Money makes their world go round
Din ta' Joseph u Michelle, orrajt
We have reached that point in an election campaign where matters teeter between hysteria and hilarity. One minute you’re laughing, and the next you’re thumping your forehead.
The Labour Party has lived up to its amusing reputation, with its wrongly-pushed buttons, its ‘I love Europe but I voted for Sant’ candidates, one deputy leader promoting real estate in Sicily and another deputy leader engaging in sexual innuendo with a rubber puppet. Now we have discovered that the leader and his wife have slipped themselves onto the list of plaintiffs in his party’s class-action law-suit, with €60,000 worth of cars.
Muscat’s people have rushed to defend him by saying that he bought the cars while he was earning oodles as an MEP, and immediately undermined their own campaign by prompting the reaction: ah, so that’s why the Labour crowd are scrambling over each other to get into a European Parliament they don’t believe in. They want to buy expensive cars like their leader.
It’s rapidly degenerating into farce. When a mixed group of electoral candidates met with an organisation yesterday as part of the lobbying-cum-information process, Marlene Mizzi gave her usual spiel about Europe and ‘il-business tieghi’.
“Oh yes?” somebody asked from the floor. “If you really voted Yes in the referendum, then why did you vote for Sant straight afterwards? As for your business, do you mean that shop in Rabat?”
It was bound to happen. Some of these candidates, like Mrs Mizzi and Professor Scicluna, haven’t understood yet that public life as a political candidate is a whole lot different to the public life they knew before. Political candidates are challenged, questioned and mocked.
Economists and chairmen of Sea Malta writing articles in the newspapers and speaking at conferences are largely left alone. Nobody gives a damn about them because they’re not after our vote. You can tell by the way they’re handling it that they’re surprised to be getting all this flak.
Scicluna has told us our questions are irrelevant, and Mizzi has accused us of vulgar probing. Both have told us that how they voted is none of our business. So there.
Claudette Abela Baldacchino spoke at that meeting too, saying that Labour wants everyone to be equal. The inevitable volley came right back at her: “I’ll give your leader a call and ask him for an Alfa Romeo, then.” Oh dear.
I have my own questions about Joseph and Michelle’s €60,000 cars, and they don’t relate to how they bought them, because we know that already.
They bought them with a gravy-train salary after years of telling us that if we join the European Union we’ll all end up starved in the gutter. No, my questions are about running costs. You don’t only have to be able to pay for an expensive car. You also have to be able to keep it on the road.
As leader of the opposition, Joseph Muscat is open to scrutiny of his financial incomings and outgoings, and this not for the sake of prurience but to ensure that our politicians are not vulnerable to the receipt of gifts. Whatever we said about Alfred Sant, it was obvious to all that money and the trappings of money were not at all important to him, and the same can be said for Lawrence Gonzi and was said of Eddie Fenech Adami.
We can’t say the same of Joseph Muscat. Money and status appear to be extremely important to him and to his spouse. People seem to have understood this instinctively.
The leadership-couple’s attempt at clawing back from the taxpayer the VAT paid on the registration of their €60,000 worth of cars does nothing to reassure us otherwise.
Because of this pushy, grabby image – which for all we know is a million miles from the truth and the two are humble folk who donate a large portion of their income to children’s homes and people living in detention camps – it is very important that the Muscat couple comes clean about a couple of things to put our minds at rest that the country is not going to be led by a low-grade David-and-Victoria-Beckham combo in four years’ time.
The first thing we should be told is how Joseph Muscat plans to pay for the running costs of those cars on his salary as leader of the opposition.
His wife is no longer working and he must support her and their two infants. The annual running costs for those two cars, including the insurance premiums for full cover, road tax, petrol and just one service instead of the recommended two, is around €7,000.
And this is a conservative estimate that doesn’t include incidental repairs, which in cars of that nature are very expensive. This is a legitimate question, and it needs to be answered.
There is yet another motor-related question. As leader of the opposition, Muscat is entitled to a car paid for by the people’s taxes.
Alfred Sant famously chose a white Mazda, and when he became prime minister in 1996, he insisted on keeping it and driving it himself instead of having a chauffeur. Everyone gasped in admiration at this humble thrift until we discovered that one of his protégés had been put down as his chauffeur and was taking the salary – while Sant sat behind the wheel.
