People who keep their options open

The Labour Party has given, as one of the reasons why it can’t take up George Abela’s suggestion to have the new leader elected by party members and not just party delegates, the fact that lots of people are members of both the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party. What sort of people might these be?

We can’t just rush to the conclusion that they are all kuntratturi or tal-bizniz who want to keep their options open and suck up to both sides. That kind usually sorts things out by donating money. And before lots of people post comments about the ugliness of such donations, let’s just say that it’s the system used in lots of highly civilised places. Political parties ‘need to eat’ as well, and they can’t make the money they need for their hobza ta’ kuljum through entrepreneurial activities, though they do try. Also, I’m sure most of you would rather they got the money this way than through your taxes.

A report in The Times the other day quoted ‘party insiders’ as saying that the numbers of such fence-sitters “could even run into hundreds”. Obviously, Labour is unwilling to let these hundreds of members of the Nationalist Party use their Labour Party membership to choose the new leader – though why Labour is so against it isn’t immediately clear. It might actually be a good idea to let them have a go. The Nationalist Party is pretty adept at selecting leaders.

“These people would have to be weeded out, and that takes a lot of time,” the party source told the newspaper.

That’s interesting – I suppose lots of people like to keep lots of other people guessing.

It’s no wonder that Jason Micallef rarely seems to know what’s going on.

Tony tar-Rabat’s fans aren’t pleased with me

Cui prodest scelus, is fecit.

– Seneca, Medea

(The murderer is the one who gains by the murder.)

In my column last Sunday, I wrote that when we look at the repeated calls for Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s resignation (when no such calls were made for the resignation of Karmenu Vella and Charles Mangion, both of whom were shown to have been cheating on income tax while they were cabinet ministers, and not just mere MPs), we must ask: who gains (by the resignation)?

I asked my readers not to rush at me all at once with the Latin expression that I couldn’t remember while writing, but I’ve since found it. Cui bono? Cicero quoted it as a maxim of Cassius. Seneca gave us a more elaborate version in Medea.

Yesterday, I wrote that I made a point of not voting for Tony Abela tar-Rabat, for valid reasons, nor for Michael Asciak of Opus Dei, also for valid reasons. Yet the former is one of those next in line for JPO’s seat on our district should he resign. True, even if JPO doesn’t resign he will have to give up one of his two seats and our district may be the one – so I could still end up with Tony tar-Rabat as my MP.

Ah, well, never mind – what I find interesting is that today this rather odd letter appeared in one of the newspapers for which I write, The Malta Independent.

It made me yawn

I refer to Daphne’ Caruana Galizia’s contribution (TMID, 20 March), to urge her never again to defend the indefensible.

How boring her article was on Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. It was obviously written by a legal hand, and she penned her name to it. I feel let down. Ms Daphne obviously does not have much of a mind of her own. She should stop trying to interpret the law. It made me yawn. To say that only JPO’s constituents have a say! What utter rot. Who fed her that line? JPO was elected on false pretences. He had the Prime Minister’s smile, and that got the dentist elected on two districts. Now the Prime Minister wants nothing to do with the tooth puller because he was deceived. Though he did not let on about that deception until after the election. How insincere Of JPO, Ms Daphne and Dr Gonzi.

Really, the article read as boring as the picture accompanying it. She should change that too. What is she trying to tell us? That she is some saint? We know she is not. Does she?

C. Galea

Rabat

Let’s leave aside the libellous (and ridiculous) assertion that ‘it was obviously written by a legal hand, and she penned her name to it.’ Apparently, I can write about any matter under the sun, including astrophysics, but law is best left to the lawyers ghax ma nifhimx. Mela hija – ghalhekk gab id-dikri Anglu Farrugia, hej.

If this person had been from anywhere other than Rabat, my antennae wouldn’t have begun to twitch. That, the personal invective and the line ‘he had the prime minister’s smile’ (sub-literate, but you still get the meaning) tell me that a rather large axe is being ground here.

And the last line tells me that the person who wrote the letter didn’t actually read the article, because s/he would have noticed that ‘the picture as boring as the article’ was changed a couple of weeks ago. I was quite bored of it, too.

Are Abela’s fans now blaming third parties for his failure to be elected? I think his constituents sorted that one out, good and proper.

