People with no experience of life or politics should not have a newspaper column in which to write about both
Kenneth Zammit Tabona once appeared on a Birdlife billboard. Now he is effectively party to Labour’s agreement with those who shoot and trap birds, an agreement which has left Birdlife “appalled”.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona, writing in The Times yesterday:
It is extraordinary how since 2008 when he was elected Leader of the Labour Party, Joseph Muscat immediately started talking of reconciliation and a Malta for all; uncannily echoing the same refrain as that preached assiduously by Fenech Adami in 1987 when he, Joseph Muscat, was still a nipper at my college! He is in fact a product of that particular period which by all accounts was a golden age in our post-colonial history.
This is why we have to ensure Malta remains a fully functioning democratic country wherein nobody, but nobody, remains ensconced in power for too long as it is politically unhealthy.
I am in fact very surprised that the PN has never once mentioned that it intends to be a government for all and that worries me. Maybe this oligarchy thing is not such a myth after all.
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It is a given that columnists should know their subject, but apparently not in Malta, where an ability to write proper English in a vaguely entertaining manner is considered sufficient qualification for a newspaper columnist’s job, and hang the rest.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona started out writing about music and art. He then began to write about life and politics when he has experience of neither.
The results are absolutely tragic. He is a sitting duck for political con artists and reading his forays into politics is like reading my forays into music were I ever to be so presumptuous as to write anything about the subject.
Here Kenneth naively (or perhaps disingenuously) says that it is “extraordinary” how Joseph Muscat “uncannily” echoes Fenech Adami in his talk of reconciliation.
For God’s sake, Kenneth, it’s about time you grew up. One need not have been around to listen to Fenech Adami so as to know what his speeches were like. There are recordings and newspaper reports, and be sure that Muscat and his advisers have sucked them all up and dissected them.
And still, a man less like Eddie Fenech Adami it is hard to imagine.
The one thing that was supremely wrong with Fenech Adami was, in fact, his policy of reconciliation. It allowed criminals to get away with gross corruption, extortion, harassment and even murder. The desire to close that chapter and move on and has a permanet scar in our psyche and – worse still – it has made possible your Joseph’s rewriting of his party’s ghastly history.
Worse still, it has allowed your Joseph to present some of the very worst people from that hideous era of Mintoff and KMB as contenders for ministerial positions as from Monday. It is ironic to watch Leo Brincat, Karmenu Vella, and the rest of the sleazy bunch gloat as people are prosecuted for taking bribes in the current ‘oil scandal’ when they and their colleagues lived corruption on a daily basis to the extent where they even ‘granted’ access to colour televisions.
Some of their colleagues were involved in a massive land-grab that ruined the face of Malta permanently. And this while they were cabinet ministers.
Kenneth, you are fantastic with music and fun in several other fields, but I have to tell you this: in life and politics, you are a complete idiot. You are either very gullible or very devious. It’s probably a mixture of both. If it’s the former, I hope for your sake that you do not have the scales cruelly stripped from your eyes, because disillusionment is one of life’s more difficult challenges. But if it’s the latter, then what can I say? Good luck with that.
Oh, and absolutely nobody says ‘nipper’ anymore, for roughly the same reasons they don’t say ‘spiffing’.
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You are a hypocrite and an opportunist, Mr Zammit Tabona.
On a different note:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130306/local/fight-at-rabat-pl-club.460331
It is the bane of all those who publicly support one party or the other – they feel obliged to toe the party line, no matter how nasty.
[Daphne – Bollocks. That’s only the case with Labour.]
I’d like to see him differ openly from any Labour policy – probably he thinks he will be treated benignly as he is now. Get ready for a rude awakening, Kenneth boy!
Reading what someone has written about music is like listening to someone whistling about sex.
Enjoy your new middle class Kenneth.
And do get some training: still life demands perfect draughtsmanship and attention to detail.
hahaha… well put (as always) Daphne!
So how come you have?
Considering how he was shedding public tears not so long ago for the plight of African immigrants arriving irregualarly on our shores, it does come as a surprise that he of all people is joining the Imperium Europa rabble who have been directed by anti -semite Norman Lowell to vote Labour.
I’m the same age as Joseph Muscat and I remember well Eddie’s speeches because I used to be there at his meetings.
He’s just copying him. He must have been very impressed.
The country does not need another Eddie Fenech Adami because it is not in the sorry state of 1987 any more. Even if it did, it will take more than shaking of the arms to be a statesman of the calibre of Eddie Fenech Adami.
That’s all right though. Because The Times’s policy on columnists seems to be:
– reams of innocuous bollocks
– the bleeding obvious
– Maltese navel-gazing
– Jesus
– wringing hands/think of the children.
Mark Anthony Falzon manages to work around this by writing on Maltese politics with a sociological twist. Without mentioning names of course, which has always been the Maltese academics’ MO.
