Underdog

In an interview published in The Sunday Times on 11 December last, Christian Peregin asked Edward Scicluna what drew him to the Labour Party.

His response was:

“I’ve always sided with the underdog.”

Joseph Muscat has now picked up that word and run with it.

Sadly for him, he’s running only with the word itself, because the concept of the underdog, or siding with the underdog, is completely alien to Maltese culture, which favours bullies, showboats and loudmouths.

He sits there and talks to his audience about underdogs and they haven’t a clue what he means.

Is it a new kind of hotdog? Something they can train to fight for money?

Is an underdog small enough to fit in a handbag like Paris Hilton’s?

The people who know what he means aren’t going to be voting Labour any time soon, nor do they think Labour is the underdog. They think Labour is a rabid dog that has to be fended off every five years – four, in this case – with pitchforks and possibly, a gun.

If anybody is the underdog in this whole sorry mess it’s Lawrence Gonzi. And that’s why the sort of people who are familiar with the idea of an underdog have rallied behind him, leaving the showboats and bullies like Jeffrey, Jesmond, Franco and Johnny to Labour where they belong.