The most cringe-worthy aspect of the prime minister’s visits to Rabat and Mosta during the election campaign was not the sight of those housewives jumping about and crooning with the Super One TV microphone, but Abela’s face trying to cram into the shot over the prime minister’s shoulder. Oh God, I thought, as I mentally counted the votes trickling out of the door. Looks like I was right, and he wasn’t exactly the most popular boy at the party.

Oh well, never mind – if JPO is knocked out of the door and we get Tony Abela instead, I’m sure there’ll be a whole queue of people from Rabat lining up to tell me why he’s more honest, straightforward and decent and more worthy of that ruddy Godforsaken seat.

Having been rejected by Malta, Arnold is Italian again

That Arnold Cassola is utterly shameless. No wonder he got so few votes in this last election, and then AD blamed ‘the system’.

He flew in to Malta to tell us that coalition works, in the fond hope of securing a deal-making seat for himself in parliament, only to be shown the door. Now he has reverted to plan A. Those of you who thought that a seat in the Maltese parliament was plan A for Cassola don’t know the Italian parliamentary pay and pensions scale. Now Cassola is in la bella Italia, soliciting for votes – though thankfully not on street corners.

He has come up with a cunning plan to fill a gap in the already crowded Italian political market: going after the votes of Italian expatriates in the election of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, which is next month. Make haste, Arnold – not much time left!

I owe to Fausto Majistral of malta9thermidor.blogspot.com this translation of how Cassola is canvassing for votes. Here it is:

“As a direct representative in the Chamber of Deputies of Italians abroad, I too have lived a good part of my life abroad. Because of this I feel I’m very close to your reality. I have lived in the first person many of the problems which we face and I have come to know of others through my continuous contacts with Italians in Europe.”

Tell me something, are party politics particularly attractive to this kind of person best described by a rude word beginning with w and ending in r? I look about me, and there are heaps of them. In this last general election, you could count the straightforward types on your fingers and not have to resort to your toes. And as for the party leaders….

Fausto thinks that Cassola will be flying back in to Malta next year trying to convince us to make him an MEP. He got 23,000 votes last time round, as AD keeps reminding us, uselessly. There’s another good word to describe this kind of person. It begins with o and ends with t.

Eeeeehhhhh, Anglu tal-Gift of Life, ta!

Ok, folks – now here’s a hard one. What does Anglu Farrugia have in common with Tonio Borg, apart from the fact that they are both lawyers (of markedly different quality) and one was minister for justice while the other was desperate to be that?

Each is his political party’s champion of the Gift of Life Movement and its drive to have an article about abortion slotted into the Constitution, when it is already catered for by the Criminal Code.

L-aqwa li Anglu favur il-feti u l-giti mal-iljunfanti (u l-ispirtu ta’ Lady Di).

Paul Vincenti and Gift of Life are lying low for a little while, but once the new government is nicely settled in and parliament is convened, they’re going to begin hammering away again, wearing down the last of the remaining politicians’ resistance to their mighty cause. Let’s see if they have better luck with the new Labour leader. If it’s Anglu Bellu, they’re in clover.

Fortunately, Tonio Borg is no longer Justice Minister, and as Foreign Minister, I can’t see him writing to ambassadors to support Gift of Life’s cause. A couple of years ago, he wrote to every single organisation in this country to support that same cause when he was Justice Minister, including the Malta Floral Club and the Jiu Jitsu Association, or variations on those themes.

And that, strangely enough, was not considered the bringing to bear of undue influence. Nobody called for his resignation. Oh no – of course not. There was no business involved, no money being made, only pressure brought to bear on associations and organisations to support the minister’s personal religious cause – something I find much more offensive, and with potentially graver consequences, than any disco in Mistra.

I don’t like the idea of a disco in Mistra, just in case you were wondering (and that’s mainly because I’m long past the age when I thought nightclubs were interesting). But I’ll tell you this: I like the idea of fiddling around with abortion and the Constitution far, far less. Obviously, I am in a minority on this one, because the majority of Maltese Catholics can’t distinguish between the rightness of practising their religion and the wrongness of imposing its rules on others who don’t. But there you have it.

The anthropologist Paul Sant Cassia put it well in a comment on The Times on-line, though he was arguing in a very different context. The British and Americans consider sex to be a resignation offence; the Maltese don’t mind sex but they sure as hell mind the thought that others might be making some money (my paraphrasing of his words).