Now Mintoff’s other daughter sticks her two cents in (without saying who she is and why she’s doing it)
Thanks but no thanks
A pincer action, eh? Yana speaks at the Labour Party’s annual general conference and Anna joins the elves and beetles in writing to The Times pretending to be a disinterested observer.
In situations like this, I think The Times is irresponsible and serving its readers badly when it doesn’t add an editor’s note, as it does with opinion pieces, explaining who the author is.
A person’s opinions have to be put into the context of who that person is.
That gives us clarity on motivation, and more so on credibility.
People like this make me sick. Anna, if you’re going to start writing letters to The Times about how we need a change of administration, for God’s sake have the decency to declare your interest and say who you are.
You’re not the daughter of the local grocer. You’re the daughter of Malta’s worst prime minister bar one, the one being his puppet Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.
Lady Boffa, widow of the man your benighted father shafted so horribly, had a letter published in The Times (when your father was prime minister) asking for her husband’s former supporters to transfer their allegiance to Eddie Fenech Adami because your father had betrayed all that Labour stood for (and which Eddie Fenech Adami had adopted instead).
She wrote, proudly, as Sir Paul Boffa’s widow. If she had not done that, her words would have been stripped of all their significance. Similarly, nobody gives a damn what a random Anna McKenna thinks about whether we need a change of administration or not, though you might be seeking to influence the usual grumbling crowd in your neighbourhood of Tal-Ibrag (maybe Tarxien and Bormla are a little too downmarket for you).
But then the views of Dom Mintoff’s daughter on the subject of how bad our education system is now don’t have much credibility either. And I speak as somebody who went to school and sixth form college and who couldn’t go to university when your father was prime minister. I was six when he came to power and almost 23 when he and his puppet were booted out.
Do you honestly believe that it’s because our state schools are below par that ‘Joseph and Mish’ send their children to San Anton School, or is it because MINE went there? Mine, of course, being a metaphor for a type.
So follow Lady Boffa’s example, Anna. Show that you are not your father’s daughter in at least this respect, and do the decent thing. When you next get something published, calling on us to vote for the man who has resurrected the monstrous politics for which your father stood, write it as Dom Mintoff’s daughter.
Then we might sit up and listen, and ignore what you have to say.
The Times, Letters to the Editor, today
Upgrading education
by Anne McKenna, Ta’ l-Ibraġ
Let’s have a change for the better. After all we have been downgraded – and not solely because of the demise of the eurozone, as our ostrich politicians choose to argue.
One of the main reasons proffered by Standard & Poor’s is our lack of competitiveness. This can only mean that our prime resource – namely, our workforce – is seriously wanting.
And in essence, this in turn implies that our government has failed dismally to invest adequately in our young people.
Our faltering educational system has thus become the most important long-term threat to our economy and national well-being.
For decades our schools have been propped up by the black market system of private lessons. Kids packed into airless garages for hours after school, where moonlighting teachers (and indeed unashamedly university professors) cram them with answers to exam questions.
The performance of high quality teaching staff in schools is thereby undermined. So also are the chances of academic success for those unable to afford regular private tuition.This deplorable racket of private lessons serves to perpetuate an educational system that churns out graduates lacking the ability to think deeply, discuss and argue cogently. It also further entrenches the existing income divide.
The consequential pool of untapped abilities reduces national output, contracts career prospects for the less fortunate and contributes to our floundering competitiveness.
Exacerbating this grim state of affairs is our university, where there is no shortfall of arrogant lecturers unrestrained due to the absence of any competing educational institution.
Not a few among them are known for their inclination to abuse their positions to the further detriment of some very capable students.
Should this continue unchecked? Should we accept such a demeaning disservice to our youth?
It is only with a change of administration that we can hope for better prospects, not only for our younger generation but also for all our citizens.
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It can’t be said often enough – may Mintoff rot in hell.
Perhaps she prefers the days when her father used to hand-pick the ones who would be offered university education. That was enhancing education, wasn’t it?
