Has the man taken leave of his senses?
Let me through! I'm a doctor!
I just can’t believe the way Joseph Muscat and his brilliant team of Anglu, Toni and Jason are hyping up the election of five Maltese MEPs as though it is a general election. They are behaving as though a change of government is imminent, and that we will wake up on Sunday to discover that Muscat is prime minister and Anglu is minister of justice (and Jason is the boss’s valet – “Your tie, sir.”).
The insanity of this behaviour is not quite of the same level as Sant’s announcement that ‘partnership’ had won the referendum and his instructions on Super One, while we were all out on the streets celebrating, that the nay-sayers should celebrate too because from that day on, Malta could work towards ‘partnership’.
But it is getting there.
What we will have on Sunday is exactly what we have today: three Labour MEPs and two Nationalist MEPs. It happened in 2004 and in 2008 the Nationalist Party – as we know – won the general election.
So in the famous words of Maltastar.com, nobody should be counting their eggs here. Muscat and his people should take a reality check and consider the inadvisability of hyping up the masses for change when there are still four years to go.
Here he is, quoted faithfully by Maltastar and caught up in a delirium of his own making.
“Next Saturday (June 6) is not merely about an election. It is a historic moment when the country will be given a sign that the era of red and blue politics has ended.”
“Our work will end once Malta has a Labour Government. Only then will we take a deep breath and start the new phase in earnest,”
“This will not be an easy election. We need courage. Courage to work hard to ensure that every vote will count. Courage to persuade all those who are disappointed and do not intend to vote, to not waste this chance. Courage to be part of this progressive political movement which will not end with next Saturday’s election.”
“The outcome is decided during game-time,” Dr Muscat said, referring to the actual voting day next Saturday (June 6). “And for us, game-time has not even started yet. Let us make sure that by the time it starts, we are ready for it.”
“It is the last whistle that decides the game,” Dr Muscat emphasised, urging all to do their utmost to convince those who were dissatisfied with the government’s track record to send a message through their vote, or to bring those young first-time voters into the fold of the new progressive coalition which would be taking the island by storm.
Quite frankly, I think they all need a prescription for Valium. Meanwhile, do take care to close the shutters. Now that Muscat has given up on his earthquake and Jason is still hanging from his tie, he’s planning a nice storm instead. I hope they have the appropriate tea-cup up at the party HQ, and not just mugs.
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Let’s be prepared to endure the carcades and red-flag waving next Sunday afternoon. I hope the PN voters who decided not to vote will enjoy their moment of petty revenge.
And make a bet that they’ll head towards Sliema, as they always do.
Let’s hope that this time round, we won’t have men pissing off trucks or smashing shop windows with batons, as was pretty common in the 1980s.
I wonder if they are going to take to streets with noisy carcades after the results are announced ? if so what flags will they be waving?
And if their work will end once Malta has a Labour government, x’se joqghod jaghmel f’Kastillja? Jara it turisti ghadejjin mit-tieqa u jiekol l-imqaret ma’ Michelle?
Forsi ha’ joqghod jara l-videos ta’ Hitler, halli jara kif irid igib ruhu man-nies.
Yesterday I happened to listen to Joe Debono Grech on Super One Radio addressing some loyal audience. He was explaining to them that this is not an “election about Europe” – whatever that might mean – but all about showing Gonzi that he is mismanaging the country, sending a message etc. Later on I also happened to hear him (or at least I think it was him) praising the leader and exhorting the faithful to admire the sacrifices he and his family made for the good of the party and the country. Qabbizzli d-dmugh!
‘era of red and blue politics has ended’ – which is why he’s aiming at disgruntled Nationalists to vote for him?
And Bedingfield saying “il-partit l-ewwel u qabel kollox” doesn’t quite support Muscat’s claim, does it?
And what about Joseph Cuschieri’s reply to Net journalists ‘Lilkhom qatt’?
I read Muscat’s speech the other day and I commented that he is a pompous ass. He is not just claiming victory for the PL – which would be understandable – but is implying that he is bigger than the party: another “salvatur ta’ Malta”.
I wonder what passes through the mind of someone like Joseph Muscat who is actually telling us that he represents a new era. I bet he imagines he is Napoleon speaking to his troops before the Battle of the Pyramids or Mussolini announcing that Italy has declared war on France and Britain. The latter is not so improbable because, when the Sant government collapsed, Muscat published an article with a Mussolini quote as the title (Better to live one day like a lion than a hundred days like a sheep).
