Il-Macina as MLP HQ and film studio.

Having a proper European market remains an elusive dream, until then, just enjoy the yearly Christmas or Patches markets.

Not to mention having a proper European food market… light years away from that. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Europe is in shambles; culture was never safeguarded, it’s all gone to the dogs for the sake of political correctness.

Or Fort St. Angelo as a discotheque.

The market traders have failed to consider branding in their business strategy, let alone invest in it. However, they certainly needed to because in order to sell cheap stuff outside and on shabby market stalls, you definitely need good branding.

Instead, they slowly built up a bad reputation, a bad brand, with their shady tactics and behaviour, and they let this snowball until the very word ‘monti’ came to signify all that you couldn’t possibly want.

Certainly, the bad branding was fuelled by shop owners who never liked the competition from street hawkers who don’t have to keep up with the same expenses they have.

To some extent, the street hawkers are aware of their bad brand and they want to re-brand themselves. That’s why, I think, they decided to blackmail a shady political party that was desperate to get into government; the Labour Party, for a new location and what they perceive as ‘neat’ stalls, in exchange for their votes.

But I can’t see how one can start to build a good brand by starting with blackmail.

The funny thing is that the Labour Party let itself be blackmailed and hence bought into a bad brand. And they didn’t have a good brand to start with themselves. Well, I guess they both bought into each other’s bad brands.

Now ‘tal-monti’ is not only synonymous with cheap and tacky but also with pulling the Labour Party’s strings and that’s going to be bad for business. On the other hand, the Labour Party will now be associated with ‘tal-monti’, adding to the cheap and tacky image it worked so hard to shed. What a huge mess.

The short-sighted business model that the market traders have adopted was good while it lasted. It won’t work anymore because most Maltese don’t want to buy cheap and tacky goods anymore.

No new location or ‘neat’ stalls will change that. And the Labour Party should better sell-off the bad brand that they bought, if it’s really serious about changing its image.

Many years ago a flea market used to be held in the ditch below Girolamo Cassar Avenue outside Valletta and it used to be jam-packed.

Would that not be a good place to hold the market seven days a week?

Sahansitra wiehed minnhom li jismu Twanny Zahra qal li huma ser jghattu dak il-mostru ta’ parlament u bil-kemm mhux qed ihossuhom xi eroj.

Dan huwa Laburist akkanit u taht in-Nazzjonalisti mar ferm tajjeb u kif ukoll.

Bejjiegha tat-tip tieghu figura kerha ser jaghmlu fid-dahla tal-Belt.