And what’s this nonsense about the income divide? Of course there’s one, and there should be one. Are we to go back to the days where work and studies are not rewarded by apt wages?
What a pathetic woman.
Thank heavens this was brought to your attention Daphne. It really made my blood boil to see Mintoff’s daughter criticising education of all sectors.
[Daphne – It didn’t need to be brought to my attention, Galian. I am perfectly aware who Anna/Anne/Ann McKenna is. For a start, she worked as an economist at Malta Enterprise/its predecessor organisation for many years. You know, because Nationalist governments only put klikkek tal-hbieb tal-hbieb in senior positions.]
I was really tempted to break my oath not to comment on timesofmalta.com ever again.
How dare she talk about education when her father butchered the education system when he was in power. What does she propose? Going back to the student-worker scheme he invented back then?
I know, I know … I meant the letter in The Times.
Th sweet irony of it all is that between 1988-90 she used to teach Economics at De La Salle College, one of the school’s her father’s regime closed down during the church school saga.
Joseph Muscat must indeed be desperate if he needs the support of Mintoff’s daughters.
Good point you raised this. I hope that Joseph is not conducting secret deals with the Mintoff daughters for a better compensation on the Gharix.
[Daphne – Compensation is court-mandated. The government doesn’t get a say, unless it’s ex ufficio.]
Funny how none of his daughters ever spoke about a change of Government in 1992 ( KMB was MLP leader) and in 1996 ( Alfred Sant had taken over).
Guess they want a return to the past.
At the slightest smell of early elections the Mintoffjans have arisen !
Ah! So now we have a faltering education system? This from somebody whose father’s idea of a good education minister was Agata Barbara. She systematically wrecked the state school system, while he and his puppet Karmenu wrecked the church schools (they have never recovered, because they have all lost their identity since) and went to town dismantling the university and the medical school.
As the Italians say, “Da quale pulpito (predica)?”
Liars, simply bloody liars. Il-lupu jbiddel sufu imma fhemtu ma jibdilhiex. That’s il-partit tal-lejber for you.
“In situations like this, I think The Times is irresponsible and serving its readers badly when it doesn’t add an editor’s note, as it does with opinion pieces, explaining who the author is.”
What if The Times deliberately omitted to tell their readers who Anne McKenna is?
The way the Times have been reporting for quite some time now makes me wonder whether they have already pledged their allegiance to Joseph Muscat for the general election, whenever it is held.
Here are two very recent examples.
MIA’s CEO presented his company’s figures for 2011. The Times reported this conference in two similar reports with different headlines – “Airport expecting a slower 2012” and “Airport passengers expected to drop 2.8%” when their headline should actually have been that 2011 has been a record year and 2012 will be expected to remain very good but with lower figures than 2011.
The negative slant to their stories is now so obvious that there is no longer any question that it is deliberate. It is as though, when confronted with a situation, they look for the negative peg and hang their story on it, putting the negative detail into the headline and burying the major positive story well within the text or ignoring it completely.
The latest on Air Malta – “Brussels raises concerns on Air Malta rescue plan” – the title leads one to believe that the restructuring process is on the verge of collapse. Once you read the article you will quickly realise that the EU process has entered a new phase which in effect requires further investigations.
The newspaper is particularly ridiculous in its treatment of anything that Debono,JPO, Mugliett and Dalli say, not even bothering to put them and their statements into the context of who they are and what they’re trying to do. Or why they’re trying to do it.
Nor has there been any attempt at all by The Times over the last few months to investigate what’s going on with the Labour Party, and particularly, what’s delaying its electoral programme and news of its policies. The Times is taking on the mantle of Malta Today, for whom only the government exists and not the government-in-waiting.
Yesterday, on Affari Taghna, Chris Cardona made a very telling slip. When referring to The Times he said: “Kullhadd jaf lejn fejn kienet it-Times” and then he quickly corrected himself and added “Kienet u ghada”.
