Another good comment
Posted by J:
You’re right that Muscat’s argument is unsound, but it seems that the PN continues to underestimate him.
The Prime Minister is basically a political nerd, as are many of his closest collaborators like Aaron Farrugia. They’re obsessed with Tony Blair, particularly with Blair’s ability to win (nothing to do with Blair’s policies, of course). They have understood the basic rule that parties win when they choose the battle ground and create the narrative.
The Nationalists have failed to understand this, or failed to address this because they have been a party without a central cause since 2003/4. This allows a mediocre government to win the argument time and again because the PN is constantly playing defence in the PR game.
Basically, they need to stop apologising, blow their own trumpet, and decide what they’re about. They should also realise that, if murderous scum like Mintoff can be rehabilitated, they might have some positive history of their own to work into the political narrative. They could start by reading this blog rather than (again) apologising for its tone.
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The PN’s defeat can be explained in a one sentence: the PN had for many years the EU trump-card followed by cash inflows from post-accession funds so they rested on their laurels.
Spot on! The PN does not have a battle cry (tipo Malta taghna llkol or meritokrazija). For the man in the street, what value does the entrenching the homosexuals’ right against discrimination in the Constitution have?
Too much of a nicety to be ever appreciated by the general public, not even by supposedly learned PL supporters like Dr Ramona Frendo. As we have seen from previous blogs, even the PL well off supporters such Ramona Frendo seem to get an orgasmic pleasure from receiving a cheque of €110 from their dear Joseph Muscat. The tingle of a few coins makes them go nuts.
I can think of a lot of trump cards, Joe.
Simon Busuttil is the Roy Hodgson of politics, way out of his league. If you side with Liverpool or England you would understand.
I apologize for comparing Maltese politics to English football but they are both a joke.
I know I shouldn’t speculate but how many votes would have P.N. lost or gained If it backed banning spring hunting?
Chickening out really worked eh?
At this point, and with such a hopeless situation with a vast majority of low-level-IQ voting population, I would go further and suggest a plan of eradicating hunting over a number of years, and not just in Spring.
I would propose a ban on children going out with their hunter fathers, and in say, 15/20 years time when the current hunters would have gotten old and their children not trained on hunting, it would become illegal.
Very good idea: legislate to start by stopping children being present. It would slowly but surely eradicate this sport especially if in tandem one supports Birdlife and makes it compulsory for children to attend nature and bird watching sessions.
In this particular election it would have made no difference.
A bit of backbone wouldn’t have gone a miss!
Beingpressed, did it occur to you that the proposers of the referendum do not want the political parties to be involved?
This has already been discussed in another blog entry – I suggest you go look it up.
I agree completely. It’s because I don’t phone into those stupid political programmes, but if I ever will, the first thing I will tell them is to stop falling for Labour’s trap that Daphne is one of the causes of the PN’s electoral defeat one year ago.
They’re actually afraid of you, Daphne, and rather than not being negative, they should be more aggressive by using some of the arguments you use here, and with the same way of putting them.
I fail to understand why some issues you raise are not being acknowledged by the PN media, while on the other hand Muscat publicly praises a convicted criminal.
Antoine Vella,
The Malta Today spun this whole Chris Packham story pretty well.
Who gained? Labour.
It was pretty obvious what side of the fence Muscat was on!
Simon Busuttil was played and they pulled his pants down.
No conviction, no balls.
Hunting for me is a moral issue not a fiscal one how ever Malta blacklisted again buy these bastards, how many tourists are we going to loose this year because of the hunters and handling of the Maltese government.
Nationalist, MP, voter, member, EP candidate, if you sympathise with these hunters join the fucking Labour movement.
One trait of a good leader is the ability to pick battles wisely. Simon Busuttil’s decision, a few months before the last general election, to leave his fingerprints all over a crime scene, raises eyebrows.
Following the catastrophic result of that election he said he had jumped into the crocodile pond out of duty and loyalty towards Lawrence Gonzi. But charity of this kind was never valued by great leaders.
What I believe happened was that Busuttil believed he could sway the vote in the two months leading to the general election. I believe he genuinely thought so. That’s what his closest collaborators were saying in public.
With already one defeat under his belt (his name is on the by-line of the 2013 defeat) another loss would be his second consecutive one, which would call for a farewell. So, Busuttil has put himself in a corner. He has 3.5 years to shift 40,000 votes. An impossible task, seeing how well-oiled and resourceful government’s machine is.
