I’d missed this earlier. The prime minister, the Small Enterprises PS and the PM’s chief of staff – totally glamorous
The prime minister, Edward Zammit Lewis and Keith ‘Kasco’ Schembri get back to Malta after travelling to watch a football match (to show how macho and manly they are, lest there be any doubt on that score) when the PM should have been at a hearing of that kangaroo court he convened to ‘re-educate’ the Opposition leader for saying that he intervened to keep the police off John Dalli’s back.
Watch them walking away from the plane – really dignified and impressive. But what is really disturbing is the prime minister’s vicious and spiteful facial contortion, which he wasn’t able to control, when he leaned over his driver to hit back at the reporter with his standard ‘tu quoque’ retort.
No amount of manly football-match-watching is going to negate that sort of thing. It is a really unpleasant insight into his personality, and so wrong in a prime minister.
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Am I seeing things? Did he really have some airport minion tow his wheely bag across the apron?
My, my. For all his swaggering Muscat can’t hide what he really is. The class creep turned bitch just because she feels she’s on top.
The man is nuts. Does he really believe that Simon Busuttil, as Leader of the Opposition, carries the same responsibility as a prime minister of an EU state?
Even though Simon Busuttil’s ego is understated to the extreme and Joseph Muscat’s exaggeratedly inflated, Joseph Muscat still manages a bilious, almost frothing, deference to Simon Busuttil’s actions.
To me this is indicative of a deep-lying awareness of both his deficiencies as Labour politician in charge of Malta and the sum of his inferiority complexes as a person.
I would say he is most fearful of the qualities in Simon Busuttil that he lacks.
Joseph Muscat has consistently been revealed as a liar.
Simon Busuttil has consistently been true to his word and values.
Joseph Muscat is devious and scheming, with no sustainable plan to-date. Joseph Muscat’s intentions were masked and misrepresented – even to his own voters. Joseph Muscat steers clear of transparency.
Simon Busuttil is too good and decent and thankfully transparently so. The difference is only too stark. We are only beginning to appreciate this by measure of the contrast provided.
Joseph Muscat is unable to carry out a discussion where the probability of failure is stacked against him. Therefore any political debate must necessarily be dragged down to the level of street gangs for any level of oral engagement to be forthcoming from him. He uses his honed brand of dead-end one-liners as a one-eyed caveman would a club.
Simon Busuttil is beautifully eloquent on the other hand, stitching into clear, logical, discourse the responsibilities of office. He is tenacious and patient with it, and this drives Joseph Muscat up the wall.
When Joseph Muscat snarls in this way, it is because he feels cornered.
He was conscious that his absence from Malta coincided with the proceedings he himself instigated against Simon Busuttil. Evidently, if a reporter was awaiting his flight, the prepared hamallu retort was only going to be yet another swing of the club, regardless of what the question may have been.
Fear as a cold sweat on a fleshy person is an ugly thing.
What happens when he can no longer contain that fear?
You make an excellent analysis there, TW.
You say:
“Evidently, if a reporter was awaiting his flight, the prepared hamallu retort was only going to be yet another swing of the club, regardless of what the question may have been. ”
I agree that the hamallu retort was prepared, regardless of the question.
Then, there are so many things that are so wrong in the PM’s reaction, which have already been highlighted by Daphne and by various comments on this website.
The mere fact that the prime minister’s car stopped on a public road because of the presence of a section of the media is itself unusual. As long as no one’s safety was put in jeopardy, that car should not have stopped.
As the NET reporter says at 1.37 below, it was the PM who ordered the driver to stop the car, and I am morally convinced that he did so to give a retort to NET and to Simon Busuttil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Qe5ccWRCc&app=desktop
But there is one more thing that this website has not raised as yet. Notice how, after his prepared retort, regardless of the question, the prime minister is unable to reply to the second question by the NET reporter.
To the simple question “Hemm raguni ghal din il-btala” (What was the purpose of this trip), the prime minister replies with “Skuzi?” (I beg your pardon?) and is visibly confused and lost for words.
Shows that the PM was lost in his anger. And that he is unable to calmly and coherently reply to a simple question by the media when he is put on the spot.