Well said. I have given up leaving any comments on the timesofmalta.com. It has become Labour forum with Laiviera at the helm and JB (joe brincat) tracking behind. Shame on The Times and on the way it reports certain issues. Clearly, it has come out as anti-Gonzi.
Has the Times done an underhand Sun after being infiltrated by Sansone, Peregin and their ilk ?
It could be in their insurance policy. A discounted premium if they keep away from criticising the same organisation which upped it in the first place.
Mhux car daqs il-kristal lejn fejn qed timbotta it-Times?
Joseph must have copied his e-mails to Sabrina to the staff at other ‘independent’ papers.
She’s referring to education under the Labour government.
Definitely not the education she and her sister got.
It is a bit rich for a daughter of Dom Mintoff to speak about the poor state of affairs in schools, university etc. If there is one thing that this government can say is a feather in its cap its education at all levels.
How exactly will a change of administration change anything at the University of Malta? Are they planning a big Stalinist purge of lecturers?
A big Stalinist purge by the Stalinist lecturers.
You know, like that ofen quoted Labour adage “Min mhux maghna kontra taghna”, that kind of thing.
I was writing this as a joke but that’s not too farfetched actually.
With Hu Flung Dung Mintoff Bland as rector – the shit could fly.
Let’s delve deeper into the question. Many of the top people at the University of Malta are Labour sympathisers or members: Dominic Fenech, Edward Scicluna, Andrew Azzopardi, Edwin Grech, Anglu Psaila, Albert Leone Ganado, Lino Sant, and that giant mole from administration who passes confidential information to Labour and its various newspapers.
So if the University of Malta is the shambles that Anne McKenna née Mintoff says it is, whose fault is it?
You forgot most of the Faculty of Education, dear Mr. Baxxter including Mary Darmanin ex-wife of Dr. Alfred Sant, Ronald G. Sultana, and Carmel Borg.
Maybe this twat (apologies but there is really no more apt a description) wants to close the art and langauge faculties again like Mintoff did because he believed that the sole aim of higher education was extrinsic.
Who’s the mole, Baxxy?
Blimey. Yes, and I also forgot Evarist Bartolo. Then there’s the celebrated Edward de Bono himself.
As for the mole, I don’t have the name, or I would have written it. But he or she shouldn’t be too difficult to trace in a small administrative organisation.
Why are all the Mintoffs being resurrected this week?? It gives me the shivers just to see the name.
I want to forget Dom Mintoff and that the likes of him ever existed. Why don’t his daughters hide their faces in shame for the rest of their lives?
Their father took away our youth. We lived in terror – yes terror.
People (my father included) would be arrested and thrown into prison in the middle of the night – just like a scene from a Nazi movie.
Everyday brought some new terror. I am not exaggerating. The Mintoff regime was sheer utter hell.
So you Mintoff daughters, please crawl back into the woodwork. We will never forget what it was like living under your dictator father.
Years of good stable democracy under this government still cannot dispel the abhorrence I feel whenever anything reminds me of the reign of terror we lived through under ‘Is-Salvatur’.
But every cloud has its silver lining. They cannot accuse the Nationalists of resurrecting ancient history to clinch some votes which might otherwise have been left unused. They’re doing the good turn themselves and reminding all people of good faith why they cannot lie low and let the Labour Party anywhere near Castille.
Yes, you are right, this week’s regurgitation of Mintoff does have a silver lining. The more they remind us of him, the more rope to hang themselves. So yes, bring on the ‘good old days’ and let Mintoff lead us to another PN victory. Thanks, Joseph.
No Anna, trying to forget Mintoff is wrong. The evil this excuse of a man did for our country is immeasurable. Forgetting that he came within millimeters of turning us into a satellite of Gaddafi’s tyranny, is something that should never be forgotten.
The lands he gave away for pennies to his friends, ministers, while stealing private properties and turning them into Labour clubs, is legendary. The rape of two banks, the secret deals with Communist countries with AST’s help are scandalous. The ridicule he brought even at the mere mention of Malta’s name was embarrassing.