If Joseph Muscat hasn’t yet got his leader of the opposition’s car, then I have some advice for him. Now that he spends most of his time howling about how people can’t afford to make ends meet, the last thing he should do is demand yet another car off their backs, even if he is entitled to one.
After all, he already has €60,000 worth of taxpayer-funded cars in his garage. If he does accept the offer of another car funded by the Maltese taxpayer, or has done so already, then he should sell his Alfa Romeo and donate the proceeds to a fund for stricken workers on four-day weeks, or pay some old ladies’ electricity bills.
Instead, he is trying to claw back the VAT on its registration tax, through his party’s law suit.
That strikes me as cheap. You would think that a man who can afford to spend €60,000 on cars – and then say on television that he can’t remember how much they cost (oh, so flash….) – would be able to pay for his own lawyers and his own civil suit. But no, he’s getting it all done for free through the Labour Party.
And here I must pause to draw breath. Is this a sponger I see before me?
The unofficial party line – and the elves are out in force, repeating it – is that Joseph Muscat is prone to heroic self-sacrifice and not to greed. This is because he gave up his lucrative salary to return to the rock and prostrate himself on the altar of the Labour Party for much less money.
You can see the mentality at work here: the only thing that counts is money, money and more money. Joseph and Michelle faced a choice between the high salary but low power and insignificant status of a member of the European Parliament and the low salary but high power and status of a prime minister of an EU member state.
The mistake his defenders make is to think that he left the European Parliament to lead the party. He didn’t. He left the European Parliament to become prime minister, and he said so himself.
Roll on the next few days.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
56 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
Daphne. Hypothetical and please excuse what could be perceived as free advertising but beamers, mercs and kia have ridden on ridden on the bandwagon so why not the rest.
I am a young man, married with two children with a very expensive kids’ education looming ahead. I need two cars and I want to be practical whilst at the same time not wanting to settle for a couple of cheapos. What’s wrong with buying a brand new airconditioned Punto, and a brand new airconditioned VW Golf, both for the grand price of 30,000 euros (LM12900 just in case the poodle gets confused).
Left in my pocket 30,000 euros without having settled for a couple of Yugos which might have tarnished my ‘perceived’ image.
That Mr Muscat translates into a few years’ education for Etoile and Soleil. I think even Edward Scicluna would have recommeded it. Not very sensible or indeed responsible of you, was it sir, and you expect me to trust my country’s finances in your hands? Not on your nelly mate!
[Daphne – School fees and other school-related expenses for those two children at one of the better independent schools will come to as much as the running costs of his cars. Unless he has some ulterior source of income of which we know nothing, there is no way he is going to be able to spend EUR14,000 a year on running two expensive cars and sending two children to an independent school. I think he’s going to try and pull all the strings he can biex idahhalhom go skola tal-knisja, xi Sejcrit HaRRRRt jew id-Dorotej, and get away with some crummy ‘donation’ that’s a pittance.]
“I think he’s going to try and pull all the strings he can biex idahhalhom go skola tal-knisja, xi Sejcrit HaRRRRt jew id-Dorotej, and get away with some crummy ‘donation’ that’s a pittance”
You read my mind! I don’t think he’d ever dream of sending them to a state school.
[Daphne – By then he’ll be prime minister, and can’t use the excuse that he’s not sending them to a state school because the state schools under GonziPN are terrible.]
Very good article and liked the Beckham – Victoria comparison. Looks are completely different, but the mindset, ambition, IQ, hunger for material acquisitions at all costs, etc, are very similar.
Kind of scary though, knowing that this duo will be in Castille in four years’ time.
Let’s hope we won’t have them launch their own perfume, or pose in underwear adverts, as the Beckhams have done.
Don’t think Daphne would agree to this. A couple of days ago she referred to Joseph’s legs as ” saqajn ta zewg pulzieri “!
David Beckham looks great in the in the Giorgio Armani underwear adverts. Just trying to imagine Joseph Muscat in such a pose.
Adam – They could always paste his face onto someone else’s body …
Here you go jenny! This would help you put it into persepective. (courtesy of faceinhole.com)
http://www.faceinhole.com/show.asp?id=1448d7d951d11a311f4
Here’s another one….
http://www.faceinhole.com/show.asp?id=49ee17d951d135142af
I’m going crazy with this…..here’s another one
http://www.faceinhole.com/show.asp?id=686f37d951d13a2cfa
@ Joachim.