The prime minister should be put on the spot by the media more often.
Ciccio,
I agree completely.
Do we know whether there have been requests for hard-line real-time interviews that Joseph Muscat has accepted with an investigative reporter?
Or whether these have been requested?
I imagine he wouldn’t have the guts to accept, not without a strict binding contract, all questions viewed beforehand and strictly adhered to and a pre-release approval option.
What a huge gulf of a difference, to have Government represented by a David Cameron and a William Hague.
The hamallu retort needs a challenge as a comeback, also prepared, also no matter the response to the initial question from Joseph Muscat.
The spontaneous media, needs to practice the art, and discipline, of hammering out shooting questions, not just wide abstract open-ended fishing questions.
Shooting questions are where just Yes/ No replies are expected.
If Joseph Muscat’s parametres are conveniently undefined, “composed in poetry,” then they need to be defined by elimination.
Tabatha, I also fully agree with what you say.
“The hamallu retort needs a challenge as a comeback, also prepared, also no matter the response to the initial question from Joseph Muscat. ”
If the prime minister provides one of his tu quoque retorts, he should be asked specifically:
“Ah, jigifieri inti ghamilt hekk ghax il-gvern l-iehor kien jaghmel hekk?”
That would leave the prime minister in a very awkward situation and he cannot afford leaving the media with those conclusions.
Yes, the media need to be trained about these situations and how they do not let go their prey.
What is John Cassar White doing there? Since 1973 when he was employed with the National Bank of Malta, he always let others do his dirty work, like Denis Sammut in the golden years. He even got away with being Chairman of the late unlamented Malta Drydocks and let Sammy Meilaq take the fall. Reward : Chairman BOV.
Don’t you just love the undisguised aggressive unbuckling of the seat belt and the brusque movements? He looked like an enraged driver about to start a fight.
I eagerly look forward to that day when he will finally explode with rage and hit back physically. It’ll come. If the journalists do their job, it’ll come.
Reminds me of the Al Capone character in the film, The Untouchables.
What a total and utter c*nt. Go hide yourselves, switchers, and f*ck you all.
Warrbu l’hemm ghax wasal Obama ta’. A real banana republic.
What has this world come to
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/aa90eb46-9e14-11e3-b429-00144feab7de.html?ftcamp=traffic/email/content/editor//memmkt&siteedition=intl#axzz2uq34AyWw
Coward. I’d like to see the wimp address anyone like that, man to man.
Muscat insulted the dignity of the Egyptians trying to improve their lot.
He then remained silent, an accomplice to Ghaddafi’s suppression of Libyans, who he had met personally, flying back on the colonel’s plane, and brokers a deal which criticism culminated in fresh unrest.
He went after this Yanukovych, letter unanswered, recipient left home.
His other letter, to the third Kim, literally thrown to the dogs.
He tries the People’s Republic of China, going after cheap solar panels the moment European manufacturers score against China’s politically motivated commerce, rendering his strategy economically redundant.
He goes on Al Jazeera to wake Europe, manages to lose moral high ground to Letta who crosses him AND lays a stake on Malta’s territorial waters.
He goes to watch Milan play, they lose, home.
Hindsight my dears.
Are they kidding?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140303/local/planned-floating-storage-tanks-at-delimara-would-create-a-significant-impact-on-the-character-of-the-landscape-and-visual-outlook-of-marsaxlokk-bay.509043
‘…The planned floating storage tanks at Delimara would create a “significant impact” on the character of the landscape and visual outlook of Marsaxlokk Bay that would be “difficult to eliminate”, according to Mepa’s environment protection unit.
It has therefore requested a detailed landscaping scheme including “camouflaging, design of structures and materials, colour treatments and textural finishes to aid integration with the surroundings and minimise the impacts”…’
If it’s a supertanker holding 140,000 cubic meters of gas, I want it in the brightest orange with LNG written in fifty foot high bold letters, lit in bright yellow sodium lights at night.
That’s how you minimise impact. ‘Sorry sir, ma rajtux, kont mohhi fil-konz’
How about getting a submarine instead?