Even his own daughter seems ashamed of her maiden name and I suspect that she did not even write the garbage herself but lent her name sans the Mintoff label.
I cannot put the stinking fart out of my mind because the moment I do is when I turn senile like him. Forgetting Mintoff is actually endorsing the evil man’s ill deeds. No, he deserves nothing less than uninterrupted scorn until his last breath.
After that, his soul will be in God’s just hands.
This is the man who tried to peddle Malta and turn us into a mere British borough and when that failed told the same Brits to ‘go home’! Yet the feeble minded still regard him as their idol.
Each November 11 we lay wreaths, most of which read “Lest we forget” in reference to the horrors of wars and similarly we should not forget Mintoff lest we end up with another clone, and quite evidently there are quite a few like creeps in the making.
I will never ever forget what Mintoff’s reign did to my youth. But do understand that I cringe at the mere mention of him….every time I remember what Malta (or let’s say half of Malta) had to live through back then, it’s like an open wound that will never heal. Oh how lucky youth are today.
So just keep quiet, Anna Mintoff McKenna – you have some nerve to preach to us about downtrodden youths.
“Not a few among them are known for their inclination to abuse their positions to the further detriment of some very capable students.”
Oh the irony. The lecturers I know who are guilty of this are staunch Labour supporters who spout Marxist rhetoric and class warfare.
Besides not being relevant to my course, it is either taken as fact, or goes completely over the students’ heads because they are too young to understand the references these ‘Professors’ make.
I wouldn’t expect The Times to include a helpful editor’s note any time soon.
If Joseph Muscat wanted to ‘infiltrate’ The Times, he has clearly succeeded.
Yesterday’s front page headline wasn’t ‘PL Motion Defeated’ or at least ‘Debono Abstains’, which would both have been obvious choices but a non-headline saying ‘So… What Next?’
Its leader article argued for an immediate election which is starkly different to 2003 when a day after the PN and the MLP both claimed they won the EU referendum, The Times front page headline unequivocally stated that the Maltese wanted to join the EU despite all the abstentions and ‘votes’ by dead people which Alfred Sant claimed as his own.
Yesterday’s articles seemed like a last ditch attempt to sow instability and hopefully give Joseph Muscat the election he craves so badly.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120127/local/So-what-s-next-.404083
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120127/editorial/Parliament-proposes-the-electorate-disposes.404027
Shameful.
“Kids packed into airless garages for hours”
What a bloody cheek, Ms McKenna.
I’m 34 now and the only time I was packed into an airless garage for education purposes was at the age of eight. Your father had decided that his puppet should preach that schools should either be “B’XEJN JEW XEJN”.
I used to go to a Church School at the time and our school was forced to shut down temporarily because of that bloody slogan.
In the meantime, “we were packed into airless garages for hours”, lessons organised “underground” by our school, hiding whilst being terrorised by the marmalja on trucks who used to go round the streets to make routine checks that everything was “in order”.
Thank you, Anna McKenna for reminding me of what we had to go through (it had almost slipped my memory). And I’m not speaking about the 18th century here. That was just 26 years ago.
28 years ago. 1984.
Labour has long wished for an English-language newspaper and now it has The Times and Malta Today to fulfil its need.
Maybe one should remind them what happened in October 1979 or are they suffering from amnesia.
If Labour is elected to power, the marmalja might remind them what happened in October 1979.
I wonder if the lady remembers her ex colleague Metwally.
He was sacked by the University of Malta when he published the book about micro economics in Malta during the Mintoff administration wasn’t he?
He was also deported from Malta and considered as a persona non grata.
Daphne,
Could we have a comprehensive list of people deported from Malta and the reasons why?
People like Anna McKenna harden my resolve not to vote for Mintoff’s descendants.
Mine too.