Thanks for the laugh.
IQ? That’s a cruel one. Just google “Beckham jokes”.
Actually I believe that David Beckham is a lot more savvy then Joseph Muscat can ever dream of being.
I am watching John Attard Montalto on Super One, naturally he is by his pool. He is saying that he is still learning about the European Parliament. Jaqbez ghall-kaccaturi, ghal tal-kmamar tan-nar u ghal min tkun se taqalu d-dar. Ghal house visits ikun akkumpanjat minn tlett galoppini, wiehed xogholu hu li jdoqq il-qanpiena tal-bieb ta’ barra u t-tnejn l-ohra jharsu (bhal tal-gvern).
Six-0-Six is an interesting programme.
Well at least he’ll be sure that the ‘bell-ringer’ pushes the button correctly.
Ms M Mizzi was miffed when after announcing that she would be contesting the European Parliament elections, she was asked about her voting record in the EU referendum and the following general election. She does not seem to have understood that if you contest for public office your private life and voting track record will be put under the lens: vide Joseph and Michelle’s Alfa and Sportage purchase saga and VAT refund court case.
What a pitiful lot you are . I wish you could see yourselves as you really are, but you might not be able to stand the shock – it is not a pretty sight.
Scrambling over each other as to who can invent the most hateful, cruel and despicable slurs – on two people who have never done you or yours any harm
You are really sick. You should get help.
[Daphne – What’s your problem then? Morbid fascination?]
“two people who have never done you or yours any harm”
Oh but he has. Took away the best five years of my life in the run-up to the EU referendum. And his wife is guilty by association – my enemy’s friend is my enemy.
[Daphne – She was Alfred Sant’s personal assistant. Enough said. Her boyfriend got her the job – the perfect way to find out everything that went on in the boss’s office, while at the same time insinuating himself further into the boss’s affections. I might end up feeling sad for this chick.]
‘She was Alfred Sant’s personal assistant. Enough said. Her boyfriend got her the job’ daphne
none of your business daphne!
Ettore, you probably never heard of satire and have the average sense of humour of a Labourite (i.e. nil).
Antoine, the difference between satire and some of the comments on this blog is like the difference between a Picasso and someone drawing a penis on a lavatory wall and scrawling F**k you under it.
And that includes the smell.
[Daphne – Well, if that’s how you see it you must spend the rest of your spare time cottaging.]
Ettore, the best equivalent of toilet-wall graffiti we ever had in Malta was the old Ix-Xewka. For the nostalgics, some residue of that smut can still be found on one of Labour’s Sunday papers (can’t be bothered to remember which).
[Daphne – That salivating pervert Lino Cassar in It-Torca.]
Got it in one
Ħaqqek żewġ punti u ċapċipa.
@Ettore
” on two people who have never done you or yours any harm”
They tried to deny my children EU citizenship. If that’s not harm, then what is?
John Attard Montalto could also try presenting a series of travelogues on the Travel Channel if he does not make it on June 6th.
What about the election chances of Joe Cuschieri (brother of Emanuel of Super 1 vitriol fame!) who immolated himself on the altar of party-political expediency so that Joseph could enter parliament as newly fledged rookie Leader of the Opposition? Louis Grech, Edward Scicluna, Marlene Mizzi, JAT, Claudette Abela Baldacchino, Glenn Bedingfield seem quite confident they will make it. Where will that leave Cuschieri Joe who made the supreme sacrifice?
Ettore Bono, man, you ain’t seen nuffin’ yet………..wait till the poodle becomes Prime Minister, then even YOU will be laughing, probably hysterically. In the meantime enjoy Joe Cuschieri and the Profs pushing the wrong buttons for the next five years. Then look in the mirror and see who really needs help.
You got it Daphne that is exactly why I read this blog – morbid fascination. Same reason why sometimes I get stuck watching Jerry Springer and Xarabank.
During this electoral campaign the Labour Party has got most of their strategies wrong. One thing they got right though. It’s the billboard in front of Mount Carmel Hospital. Going up to Rabat from Attard one comes across two back-to-back PL billboards. One is about the skidding car “Gonzi tilef il-kontroll” …..well, everyone is entitled to his opinion. Coming down from Rabat the other billboard says “Direzzjoni …..” pointing straight to Mount Carmel. They got this one right, OK.