Did the taxpayers pay for both that trip and the football match tickets?
This should carry a warning. ‘Don’t watch first part of video after lunch’.
“Dr Busuttil …ghamel hmistax l-Awstralja jxewwex kontra l-pajjiz”
An absolutely infamous and libellous assertion which should have been highlighted and fought tooth and nail by the one accused of ‘tixwix kontra l-pajjiz’.
The man has no shame at all
You may take the man out of Burmarrad, but you can’t take the Burmarrad out of the man
It boils down to breeding, or absence thereof.
Look at them smirking as soon as they realised that they were being filmed. Zammit Lewis’s look is just classic. ‘Have we done something wrong?’
If you want to show how manly you are you go to a rugby match. Unless it’s Millwall against West Ham.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140303/local/another-holy-see-appointment-for-gozitan-priest.509050
Tghid ha xi Mara mieghu bhala secretarja?
You can watch it here as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Qe5ccWRCc&app=desktop
The reaction of a peasant who has just been caught red-handed doing something wrong and has no justification for his actions. The typical reactive behaviour of the peasant: “Issa nghidlu. Taf x’nghidlu? Hekk nghidlu. Arani ha nghidlu.”
In Hal-Ghaxaq, it’s the “Hekk, hu go fik” type of reaction.
Worrying stuff from a prime minister.
Il-veru tad-daqqiet ta’ harta.
A close examination of the behaviour of the prime minister and his team in the early part of the video shows an interesting sequence of events:
1. The PM and his team were aware that there was a TV crew filming them the minute they got off the plane, but they probably had no details of the source of the crew and the reason.
2. At 0.34, the PM walks up to the ground assistants. It is clear that at this point he asks, and/or he is informed, about the source of the TV crew.
3. At 0.37, the PM turns to Edward Zammit Lewis and informs him that the TV crew is from NET TV.
4. At 0.38, the PM turns defiantly towards the NET TV crew, showing an attitude of “ah, I know who you are, you b*st*rds.”
5. At 0.40, the PM is seen shaking his head, disapproving the presence of the NET TV crew.
6. Soon after, the PM’s team groups together and walk close to each other, with the prime minister hiding between Zammit Lewis and Keith tal-Kasco.
Exactly what sort of shoes is Edward Zammit Lewis wearing there?
Running shoes?
And what about his outfit? A blue jacket with snug-fitting trousers? “Ex-girlfriend jeans,” according to the Daily Mail. A hipster’s dream.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1355392/Levis-unveils-slim-fit-ex-girlfriend-style-men.html
So tacky.
Ghax manly. The morning after a night out with the lads after a game of footy. Hard blokes, ain’t we all?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qamVB4ixxGs
Hi Ms. Caruana Galizia, what is your email address, please?
[Daphne – [email protected]]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140304/local/estate-agents-planning-to-reject-henley-commission.509138
It would be interesting to investigate this story http://maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Premier-owners-get-4-2-million-in-amicable-bailout-20140303
He was angry because his team lost. What would he do if his party lost.
He left the Maltese parliament waiting for months until he became eligible for an MEP pension.
When anyone goes Down Under it would be longer than a two-week visit normally.
[Daphne – I don’t think he was angry because his team lost. He doesn’t strike me at all as the sort of man who gives a hoot about football, let alone the sort who becomes fixated on teams. It’s just an affectation he has adopted for his image. I doubt he took much of an interest in football as a boy. Doesn’t seem the sort.]
I agree. His love for football extends only as far as wanting to be as round as a football.
I hear he’s a heterosexual.
What gender?
It may be because it’s the “in” thing to travel abroad to watch your favorite team play some important match or a Formula 1 race.
We all know Tonio Fenech loves Arsenal, and I know that Michael Falzon goes to watch Juventus.
Franco Debono goes to watch Fiorentina. Probably Lawrence Gonzi, who was a good football player, prefers watching his favourite team Inter Milan on TV.
I have colleagues who every now and then take some days off to go and watch football or car races abroad.
Do you know who he reminded me of at 0:56?
Berlusconi.