Oh dear God, what frigging idiots
Published:
September 28, 2011 at 9:33am
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, upping the jerk quotient, was on Super One television’s Telepoplu last night, receiving the admiring wishes of – among others – one of the resident male showgirls, this one dressed up as a sort of priest, who suggested quite seriously that those who give their No. 1 vote to ‘Joseph’ in the 2013 election will be giving their No. 2 to ‘JAffrey’.
For heaven’s sake, friends, don’t all rush at once to explain to them what this means in electoral terms. Let Jason and Kurt work it out for themselves.
36 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
The program you watched yesterday was originally aired some three months ago. A video of the clip has been online on youtube almost since.
It was aired on Joey’s tv station yesterday, a few minutes before the evening news.
Sky News analysed Ed Miliband’s speech at the UK Labour Party conference, concluding that if it were the X Factor contest Mr Milliband would have received the eqqqqh buzzer with an X , indicating he was voted off.
I just wonder how Joseph would perform.
Ah but you see, by our Xarabank standards, he’d perform brilliantly and get the star prize.
They also concluded that the British Labour Party was a “Policy Free Zone”
http://youtu.be/y8f_bBw48pw
They might be ‘greatful’ for an explanation.
“Mr Sayeh said that Libya was very greatful for Malta’s role during the revolution.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110928/local/libya-1.386780
Is The Times recruiting from Maltastar’s stables?
I just hope they do so. Please, please LP ohorgu direttiva ha jaghmlu hekk.
Keeping in mind that JPO will be contesting the 2013 election with the PN…….
Ara vera kas kif semplici 4 atturi jitmejlu bl-istess nies li jhallsuhom biex jaghmlu programm fuq ONE.
I think it sums up Labour supporters. Not a clue!
Jason Micallef was on One TV yesterday, bragging ábout the line-up of talent for this autumn’s schedule.
One TV, he said, is the “only private and commercial station in Europe in direct competition’ with the national TV station”.
Interestingly, in this country run by a ‘regime where ‘kullhadd hu mjassar u qed imut bil-guh u ghaks’ , business sponsors of One TV are ecstatic about the sales made immediately after their adverts go on air on that station.
If that is not certifiable schizophrenia, I don’t know what is.
What does it mean in electoral terms? Seriously.
I don’t imagine Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando will be standing for the PN come next election.
[Daphne – If he does, and Labour supporters vote No. 1 Joseph and No. 2 Jeffrey, the party leader’s surplus votes (those over and above the quota required for his seat, that is) go to the PN, not Labour. That is, unless Jeffrey stands on the Labour ticket.]
Daphne, but if only to parties get elected, the party with the biggest number of No. 1 votes wins the election, therefore to be exact, the surplus votes will no got to the PN, but to Jeffrey as a candidate.
[Daphne – No, it’s the exact same situation faced in 2003, when AD spread the misleading information that EU membership would be safe if we voted No. 1 PN and No. 2 AD. Surplus votes are surplus votes. They go to the election of the next candidate, regardless of party – obviously.]
The number of seats in parliament will then be adjusted to correspond to the number of No. 1 votes each of parties’ candidates obtain. So even if Jeffrey stands on a PN ticket, the PN will win nothing out of it.
[Daphne – Not so straightforward. This simplistic argument was a time-consuming killer in 2003, and the only way it was finally put to rest was by having Fenech Adami warn against it in the final mass meeting before the general election, which as I recall was at the St Andrew’s parade ground. But if Labour supporters want to give their number one to Joseph and their number two to Jeffrey, I am going to object only on the grounds that they will help put Jeffrey in the house again.]
Neither Eddie Fenech Adami nor you ever successfully explained how voting no. 2 for AD could possibly affect the election result as regards to who clinches power. So, no Daphne, Eddie laid nothing to rest. I was there and so were you. History will prove that this was ultimately a mistake.
[Daphne – What was ultimately a mistake, Chris?]
Definitely, Eddie was right.
With our electoral system, voting No. 2 for AD can make a difference because if candidates from more than two parties get elected then it is the seats which count and not the number 1 votes.
The adjustment of seats according to No. 1 votes takes place only when candidates from just two parties are elected to parliament.
Taking, for example, the results of the last election – if one AD candidate was elected instead of a Labour candidate, then Labour would have been in government because the number of seats would have been as follows: MLP 33 (instead of the 34 elected), PN 31, AD1. This is because of “imperfections” in the design of the electoral boundaries.
It was a mistake to shaft AD at the very death of the campaign. It showed a Machiavellian side to Eddie, who, a few weeks earlier, was blowing kisses to AD, who were backing EU entry in the referendum.
[Daphne – For God’s sake, Chris. Nobody shafted AD and certainly not the prime minister at the time. As has been explained, the election of an AD candidate would have ‘broken’ the mechanism by which the number of seats in parliament is adjusted to reflect the number one votes of the two main parties. If you were prepared to risk Malta not becoming a member of the European Union just so AD could have its ruddy seat, then others certainly were not, and I was one of them.
You have the answer to your question in the results of the first EP elections a year later: 20,000 people (I can’t remember the exact number) who had voted PN in the general election the previous year voted for Arnold Cassola. An educated guess should tell you that they were the ones planning to give their No. 2 (or even No. 1) vote to AD in the general election, but were fortunately warned off. If they hadn’t been, we’d be living in the Switzerland of the Mediterranean today. Elections are not games of risk and chance, Chris. They are about reality, and people’s lives.