John F: The Mount Carmel innuendo is unfair to people who are in that hospital or who use its services. Joseph Muscat is not mentally ill. He’s just self-serving. There’s a world of difference between the two – and really no excuse for the latter.
Ettore Bono
“two people who have never done you or yours any harm”
You must be kidding! This person has done harm to the whole nation, irresponsibly dividing the country in a telling moment in its history, the run-up to EU membership. Had Malta as all other acceding countries then been unified we would have been in a better negotiating position. To add insult to injury he who had obtained a Masters in European Studies should have know better….but in his grand plan to become prime minister he could not risk being honest.
Daphne, since you have been trying (completely unsuccessfuly) to link the very ordinary purchase of some very ordinary cars to the “allowances scandal” in the UK, you might give us your views on the foillowing:
– Why does Kate Gonzi need a Personal Assistant when Mary Fenech Adami never felt the need?
– Since Mrs Gonzi activities are solely meant to enhance her husbands political image, why should this PA be paid out of public funds and not PN funds?
Now there’s a scandla if you want one!
Duck Island, anyone?
[Daphne – Catherine Gonzi is the first Maltese prime minister’s wife to take an active public role in charity organisations and other pro bono work. She does so as the prime minister’s wife and not as Mrs Lawrence Gonzi. It is the prime minister’s wife, and not ‘Kate Gonzi’, who is asked to serve as patron of these organisations. When she is no longer the prime minister’s wife, she will no longer be the patron. There is one person in the Office of the Prime Minister who has been delegated to coordinate the prime minister’s wife’s many commitments and duties in her public role. This person is called Daniela Xuereb. She was already a state employee when she had these duties delegated to her. She does not do Mrs Gonzi’s shopping or drive her around. She is not based in Mrs Gonzi’s home. Mrs Gonzi’s ‘activities’ are not ‘solely meant to enhance her husband’s political image’. She is the prime minister’s wife, and finally we have one who behaves us such. We have never done before, with – since the 1960s – our amazing track record of just three, Alex Borg Olivier, Moira Mintoff and Mary Fenech Adami. So instead of being critical, just say….at last.]
Pure sophistry.
Kate Gonzi’s activities have one purpose and one purpose only – to boost her husband’;s political image. Witness the jay-walking on the catwalk.
As such, any expenses arising should be paid by the PN not the taxpayers.
[Daphne – Mrs Gonzi has those duties and obligations because she’s the prime minister’s wife and not because she’s the party leader’s wife. I don’t know why I bother really, because if you knew how to think straight you wouldn’t be talking out of the seat of your trousers.]
Wrong. The inclusion of Kate Gonzi in the election campaign was part and parcel of the strategy to concentrate the canpaign on the personality of the party leader. As such, her involvement is purely political. And her paid assistant is misappropriation of public funds.
[Daphne – Mrs Gonzi is one of the reasons her husband is who he is. Borg Olivier, Mintoff, Mifsud Bonnici and Sant all suffered the negative consequences of not having a wife or of having a wife with whom they had an extremely dysfunctional relationship. Fenech Adami’s wife preferred to say out of things but that was the nature of their relationship and so we let it go. Mrs Gonzi is quite clearly the mainstay in her husband’s life just as Mrs Abela is in her husband’s life. That is the nature of their relationship. It is absolutely normal for the wives of prime ministers to do charity and other pro bono work. It is not normal to us in Malta because we have never had the experience before. For this, it is also usual for them to have a diary assistant. With Mrs Gonzi we can have full faith that this diary assistant is not being used for personal reasons. Sadly, we will not be able to have the same trust with Michelle Muscat. Sadly, too, you are unable to see that it is Michelle Muscat who is being used to bolster her husband’s image. It is quite clear that she is nothing more than a prop, and there is no evidence that he sees her as anything more than a prop. The dynamic between them is false and obviously so. Their team spirit is not based on requited love but on mutual ambition.]
Arguments are won by quality not quantity, and your Freudian analyses of the marital relationships of our more recent Prime Ministers, while, no doubt, very interesting, is totally irrelevant.
