“Dawk il-flus tieghi, hi. You can get a lot of cocks for 7,000 euros a year.”
"Jiena l-ewwel u qabel kollox."
So we learn from The Sunday Times today that Franco Debono’s principles haven’t stopped him collecting his salary as a parliamentary assistant at the Office of the Prime Minister, despite insulting, challenging and denigrating the prime minister regularly and boasting quite publicly that he hasn’t been into the office for months.
And the prime minister won’t kick him out and withdraw that salary because he’s afraid of what Debono will do.
That’s how people dealt with Dom Mintoff: they moved out of his way instead of standing up to him and calling a halt. And look what happened.
Debono has the exact same personality.
True, this means that he will probably do to Gonzi what Mintoff did to Sant, but quite frankly, it’s reached the point where going down like a man is infinitely better than surviving for another few months as Franco Debono’s doormat.
Yes, even if it means a Labour government at this point, and yes, even if those extra months give the Nationalist Party a better chance of winning the election.
Franco Debono is not normal, and so normal behaviour and reasoning can’t be expected of him. Even if he does not vote against the government tomorrow, he’s going to carry on holding the prime minister hostage and making dreadful scenes and threatening reprisals if he finds out that any constituency rivals are out on the hustings.
The man has serious problems, and the Labour Party, whose standards of behaviour have been proven over the decades to be absolutely abysmal, will continue to work with his problems to what it believes is its advantage.
The Labour Party is inept, amoral and completely unfit even for the purpose of Opposition. Its leader has now refused an invitation to appear with the prime minister on a special edition of the TVM interview show Dissett, tonight.
He cannot claim political bias by the host, Reno Bugeja. Instead, he has said it is “short notice”. Why, what else might he be doing on a Sunday evening?
By short notice, he means that he doesn’t have time to be prepared and rehearsed by those who write his scripts, and he can’t then read them off a teleprompter on an interview show.
The man is beyond pathetic: he turns down a major interview on a Sunday because he doesn’t have time to prepare, and then he would have us believe that he’s fit to run the country, which throws up, practically every hour of every day, situations which the prime minister has no time to prepare for.
Actually, I don’t know who’s more pathetic: Joseph Muscat or those who see in him the future of Malta.
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I cannot but agree with Daphne wholeheartedly on all these points.
As for what Joey might be doing this Sunday evening .
If he has any sense he should be hiding in shame in a hole like Saddam or in a culvert like Muammar.
What a coward.
That was exactly my reaction when I heard that Muscat turns down the invitation just because he does not have time to prepare. Prepare what exactly?
Qisu tifel li ghadhom kif qalulu li jrid jaghmel il-priedka tal-Milied.
Muscat has slipped up badly here. A clever and able prime minister in waiting would have grabbed this golden opportunity with both hands. Instead, he’s come across as someone who might not be the bright spark that his exponents would have us believe, after all.
Spot on Daph – totally agree with you. Franco Debono’s antics might eventually work out in favour of the PN because the floating voters and the hesitant PN voters who might wish to vote PL just for the change can now see more clearly what might happen with PL in government.
Having said this, I think no one should blackmail the Prime Minister and what makes it even worse if it is one of his own.
I think it is downright despicable to resort to insulting your own PM and the party.
Chuck FD out of the PN – no compromise and no appeasements, please. Being a goody-goody does not work any more in this day and age. You have to be tough.
Short notice? We’ve been waiting for 4 years now, let’s see his rhetoric under duress, monologues are for drama classes.
Come on Joseph, there’s the Norwegians with a billion euros remember?
Come on Franco, let’s see where your money is, you could institute your own class action as soon as the first lumps of coal spill onto your back yard and get one up on the old man himself.
PINNUR
If I were a voter in Frankie’s district, I would be clamouring for a recall vote. Now that would be a step towards meaningful electoral reform.
True, but was there not a petition going around a few months ago demanding Franco’s resignation? Whatever happened to it? Time to have another go at it?
Nar tat-tiben?
[Daphne – There’s a Facebook group demanding his resignation which has more than 7000 names to it.]
Well done.
Spare us the hyperbole Daphne – ‘every hour of every day’ indeed. It should be a piece of cake to be PM of Malta, especially one that has been benefitting from an injection of funds of over a billion euros in the past 6-7 years.
He should pull the idiot’s salary and hang the consequences. Let him go, remove the whip, sack him from the party and what happens, happens. Either way is better than this.
Right you all are. But what about how Joseph Muscat talks about the prime minister in a very demeaning way? I somehow don’t think that George Abela, had he been Labour leader, would have behaved the way Muscat did in voting with Franco Debono or bringing that motion in the first place.
Franco Debono has the example of a member of the judiciary who did not report for work for very long months, pocketing the salary just the same, thanks to the Labour Party then in opposition, that refused to cooperate with governmnet to put a stop to this.
Birds of a feather flock together.
did i understand you correctly thatat one point you state that the Maltese Prime minister should act like a man and call for an election, rather then be francos doormat, or rather then endure further humiliation?
[Daphne – No, that’s not what I said. I said that he should call his bluff, which is different.]
I think Dr. Debono has a right to complain, notwithstanding his responsibilities, and, who are we to judge whether he should be thrown out or not.
In Malta we have this culture of questioning everything, which is fine, but expecting to take the PM’s shoes and correct his decisions without knowing both sides of the coin is frankly, arrogant, and, childish as well, although Dr. Debono is not the model of maturity.
However, what would you do if you felt that you were underpaid? Resign, right?