Kemm sirt niehu pjacir naqra dawn il-blogs . U int ” maymintoffrotinhell” veru bniedem kummidjant. Ma tmurx il-quddies kuljum ghallijistajkun ux. Il-hin taghkhom daqt ha jasal. tick,tock,tick,tock.LOL
I bet that’s what you said before the last election too, didn’t you?
Nahseb kummidjant Muscat li qed juza l-immagini ta’ Mintoff ghax hu m’ghandux immagini tieghu x’jipprogetta.
Attentat imqanzah biex igib lura lil dawk li kienu haduha kontra Alfred Sant meta ghajjar lil Mintoff. Ghalhekk JM issa qed jipprova jitfi lil Alfred Sant u jnessi lil niesu dawk it-22 xahar fil-gvern.
Imma donnhom nies bhalek, mhux kapaci jaqraw dak li qed jinhema b’mod sottili min-naha ta’ JM. Wara l-elezzjoni bye bye Mintoff imbaghad. L-aqwa nuzaw l-image. Sant ghallinqas kien elimina l-elementi vjolenti fil-partit. Minn dak li qed jiktbu shabek fuq dan il-blogg, fuq Facebook u fuq timesofmalta.com (li Issa sirtu thobbuha f’daqqa wahda) donnhom l-elementi vjolenti regghu hadu spinta.
Bilhaqq, jekk issib xi intervent ta’ Alfred Sant waqt il-konferneza BuildingUpSenseofVictory type, li kellkom dan l-ahhar, ghidilna bih please.
Kemm ghad fadalek x’tisma t-tick tock, habib.
James – il-hin ghal kulhadd jasal, pero’ sakemm jigi iz-zmien taghkom, tilhaqq tinhanaq tghodd it-tick, tocks.
Hu pacenzja u stenna ta’ l-inqas daqs 15 il-xahar iehor, imbaghad wiehed jara.
Ghandek ragun tiehu pjacir taqra dan il-blog.
I too enjoy reading this blog. The Internet is synonymous with and the best thing that happened to freedom of expression.
Daphne is the best thing that happened to the Internet.
Read Daphne and learn.
Mintoff’s relatives could seek relief abroad – the rest of the island’s children couldn’t because tight financial controls prevented the daughters of humbler parents from continuing their tertiary education abroad when Mintoff/KMB deliberately wrecked and dismantled Malta’s University and other tertiary education establishments – not my words, the condemnation of Ralph Dahrendorrf, Mintoff’s own adviser.
Talking about The TImes, I read the article about Mr Grech Orr http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120128/local/former-the-times-editor-passes-away.404224
This sentence stood out ‘He was always correct in his actions and never sought to sensationalise.’ Pity it seems The Times is going in a different direction lately.
[Daphne – It’s this that stood out for me: “…post-independence transition and the attack on Strickland House in 1979.”
The attack on Strickland House, without saying who attacked it and why. Very convenient. It was the worst moment of Grech Orr’s career, but apparently, keeping Labour happy is more important to whoever is in charge now.]
In my opinion, Mrs. McKenna would have made a bigger impact on public opinion if she had joined these ladies in Davos.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120128/world/topless-protest-in-cold-davos.404228
[Daphne – I think it’s shocking that this is the only news story coming out of the WEF in Davos this week, in the Maltese press. How insular we’ve become.]
But you should be happy, Daphne. It’s the women who are setting the agenda in Davos.
I’m going to go against the grain here, and wish Mintoff a very very long life. Just imagine how happy his spawn will be to wait with all those Mintufjani till he kicks the bucket. Mind you, they will also have to wait a long time before being able grab hold of his dosh, but hey that is a small price to pay.
Trid tkun wiccek tost sew biex tkun it-tifla ta’ Mintoff u tigi titkaza bl-edukazzjoni issa.
U naqbel li tat-Times saru jimmanipulaw u juru li jridu huma biss.
