That’s because Mintoff had one hell of a messy life of his own, Fred Dobbs
There’s somebody calling himself ‘Fred Dobbs’ on Malta Today’s comments board, who’s keeping busy repeating the canard that Dom Mintoff forbade his supporters from using George Borg Olivier’s private life (not so much a private life as domestic chaos, but anyway).
Aside from the fact that Mintoff’s supporters routinely and openly mocked Borg Olivier’s domestic situation in any way they could – how else would I have known, as a child, what a bull looks like, if not because I saw them driven past en route to his house on lorries in 1971 – Mintoff’s domestic situation was just as messy.
If he really tried to stop his supporters from racing bulls around – and there is absolutely no evidence of this – then it would have been in full awareness of his own frolics with his brother’s wife and more.
Those two were both in the same situation, and neither had any incentive at all to get their party to go to town on the other.
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I may be wrong , but the argumentation of Fred C Dobbs looks like that of Charles J Buttigieg or Mary Mifsud.
[Daphne – Charles J. Buttigieg was his real name and I believe he died a while back.]
Yes he died, not so long ago – a year or two ago
He passed away earlier this year.
(Yet, a quick look at his Facebook timeline indicates that Silvio Parnis still deemed it fit to convey his birthday wishes with his chavtastic family picture. How inappropriate.)
Where was Mr. Dobbs in the late sixties and early seventies? Was he even born?
Surely he knows what the Labour mass meeting chant ‘Le, le, le! Il-Ġorġ il-barri ma rriduhx!’ means, or is he that innocent?
As Mintoff said (and I agree with him on this) – naħfru imma ma ninsewx.
I remember in particular a photo taken during Dr Borg Olivier’s visit to Japan, showing him blowing into a trumpet, carried in L-Orizzont or some other Labour-supporting newspaper.
The caption read “Kieku xtaqt li ndoqq xi kornu mhux trumbetta”.
“Assassin tal-Maltin, le le le lil-Gorg il-barri ma rriduhx!”
Kelli ghaxar snin dak iz-zmien, izda niftakru qisu llum.
I was same age at the time and I remember it as if it was yesterday. I remember I had asked my mum why they were calling him Barri, but I got no reply. ‘LE LE LE GORG IL-BARRI MA IRRIDUHX! ASSASSIN TAL-MALTIN!’
Mr Dobbs, please provide documentary evidence to substantiate your claim that “Mintoff forbade anyone using George Borg Olivier’s personal problems for political advantage”.
What we do have is evidence of Labour Party supporters’ behaviour. Pity we did not have an animal welfare commissioner that time.
[Daphne – And 10 years later, they were doing the same with rabbits, except this time they killed them and flung their carcasses around.]
Big deal, Dobbs. Mintoff screwed up the private lives of many and the repercussions are still felt to this day,
I was a child when I used to hear people chanting in public: “Le le le l-Gorg il-barri ma rriduhx!” But you couldn’t even say the word ‘bokkli’ without endangering life and limb.
Fred C Dobbs must be one of the young elves who would not remember the weekly Ix-Xewka edited and mostly written by that perverted weirdo Lino Cassar, who is now dead.
It was supposed to be a satirical newspaper and every week George Borg Oliver was featured with details of his private life.
At that time Mintoff was alive and kicking and Fred C Dobbs can verify what I am saying with Judge Wen Zhou Mintoff.
I still remember truck-loads of bulls driving past in the Sliema roads.
I have no doubt Mintoff disapproved of anyone making public reference to the Borg Oliviers’ colourful sexual lives.
Just as much as he was outraged at the false rumours he himself started so as to have promoted by his supporters, about Pawlu Boffa and his daughter – a fact which doesn’t seem to bother the granddaughter who never knew him, Lara Boffa.
Was it not Labour who encouraged bulls to be loaded onto trucks and paraded down Republic Street to commemorate the Labour electoral victory of 1971?
If anyone has any doubt about this, allow me to annihilate that doubt.
I was the constable on duty on number 1 beat, that is at the junction where South Street crosses Republic Street (then Kingsway) in Valletta. My duty was to direct traffic.
I must admit that the Labour victory then looked more like a march to Buskett on Mnarja than the celebration of a political party victory.
I remember watching that disgusting ‘victory’ parade from the door of Palazzo Ferreria, where the Public Works Department was housed.
I was there on that day in June 1971 – smack in the Palace Courtyard – when the old hag and his entourage entered for a ‘courtesy call’ on Sir Maurice Dorman, then Governor General, and ordered him to ‘hop it’ immediately.
There is a photo of the ogre and Joe Camilleri (then his private secretary) walking through the Palace corridors, escorted by (the then) Major Claude Gaffiero in Everyman’s Encyclopedia in the entry about Mintoff.
I still remember seeing a young heifer being paraded on a pick-up in (at the time) Kingsway.
Mintoff came out of his car, stood on the side-runner, or whatever its name, and ordered the horde of barbarians to ‘behave themselves’.
He asked “Will you obey me?”. The hoarse reply came back “Ghalhekk tellajnik, Perit”
What happened between that fatal day and 9th May 1987 not everyone, unfortunately, knows – or, worse still, wants to remember.
Mintoff had one hell of a lifestyle. The present EU Minister would be in the know.
Going up Santa Lucia hill, trying to overtake Mintoff’s car, it was obvious to me that there was some interesting activity going on in the back seat.
The car swerved from lane to lane and obviously we could not overtake it.
A man who paraded a bull in Haz-Zebbug after Labour’s 1971 victory was later given Gieh ir-Repubblika.
Just ask (the late) Lino Cassar who edited Ix-Xewka.
I was young but I remember perfectly getting the fright of my life coming face to face with one of these bulls as I left the bathroom at the Paola Youth Centre.
The bull was pulled by its horns into the Youth Centre where a bottle or two of whisky were forced down its throat.
White foam frothed round its mouth. Sometime later this bull collapsed in the middle of Paola Square.
Mintoff used violence to subjugate the opposition.
However you overlooked a point. Mintoff and Borg Olivier did not engage battle on personal affairs. This may have been convenient for both of them. However is it acceptable that politicians attack their political opponents on their personal lives? I would judge say Clinton and Berlusconi in their political merits and not on their personal lives. Shouldn’t there be a separation between personal and public lives?
[Daphne – Berlusconi, David, is an unfortunate example because that is exactly how you test the soundness of arguments: by taking them to the logical extreme. And in that way, Berlusconi illustrates just why it is of the essence for those who vote for politicians to be informed as to what those politicians are like. You vote for the whole person. It’s not an office job.]