[Daphne – It’s not a Freudian analysis. It’s fact. That Sant and Mifsud Bonnici had no wives is a fact. That Borg Olivier and Mintoff had seriously dysfunctional relationships with their wives is also fact. That Fenech Adami’s wife hated being married to ‘the prime minister’ is fact too – she gave interviews about it. And none of that is irrelevant. Our past experience shapes our present perception. This is the first time we have had a prime minister’s wife in the proper sense.]
Kate Gonzi came into the political scene as part of the campaign to push what was seen as the PN’s only real asset – Gonzi. It was a purely political decision and still is.
[Daphne – No. It is normal for wives to be involved with their husbands at that level. If you don’t think so, it’s because you are patriarchal in outlook. Perhaps you’d rather he called her ‘din’ and left her at home in the shadows, cooking and cleaning for the Big Man. By according her respect and involving her in his life, the prime minister sets an example to all other Maltese men whose wives are put in a little box marked ‘home’ and ignored. I thought at the beginning that he wouldn’t be like that, but he proved me wrong.]
And financing it through public funds is wrong, no matter how much you try to fudge the issue.
[Daphne – Anything to do with one’s public role is always paid for through public funds. What is wrong is your demand that Mrs Gonzi should personally pay for the expenses of her public duties. She is not expecting the tax payer to fund her clothes or the vast number of, say, wedding presents she has to buy, even though the only reason she has to buy them is because she is the prime minister’s wife. So get a grip, or before long you’ll be saying that a prime minister’s wife is a financial burden to the tax payer so we should only have prime ministers who don’t have wives.]
Public roles are paid for through public funds only when the role is apolitical.
[Daphne – I’m beginning to think you’re somebody who’s forgotten to take his medication. The prime minister, MPs, leader of the opposition and political appointees in ministries are paid for through public funds. Are they apolitical?]
Mrs Gonzi role is purely political – boosting her husband’s political persona.
[Daphne – Would you rather he employed a mistress to do the job of consort, or shagged his brother’s wife like Dom Mintoff, during working hours? Just wondering.]
Here is a quote straight from her own blog:
“The vote is a tool in my hands, for me to choose whom I believe offers the best guarantee of wellbeing for me and my children. There are those who say, ‘what do I care, I don’t vote.’ So I say, do these people want somebody else to vote for them?… Yes, my parent’s vote secured Malta’s Independence. Yes, when I was young my vote won democracy and peace. Yes, three years ago my vote ensured EU membership. Yes, now with my vote on 8 March I will guarantee the strengthening of the economy, social solidarity and a healthy environment.”
Now you tell me; is that the wife of a Prime Minister speaking, or the partisan wife of a party leader?
[Daphne – Does she mention the Nationalist Party anywhere, or tell people to vote PN? She’s telling you to vote – not to vote Nationalist. That’s just what you inferred. Tiresome, tiresome….]
I don’t believe you are THAT naive – or disingenuous.
[Daphne – Don’t you have a girlfriend or something? What are you doing in on a Friday night harassing people?]
We will have Michelle in three years’ time.
[Daphne – Classy.]
Pseudo royalty in a republic? If only Dave Allen was alive!
Clean-cut politicians or not, the only people to have introduced a fee for public health care were the MLP with the famous 50c prescription fee. Mind you, I agree with it. But the facts remain the same. Gonzi promised free health care and is delivering. The MLP’s record is not good, as it was the first to break this principle. Those are the facts. And no one can dispute facts. Not even St Joseph.
(Am I to assume you are using censorship tp protect the more unsavoury of the posters here?)
[Daphne – No. I am deleting your link because I happen to know the back-story, which involves a person who has since died of cancer, and agreement reached over a threatened libel suit.]
Mario Debono is still posting here – and that is whom the link is about. You are protecting him.
[Daphne – No, it’s not about him. I know more about the story than you do, sorry about that. If there’s anyone who doesn’t need protecting it’s Mario Debono, which is why he uses his real name – unlike you.]
In that case, you should stop blocking the link to something which is public knowledge – a Maltatoday article.
[Daphne – There is a difference between blocking a link and helping promote lies.]
Why not let the people here judge for themselves? O don’t you have any faith in their judgement?
As Daphne rightly said, I don’t need defending. Especially from someone who doesn’t have two balls to rub together and post under the name his poor mother gave him. As for your description of me as unsavoury, my friend, the least I can say is that I don’t cower behind anonymity, unlike you.