F**k AD, quite frankly. They were prepared to shaft the country to get a seat, and you say THEY were shafted? I spent the last few days of the campaign explaining to people why they shouldn’t vote No. 2 AD unless they were quite mad or didn’t particularly want to become EU citizens, and I don’t regret it for a minute. When AD activist – now a reporter for The Times – Kurt Sansone gave me an earful of poison over the telephone, I just told him where to stuff it, adding helpfully that I hoped it would fit.]
Up till that point, AD/PN could have happily co-existed, because both parties had principles, indeed, to the young/educated/pro-environment thinking person, AD had a lot to offer. It was also the obvious choice for disgruntled PN voters, who could never bring themselves to vote LP.
It would have been miles better to keep all the thinking electorate on side. PN squeaked it in 2008, but what price 2000 odd votes now, eh Daph?
I have to constantly remind you that we’re not all journalists/lawyers/doctors. The real middleclass (not mittelkless) have been the only sector who get some foreign exchange in and successive PN administrations’ way of saying “thank you” has been to make them pay for PN’s profligacy/inability to tax other sectors.
The ‘masterstroke’ of 2003, which rendered AD politically irrelevant, now means that former PN voters who want to tweak PN’s ears can no longer do this.
MMC is spot on in his first para.
I suppose an electorate so easily scared by (an inexistent) “babaw” in 2003 needs a reality check – and it sure looks like it will get it in 2013.
But Pullicino Orlando won’t be turning out for the PN next time round or will he?
[Daphne – I am not in a position to know that.]
You seem to know something! But will JPO and JM be on the same list?
I don’t understand why the PN won’t kick him out. Jeffrey belongs with Labour.
[Daphne – Ah, but his hated wife is there. You can’t divorce somebody after years of bitter animosity and then sit on the same bench.]
Why not? In this country anything goes. You only have to take a look at your case in ‘our’ court to know that.
Proverb 26:4 ‘Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be made like him.’
I feel like emigrating but I’m too young.
Well you must admit that it’s a good hedge play… :)
This certainly means that Jeffrey will have to stand in the same districts as Joey.
It seems that having changed my ID card to a Zebbug address I will now have to change it yet again to one in Burmarrad.
Like me, many hundreds of others I know who are determined to vote for Jeffrey come what may.
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has not been toeing the PN line for a long time now.
It is not just one or a few issues that he found fault with.
Have you been seeing his Facebook wall? He just throws in a link and then invites others to comment by asking ‘X’tahsbu?’. There was someone who asked him back ‘U inti x’tahseb, Dr Pullicino?’
If you and the many hundreds you know are adamant in voting for him, he should be courageous enough to be an independent candidate.
What the PL ‘experts’ are hoping for is probably that Nationalist voters who voted for Pullicino Orlando in 2008 will this time give the No 1 preference to Joseph Muscat.
I didn’t see the programme so I don’t know how Pullicino Orlando himself reacted to this “suggestion”.
[Daphne – Like hell I will.]
I’d rather hack my right arm off from the shoulder down!
JPO should not be allowed to stand for the PN next time round. I do not believe much in personal votes. In other words PN voters who voted for JPO in last elections would still vote for PN and give their No 1 vote to another more reliable candidate.
Tal-biki.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110928/local/pl-calls-for-balance-in-pbs-news-programmes.386826
So, if PBS reports that Lawrence Gonzi went on holiday, Labour is expecting that PBS reports that Joseph Muscat did not go on holiday.
Or perhaps Lawrence should tell Joseph of his plans beforehand, so that he too, may take a holiday, so that balance is then truly maintained on PBS.
Ludicrous.
Ara veru ma jisthux.
Min jigi jsemmi l-imparzjalita fuq PBS —– Gino Cauchi MP (Labour) li hu stess jipprezenta il-programm dwar il-gazzetti tal-gurnata fuq SMASH TV. Immaginaw x’ rapport johrog ezatt
On a different note –
The Times’s reporters’ command of English gets better each day:
“Mr Cauchi claimed he did not have fair trial because the main evidence given during the jury”
During the jury?
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110927/local/murderer-asks-court-to-declare-his-jury-null.386673
and whilst listening to Radio 101 news this morning on the way to work, I discovered that the American singer ‘Ri-H-aNNa’ annoyed an Irish farmer and was asked to get off his land.
Times, Maltastar and Maltatoday must be availing themselves of the services of the same proofreader.
If the programme was aired first three months ago, one must remember, then, that Jeffrey coincidentally issued a statement saying he had been asked by the Nationalist Party to contest the 10th district.
If he’s genuinely doing this to keep an open channel to Labour to interface their agenda within the PN parliamentary group, it could be, in theory, acceptable, although highly unorthodox. If I’m not mistaken that’s the whip’s role.
He has to be careful however, as Labour have taken to proclaiming their liberal values by reflecting themselves off their political adversaries, in the majority of recent cases, where it suited them, him.
What he’s risking in reality, is transmitting Labour’s internal strife into the current legislature, and when Labour’s financial problems are kept in mind, the agenda within the opposition becomes clear; an urgency to be elected.
Or I’m simply being generous.
Daphne, IL- LOSTRA a new programme on One is going to solve my problem!
Finish the sentence with one of the following words:
Editorial standards and prewf reeding of The Times journalists are going down the
a) pan
b) shitter
c) swanny
d) all of the above
Ah, but you’re assuming that “JAffrey” will be contesting the next elections under the PN “ticket”.