruction of Boffa at the hands of Mintoff. The emergence of its takeover saw a stinking decomposing soul expertly moulded by its architect giving it foundations of inanity, envy, class hatred and venom.

    This will never change because like cancer it is extremely difficult to eradicate and anybody who believes otherwise is shorn of any historical knowledge.

    So, no Mrs Hansen and anybody who followed a similar path, it was not the right decision to vote Labour because of the ‘PN’s many shortcomings’. As a seasoned journalist you should have known that:

    ‘………………… ‘tis strange :
    And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
    The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
    Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
    In deepest consequence.’ (Banquo in ‘Macbeth’)

    It is, however, good for one to acknowledge one’s mistakes; everybody makes them and redemption is one way towards recovery.

  10. Sparky says:

    Utter nonsense from Mrs Hansen. The electorate had two options back in March – a party which was relentless in ensuring economic stability till the very end, experience in governance and an admirable track record. The traitors within were heading out just the same so party issues should never have been the root cause of the PN’s downfall.

    On the other hand, we had labour, a party oblivious on how best to govern, dishing out much of the same appeal and candidates and hiding behind false pretences.

    Taking the reduction (which excludes the meter rents) in electricity and water tariffs as an example, we’ve been inundated with plans, roadmaps, percentages. The reduction of 10% or thereabouts after eco-subsidy (35%/25% for brackets 1 and 2 respectively is one big disgusting lie) will mainly be due to the interconnector and BWSC projects, both implemented by the previous administration.

    The country never needed change; we were never facing economic catastrophe. Yet Labour’s Nazi-like propaganda machine laid the bait and successfully trounced the NP. A perverse result when compared to the slim majority won in 1987.

    The way Labour pushed forward with the citizenship amendments without being challenged by society casts a shadow of doubt on us Maltese, on our values, priorities and cultural background. The mantra nowadays is “I couldn’t be bothered if it doesn’t affect me personally”.

    We’re a society within a pool of societies. Get the majority of these on your side and you win an election, it’s that simple.

  11. Jozef says:

    Must be the recent removal of restrictions on building heights everywhere in Sliema.

    The poor things won’t even be able to see their town for the cranes.

    Then there’s turning back the clock in Valletta, an extra storey everywhere, UNESCO be damned, cars spilling back onto the centre and artists left to rot

    http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-11-10/news/government-reverses-move-of-national-museum-of-fine-arts-to-auberge-ditalie-3139272704/

    Suckers. What else did you expect?

    .

  12. seksieka says:

    Ftit huma dawk li vvutaw Labour għax verament emmnu li gvern Laburista jmexxi aħjar. Min ivvota Labour għamel hekk għall-interessi PERSONALI tiegħu.

    It-tajba hi li ħadd minn dawk li naf jien għadu ma ħa xejn. Mhux bħaċ-ċrieki taċ-ċrieki laburisti. Ara dawk jgħoddsu fix-xgħir qegħdin…u aħna nħallsu.

  13. nutmeg says:

    Why, exactly, did the PN have to be removed? For having driven the economy successfully forward against all odds? For attracting reputable business and commerce to malta? For earning Malta solid respect in the international community? For adopting a serious political vision? For investing big in education and human resource? For appointing competent persons to public bodies? For respecting the autonomy of justice and order institutions?

    Or simply for having been elected to government three times in a row?

    Such fallacious reasoning betrays democratic immaturity. Elections are not held to send parties into and out of power, but to give direction to the country. But understanding this is not at all automatic.

  14. Antoine Vella says:

    Hi Daphne, allow to bring to your readers’ attention another comment, this time addressed to Astrid Vella who seems to think she is a few notches above everybody else and has assumed the title of “Grand Inquisitor Who Is Always Right”. She is also hiding behind the look-what-you-made-me-do excuse.

    @ Ms Astrid Vella

    Ms Vella, since you won the unofficial Moaner of the Year Award for several consecutive years (congratulations) it is only fair that you should be considered emblematic of a certain type of political myopia that has brought the country to its present situation.

    Nobody is saying that you should not have criticised the PN government – God knows they committed enough blunders – but you should also have realised that the PL would be much worse. As we are finding out.

    In case it escaped your notice, voting out the PN and voting in josephmuscat.com were two sides of the same coin.

    The honourable thing for you is to acknowledge your, at best, naiveté and admit that you made a serious error of judgement. Blaming GonziPN for your own mistakes is exactly what Joseph Muscat does so you’re in good company there.

  15. ciccio says:

    Antoine Vella: risposta bis-sens.

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