Free Health care my foot. Try getting some tests at Mater Dei, you either have to wait for months, or else pay for a private consultation, unless you have friends to help you jump the queue. So as you can see only the blue eyed boys/girls get free Health Care, we mere mortals either pay for private health care or die waiting. I know I’ve been there.
[Daphne – Is there some kind of health care Utopia to which you’d like to point us for reference? Britain, say? The US? Italy? Greece? I am genuinely curious.]
You died waiting for health care, did you? Who did you pay for your resurrection?
@Grace
Quote: Free Health care my foot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDfGUoTm0S4&feature=related
That’s what Scicluna wants!
Corinne I’m smart I use my money properly. I took a health insurance so when I needed an intervention I just went to a private clinic.
[Daphne – I thought you said you couldn’t keep up with the cost of living? Where did you get the money for that health insurance, and more to the point, if you took out health insurance, it means you can really spare the cash – people making ends meet use the money for food (and water and electricity bills).]
This also means that I pay for check ups and certain tests because the insurance does not cover everything. I applied for a bone density test, (after all I pay national insurance and income tax) I was told it would take a long time so I took a private one. It’s now time to take a second test and I am still waiting for the first appointment at Mater Dei. Maybe I will get my appointment when it’s time for my third one. Or maybe you can advise me how to jump the queue.
[Daphne – You obviously don’t need to jump the queue because you can afford to pay for your own medical treatment, so go ahead and do so.]
Grace: I thought you said you died waiting, so what are you doing trying to jump queues?
Daphne I never said I can’t keep up with the cost of living, I work and earn a comfortable living. I am careful with the money I earn. I don’t buy expensive cars that burn up liters of petrol daily. I am careful when using electricity, it is more important to me to take a health Insurance than to go out to dinner every weekend. But then I consider myself better off than some people I know, although quite a lot of people are better off than me.
Chesterfield I never said I died waiting, when I said I’ve been there I meant I had to pay for my health care through my own pocket.
I’m not sure where I am on this issue. I mean don’t get me wrong, I dislike Joseph Muscat and for the reason that he gives me the creeps imagining him running the country, especially when we see who his deputies are. He repeats that he will ignore court decisions too much for my liking. He also gives me the impression that it’s like he’s playing some simulation management game on his PC. I can almost imagine him referring to some Introduction to Management book while in office. He also planned his whole image well before running for leader of the opposition – he made sure he was a married man with kids and and had a PhD. Almost as if he wanted to fill in the prerequisites.
But still about this issue I’m not sure. I mean, take some ministers and ex-minsters – sure they’re entitled to a car from taxes but it always hurts me to see them running around in Jaguars which guzzle petrol in the era when petrol is so expensive.
[Daphne – I agree. I think the time has come for them to make a statement by using small, fuel-friendly cars. That’s a style statement as well as a policy statement. Pompous cars are less and less hip with each passing month. It’s not like they have to carry passengers.]
So I guess once in office, people tend to take what they can get. I’m really not sure if he’s acting any different from the others. True, he’s only interested in image and that scares me a lot but as far as cars are concerned I think he’s just playing the politician card. What do you think?
[Daphne – I think that politicians have to be really carefully attuned to what’s happening not just in Malta but overseas, and rather than staying with the times should stay ahead of them. See my comment above. Big, pompous cars are aging in more ways than one, besides being out of tune with the times.]
Bit out of topic…or actually not: Martin Schulz’s (Joseph Muscat’s red German buddie) EP election campaign slogan is: Europe needs a ‘turn to the left’. He pleads for more ‘social fairness’ and ‘less greed’ in Europe and he is using public transport instead of the usual Mercedes Benz (or whatever) on his campaign tour through the villages (Herr Schulz is not that noted outside Brussels).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7KfZ3egKPs
[Daphne – Oh dear, I hope this isn’t going to do to the Alfa 150 what British chavs did for the Burberry check http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4381140.stm ]
Knight rider.
Sharon Ellul Bonici drives a very expensive Beemer X5 but what really bugs me is that her car and all her staff vehicles are parked in front of other people’s garages instead of the parking spaces since they are restricted for Pieta residents only to avoid the fines. One of the garages that are blocked by these vehicles is of a wheelchair-bound person. Her office is in Hookham Frere Street in Pieta; you can see for yourself.
Sharon, anti-EU, pro Labour, and champagne socialist down to a tee.