So if the altruistic and Christian values that guided Busuttil in his decision to jump on the Titanic were genuine indeed, then these same values might guide him to take the right decision today.
Busuttil is an asset for the Nationalist Party. A huge one at that. But not as party leader.
Well said Stef. I find this post another regressive one which harps back on the past – this will not help the PN get back lost votes.
Then all he needs is a campaign manager.
Or a strategist. Bring back Richard Cachia Caruana from wherever he is.
Very quiet Scooter, counting votes or just observing?
I fully agree. Other comments mention that the PN don’t have the resources to employ a political consultant. This may be true but I am sure that there many individuals of a high calibre who would be willing to be part of a strategy team.
Joseph Muscat’s (and subsequently the PL) transformation is no coincidence. I believe that someone (maybe Muscat himself but I doubt it) had a long term plan to put PL in power and it worked like a dream.
For the past two years or more the PN has been made to dance to the tune of PL – always reacting to issues orchestrated by PL.
The PN general election campaign was pathetic when compared to PL that appeared to have been planned to the minutest detail.
I agree that the PL has the power of incumbency and resources but I believe that if they start now PN has a good chance of turning the tables by the next election.
PL used professional strategists and ad agencies and it resulted in them developing a slick, holistic brand and general election campaign. I would suggest PN hire professionals too. Gone are the days of in-house campaigns. They first need to drum up some cash however and that’s going to take time.
“Bring back Richard Cachia Caruana from wherever he is.”
The sooner, the better.
The move to get rid of Richard Cachia Caruana and Carm Mifsud Bonnici was the clearest indicator of all of how Joseph Muscat intended to proceed.
The one representing strategy and intelligence and the other values and purpose.
Counting votes. Times are hard and I thought I’d make a few bob.
Indeed, I believe as he moved out of the circle of influence the PN started to implode.
Steff Bannister, as things stand, about 18,000 have to switch back to the PN, not 40,000.
And Baxxter is right: what is needed is a competent campaign manager.
I will add that a small army of eager canvassers is also needed but they are there, if only the party learns how to mobilise and organise them.
What sunk the PN in the last election?
I’ll be blunt about it: the negro problem, pure and simple.
The PN were too honest in some ways and dishonest in other ways and too sold on the program, end, result they did not want to do nothing about the illegal migration problem.
I personally spoke to Dr Gonzi about this in 2008.
No commitment to solve the problem, mainly due to it being out of their hands and they were going along with this hidden program.
Jo, in his pre-electioneering, pretended to the masses that he had a solution to the NP (negro problem) when in fact he had no such thing.
What century do you live in?
When you personally spoke to Dr Gonzi I expect you got the response you deserved, rather than the one you expected.
Yours is a racist standpoint, which is typical of the immigration discourse. I don’t see you and your sort campaigning against the illegal immigration of Eastern European women put to work as prostitutes, despite the very real and horrendous abuse involved.
My so-called racist standpoint is what sunk the PN.
It is the truth, face up to it.
Those 36,000 votes that went to the PL are not from politically correct fluffy liberals that get together and sing “Kumbaya, we are all one”.
Solve the NP (negro problem) on Malta and the PN woes will mostly disappear.
The “negro problem” cannot be solved, you idiot. What would you have the parties do? Propose to kill them all? Labour is in government and THEY haven’t shot any of the “negroes”.
That particular problem cannot be solved by either party. Now that you’ve learned that, which way will you vote? I will vote for the party that led me back into Western civilisation after Mintoff destroyed everything European about Malta.
It was reported that the leader of the opposition in Spain tended his resignation today after his party did badly in the EU elections as did the prime minister of Belgium.
It was inevitable.
Simon Busuttil was/is a foot soldier. Our leader in waiting is being groomed as we speak.
I hope it’s not the old school!
Let the people vote!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU
Political animal to be correct.
One of the 7000 voters here….lol
Unfortunately the defeat of PN is due to its success. We are a nation of masochists. Take the rate of unemployment. A large majority of the people employed and also those who flourished under the previous administration bear resentment; the former to their employers and the latter to the hand that pushed them to succeed because success wasn’t enough and believe they have a god given right to have power (ghax ghamlu l-flus hi).
Dear Simon,
It is a bad defeat and you must feel dejected. On the bright side, the party can ‘t get any lower than this so from now on you will climb.