Igibu l-iktar kummenti idjoti u bla sens, u imbghad kummenti bil-hsieb u ragunati imma li jistghu ikunu ‘skomdi’ jigu maqtuha.
“Exacerbating this grim state of affairs is our university, where there is no shortfall of arrogant lecturers unrestrained due to the absence of any competing educational institution.”
Do we have here the promoter of Joseph’s idea for a second university?
Has somebody here been promised the position to lead a second university?
Ms Mckenna Mintoff (which I believe is her official name on ID, bank accounts, passport etc) should know better than to try and pull a fast one on the rest of us.
Shame, Ann, you have just joined the rest of the Mintoffjani lot, which does not show much judgment and certainly destroys the individual profile you had worked so hard for (with the assstance of the “hbieb tal hbieb NAZZJONALISTI”).
BUT then I believe that our lot have always shown they’re able to rise above the hniezrijiet your daddy practised.
Our education system is far from perfect. Indeed, educational standards in Malta are a cause for concern in many respects and are in need of an overhaul in some crucial areas (take the teaching of English at primary and secondary levels, for instance).
But for a person as educated as Anna McKenna to state that “it is only with a change of administration that we can hope for better prospects” without telling us how exactly this will happen with a Labour government is rich indeed.
How, pray, will a PL government improve our education system? Successive Nationalist governments, with all their warts and bouts of mismanagement, have an unparalleled track record in investment in education and, contrary to Ms Mckenna’s belief, there is absolutely nothing to support the illusion that better prospects exist for the country’s educational system with the PL at the helm.
“Exacerbating this grim state of affairs is our university, where there is no shortfall of arrogant lecturers unrestrained due to the absence of any competing educational institution.”
Is a Labourite / Mintoffian seriously arguing in favour of privatisation? And here I thought the private sector was the work of the devil in western pants.
Also, I’m not sure why she’s arguing about young people being unable to form cohesive arguments, when her paragraphs are nary more than a sentence.
Pity that Mintoff’s daughters never mentioned the shabby (mild word) treatment that their father gave their mother. Of course, now it is not expedient.
“One of the main reasons proffered by Standard & Poor’s is our lack of competitiveness. This can only mean that our prime resource – namely, our workforce – is seriously wanting.”
Yes Anna, our workforce is seriously wanting. Why? Because a lot of the middle-aged workers are people your father raised up from the dirt. People without much competence who got to where they are not because they were hard working. And of course these people are having children and raising their spoilt in the warped mentality of “It’s my right”.
“And in essence, this in turn implies that our government has failed dismally to invest adequately in our young people.”
I work in a school and the level of technology which schools are now being supplied with is wonderful. We have interactive whiteboards, we have projectors and well equipped media rooms. And most of the financing comes from Europe- yes that zone which shall not be named. Of course though, this is all painted in very negative light by labourite teachers who refuse to use the technology saying that it is a waste of time even though the positive of such equipment far outweigh the negative.
“For decades our schools have been propped up by the black market system of private lessons.”
Anna dear, your father is the reason that private lessons started when he closed down the church schools even though students were about to sit for their o-levels. What did you want them to do? As absurd as it may seem to you, there are people on this tiny rock who want to better themselves and do well in life soley depending on their own merits and talents.
“The performance of high quality teaching staff in schools is thereby undermined.”
The only reason, Anna, that our quality teaching is undermined, is because of the damage done by your father and his government in encouraging violence, poor behaviour and bad attitude. When I was young, I would never dare answer back at teacher let alone tell her to “go f*** herself”. Well that’s what we have now in government schools. And for the record, I used to teach at one of the best government schools on the island before your father and his government destroyed the system.
Honestly, the nerve of some people.
She was probably talking about the “human recession” – the one Joseph Muscat spoke about some time ago, copying the phrase from a US policymaker, pretending it was one of his original concepts, like the “living wage.”
What’s happened to those concepts?
Ta’ l-Ibrag is it, now?
The nerve of that woman, sullying the decent people of Ta’ l-Ibrag.