The grand effect is rather ruined when he starts talking of games and whistles.
Maybe he sees himself as Horatio on the bridge. Or Moses headed to the promised land.
I’d noticed that it’s the grand effect that appeals to him far more than the aspirations of the huddled masses at his feet. He does get a bit carried away, doesn’t he? And there’s that amusing tendency to choose metaphors quite carelessly and to then mix them rather a lot, hence the parade of battle cries, weather reports, and sports results.
Did he really use that quote as a title? Wonderful. That one’s beloved of the trolls and gremlins who inhabit vivamalta.
I will have to look up the L-Orizzont article at the National Library. Fortunately they cannot remove a printed article as they did with their YouTube clips.
Joseph Muscat has always showed signs of megalomania. Remember his “message to the nation” a few months after he became leader of the PL? Then there was that ‘manifestation’ when he declared “I have decided to hold a protest”. He boasted about causing an earthquake and now wants to take Malta by storm. The only other Maltese politician who talks like that is Norman Lowell.
Muscat is already insufferable as Leader of the Opposition, God help us if he becomes Prime Minister.
Did you mean this one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7-xOsWuRys
I don’t know if you remember a TV programme called Big Blue Marble. It regularly included a short sketch called ‘if children ruled the world’ that featured a child sitting on an important looking chair making wild pronouncements on how the world was to do his or her bidding.
The feature stopped there. The audience was never told how those things were to be achieved and the audience never wondered why and so failed to ask: when, how, by what means and what do we have to give up to get there?
Joseph Muscat should stop and think just for one minute and he wil realise that we are talking about FIVE MEPs here. Just FIVE.
And anyway, for the last five years we have had 3 PL and 2 PN. So by their own reasoning we should not be experiencing any problems right now. The fact is that these elections will not be effecting the local scene because it is not a general election.
It’s the general election that counts… Muscat and his elves are just exhausting themselves four years ahead of the day.
They’re simply repeating previous errors… one after the other.
This is the sort of stuff that has prompted me to change my mind and opt to vote PN on Saturday. Somehow the impression I’m getting is that ‘tal-Labour’ have this great urge to have a street party and go carcading. Maybe they are still cold-storing the champagne they thought they would crack open in March 08.
All I can say is this is the wrong strategy if Labour really wants to make inroads into non-Labour-voter territory. Sunday’s street parties, carcades and hysterical victory speeches will just raise voters’ apprehension of Labour winning a general election. But I guess they just don’t get it.
“It is a historic moment when the country will be given a sign that the era of red and blue politics has ended.”
What exactly do you think he means? Is it a dictatorship he is after?
….. and after all this hullabaloo, the EPP will probably emerge as the biggest party.
Antoine Vella that quote is taken from the book , The Prince written by machiavelli and not by Mussolini. Better to live one day like a lion than a hundred days like a sheep.
[Daphne – This was Mussolini’s: ‘meglio un giorno da leone che cento da pecora’. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2002/dec/15/primaryeducation.schools ]
‘meglio un giorno da leone che cento ANNI da pecora’
What’s this revivalist doing next? Is he going to turn water into wine?
U mbaghad jghidu li hawn il-faqar:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090605/local/pre-placement-of-bov-bond-issue-over-subscribed
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090526/local/restaurateur-loses-libel-case
well done
Let’s not be complacent and bury our heads in the sand. Joseph Muscat might well be Prime Minister in four years’ time.
It’s all very well for the PM to say that he will not shy away from measures needed for the country’s well-being, unpopular as they might be. It is not these tough measures which antagonise the electorate, but the attitudes and methods adopted in implementing the measures.
Unless this problem is addressed over the next four years, it will be useless for Dr Gonzi to come at election time and plead to the electorate. Some voters just vote instinctively and not with their brains.
Maybe the only way that traditionally pro-PN people will come to their senses and not abstain from voting is by realising that by staying home, they are letting this lot decide for them instead:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/media/serve/20080210—mlp_mass_meeting.jpg
Ehe imma nahseb ahjar jamel ek milli joqod rieqed bhall gonzi u alabiebu mill poplu u xqed jigri!!
Imbad xhin iqum jadilna li kollox mixi sew!!
Why is there a direct correlation between poor spelling and poor thought? This is a rhetorical question.