Please stop apologising as the previous administration worked very hard for all Maltese. That’s a defeated attitude. Start speaking with self-assurance.
Above all PLEASE STOP using the terminology thrown at the public by Joseph Muscat.
This only serves to create the battlegound / playing field that Joseph Muscat is able to play in and to keep it at the temperature he needs it to be at.
How shocked I was to receive a mail from Stefano Mallia with Joseph Muscat terminology all over it.
If he can’t see through that tactic, was he expecting my vote?
——–
Perception, insight and timing are key. One of the most valuable and perceptive comments of the last few days posted by Daphne is this:
“There’s also an inability to recognise and seize the moment”
Timing is key.
Any cake left too long in the oven gets burnt.
Different pastries need correct handling according to type.
All reaching consensus and exhaustive discussion need to be honed and tuned to a finer, quicker, direct and firm reaction.
There needs to be a gut instinct that is right on the ball when it comes to timing and impact. Too much of the NP advantage has, on each and every occasion gone through the window with a very bad sense of timing and impact.
This is because the experience being drawn on is limited to start with. If the internal working rules of the party need changing then change them – that’s one aspect that shouldn’t need to be too difficult. The vital importance of additional focus, refining and communication of starting points and reccie intelligence can no longer be ignored.
It is not a luxury. It is a survival requirement.
Too many loose ends have been left untackled when the canon blast could have been more loaded.
Every time.
Stop cowering and for goodness sake, let’s stop it with the apologies.
——–
There is the factor that the MEP elections are not an event that a certain type of Nationalist considers important.
The type that don’t want to dragged out for their opinion time and time again.
The type that sees the local seen set until the next general elections and who operate with or without MEPs in place.
The type who prefer firm opinions even if votes are lost because of them.
The more autonomous self-sufficient type.
The type that are busy doing things and getting them done despite this lousy government.
We have been going round in circles about the PN leadership. The ideal party leader does not exist. Real men and women do.
When all has been said and done what are we left with? Anne Fenech who does not want to be a leader and DeMarco is part of the leadership already.
The solution is right in front of our noses – we already have a leader and his name is Simon Busuttil.
The PN does not need to go through another leadership race. What a waste of time and energy that would be. How disturbing it would be to PN supporters who are just getting used to Simon Busuttil.
And what a futile exercise it would be. What the PN needs to do is to start working not only harder but smarter. And PN supporters could learn one lesson from Labour supporters. Labourites support their leader rain or shine. They trust Joseph Muscat blindly. They even trusted Alfred Sant, and have just given him another 51,000 votes.
Well I think it is the time that after Daphne’s successful blog she must consider having a TV station.Imagine what a huge difference it will make instead of reading only we will watch what others don’t show.I know it’s easy for me to say so but who knows maybe….What do you think dear readers.
You may have a point, Ben. The internet has turned ordinary people more visual than literate. Illiterate people have always been so.
Using the rationale of those who say Simon Busuttil should resign (when he isn’t even in government), then David Cameron should step down as prime minister:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140526/world/cameron-rebuffs-calls-for-early-eu-referendum-after-election-loss.520662
The problem with the PN is that they are still and have been over the last fourteen months trying to pin the blame of their electoral defeat on everybody else but themselves.
After three years of political blackmail from his backbench, Lawrence Gonzi sought it fit to resign as soon as the results were pronounced leaving the party completely headless and with the only alternative, a successor who was completely unprepared to handle a party riddled with debts and discomforts. Simon Busittil had spent his last ten years whining and bickering in the European parliament about Burden sharing and Frontex while this country was being systematically invaded by illegal immigrants from Africa who we were not allowed to push back to Libya, in spite of the fact that these people had actually crossed to Libya themselves after LIBYA had been liberated from the world’s worst tyrant by the western alliance and brought to “democracy”
What the Pn cannot seem to realize is that Lawrence Gonzi should have called an election back in 2010 when Franco Debono was playing up as opposed to holding onto a Government who could not effectively govern and giving the green light for his inner circle to continue to plunder whatever was left of our system. We saw Tonio fenech wheeling and dealing on private jets when the Dragonara Casino was coming up for grabs, 500 euro a week increases in cabinet honorarias at a time when the utility bills crushed the nation, we saw 39 million in consultancy fees and direct orders that never materialized, including georg sapiano’s generous handout for Arriva’s succesful logsitics. We saw four million in commissions being paid out for the BWSC deal which was above board leaving one’s imagination fester as to what happened below the table, we saw the EU force cuts in our budget of fourty million when they realized we were cooking the books in 2012. We saw fiscal persecution on private enterprise each time the Goverment ran out of money through wastage or mismanagement or when we needed to reach the euro criteria in 2006 and unleashed the TCU to balance the deficit sending scores of people into temporary insolvency.
We saw Enemalta turning into the biggest monster in the maltese economy after the drydocks with an 800 million euro debt figure risking failure from the local banks in the event of default and an ever rising welfare state that was crippling the economy and leaving huge gaps in our coffers.
While the Pn did a lot for this nation with a string of success after the other, it took the fact that pushing Malta in the EU gave them a permanent position in government. They invested millions in education throughout their four terms in office but yet kept on underestimating the electorate. Once you educate a nation never try to insult its intelligence.
Are you bonkers? Calling an election in 2010 to be shot of the cockfighter would have been the height of irresponsibility.
What do we have now? An incompetent government led by a reckless prime minister who thinks he’s in charge and who has appointed Franco Debono as Law commissioner and head of constitutional reform.
A 2010 election would have brought about the same result at a time of international and financial and political turmoil. Imagine sailing into that storm with Muscat, rather than Gonzi, at the helm.
The PN needs to acknowledge the good things that came out of the past as there were many.
It needs to stand up and stand out as an alternative party rather than go into the turf of the PL with a competition on pjaciri.
PN worked hard to eradicate the pjaciri culture which in the space of a year had come back to dominate Maltese society. You can please some of the people some of the time but not everyone all of the time.
We would be unrealistic to expect that in just 12 months people would have come back to the PN fold. It takes a crisis like that brought on by Mintoff for such a comeback.
Now PN has to build patiently and solidly but it also needs to re think how it projects itself.
It is viewed as a party of lawyers who are fine at arguing legal niceties and who approach life like a court case building logical arguments and hoping that the judge trained in the same school will appreciate the logic in their argumentation.
The people who vote are not judges in the sense of the traditional court. They are people with families, emotions work etc and their belief system is not build on logic but primarily on emotion. Simon has to have the courage to change the face and the mentality of PN reasoning.
He needs to be surrounded by people who can think cleverly and can represent the people of Malta truly. It will take time but I have no doubt he can do it.
The PN is so negative that prior to the 2013 general elections it chose not to divulge credible information it had that Joseph Muscat had an extra-marital affair during his stint in Brussels.
Pull the other one Joseph. In the meantime I won’t be holding my breath. Remember ‘il-giddieb ghomru qasir!’.
If Muscat is a second Blair, he shall be one of the most successful and longest serving Labour Prime Ministers.
The PN should reconsider all its policies and leadership. The present leadership is still reeling from the disastrous last PN government.
[Daphne – How happy you are, David, to be able to say that at last after 27 years.]
That PN are not quite in tune with what the electorate wants is quite a fact.
One could also see this when PN felt it needed a “heavyweight candidate” and called in Francis Zammit Dimech.
Missing the wood for the trees comes to mind, and the results show it.
While PN voters where intelligent enough to see the qualities and successes Robert Metsola has achieved and 32,000 gave her number 1, the PN instead of pushing her forward, opted to inform the electorate that they prefer finding a heavy weight, instead of turning her into one.
May be it’s because she’s a woman, and PN unfortunately is sometimes ignorantly conservative.
[Daphne – What RUBBISH. Conservatism towards women manifests itself in the Labour Party’s approach: treating women politicians, journalists and interview show presenters like Berlusconi showgirls. Not only is Labour very conservative in its approach towards women, but it is outright misogynistic towards any woman who ‘steps out of line’ or refuses to conform to its ideal. Put Roberta Metsola side by side with Miriam Dalli, and there you have the difference between the Labour Party view of women and the PN view of women. And I speak as a woman.]
I wasn’t comparing PN’s conservatism with Labour’s. Doubtlessly, Labour is significantly worse.
I was comparing with what is normal, i.e. in central Europe.
I agree with Matt that the PN should stop apologising. It’s the switchers and those who used to boast that they are Nationalists “minn guf ommhom” who should apologise for the corrupt government that they have inflicted on Malta.