There is only one word which can describe Kenneth: OPPORTUNIST.
‘…was still a nipper at my college!’
Don’t let the waddling egg-head fool you, Wilberforce: if it’s as bald as a nipper and walks like a nipper…I say, time for tea.
So well put!
‘nipper’ – straight out of Dandy or Beano.
Hear, Hear!
Caro Kenneth… colpito e affondato.
Every dog has his day, as with everything always late with Kenneth, coming out, having sex, pandering for fame, poor chap.
When both party leaders were asked the same question “If you do not win the election will you resign?” they gave their answer. The PM said he would not, meaning that he would carry on leading the Nationalist Party.
However people within the Labour Party took his answer to mean that even if he does not win the election he will not resign as PM, and remain PM for all eternity. They have worked themselves up into such a hysteria that anyone outsider looking in would think they were about to crack out the Coolaid.
Surely this is proof enough of their frame of mind, their perspective and how twisted these hysterical people are.
But people will vote for them because they think it’s normal to twist something to the point where it no longer resembles its initial form.
We all except that political parties spin things their own way here and there, and sometimes we can even appreciate how they manage and think “Wow that was a clever one”. But when their perspective boarders on delusional, alarm bells should go off.
What confuses me is that people are so fast asleep, so ignorant of the world, that they think it’s normal to feel that hysteria, like it’s some sort of drug that needs constant fueling, and don’t understand that they are not cheering on a football team but voting in a government to run the country for the next five years.
Not sure what his dictionary says to define democracy but I believe a democratic government is elected by the population eligible to vote therefore the below seems a bit senseless.
“This is why we have to ensure Malta remains a fully functioning democratic country wherein nobody, but nobody, remains ensconced in power for too long as it is politically unhealthy.
I am in fact very surprised that the PN has never once mentioned that it intends to be a government for all and that worries me. Maybe this oligarchy thing is not such a myth after all.”
I believe the Nationalists are in power and have been for a while because the people have decided to keep them their and not because they put themselves their themselves (as i believe the Dom had done).
Just speculation on my part.
I do not think he is naïve at all – he is over 50 and not a young teenager. He is simply devious and extremely vicious.
Like Muscat, he is a spoiled brat and never had to work for anything. Both do not know the meaning of sacrifices, choices, and decisions that come with life and responsibility.
Everything was served to him on a silver platter, and likewise he demanded and expected that the PN government build him a contemporary art museum in his honour.
It is just the latest toy that he wants and the PN did not give it to him because there were other priorities during 5 years of the European financial crisis.
Valletta European Capital of Culture 2018………….need we say more?
When those up high finally realise that they have fallen into ruin there is usually very little left to pick up and start over with .
What a joke you are, Kenneth. The Labour Party must have a thriving gay community of a certain kind if both you and Hugh are so very willing to dive right into everything you both mocked so openly.
The image selected for this blog post represents the first “oops…!” for KZT and his ilk, vis-a-vis Labour’s true colours and his decision to vote for them.
Methinks he had better get used to ooopsing because there will be many opportunities to do so.
Only thing is, he will have to wait 5 years to redeem himself.
“I am in fact very surprised that the PN has never once mentioned that it intends to be a government for all and that worries me. Maybe this oligarchy thing is not such a myth after all”
Kenneth, kindly note having Franco, Jeffrey, Mugliett, Cyrus is more than enough to prove you wrong.
How devious! Why, I ask, would the NP have to explain that it intends to be a government for all, when it has done so over the last nine years and fifteen more before 1996?
Why is KZT misplacing his worry if not in attempt to cover Joseph’s deficiencies in this regard?
Should he not be worried by various statements by Labour MPs, among others, such as “Dawk sriep” or “Ahna nkunu gvern tal-Laburisti, ghall-Laburisti, u jekk jiqa xi haga, naghtuha lill-Laburisti” or “Dawk ghandhom xi haga hazina fid-DNA”.
I will not tell KZT who made the statements, he should look up the sources and at the same time rediscover the MLP of the 70s and 80s so faithfully reproduced under the leadership of Joseph Muscat.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona supports Joseph who wants to unite Malta but forgets that Joseph was the one who said “Dr Gonzi can forget pairing”.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090201/local/opposition-demands-fenechs-resignation-tells-pm-to-forget-pairing.243185
In 2009 there was “Ahmar” and “Blu” for Joseph Muscat and now he wants a movement around HIM when he’s prime minister.
Where were Malta’s interests in 2009?
I don’t know this guy, but what is he all about? First with Birdlife, now with Labour.
you’re straight
Zammit Tabona perceives himself to be a leading light of Maltese intelligentsia (at least, that is what he claimed in one of his writings on the City Gate project). The logic displayed in this article, however, displays very poor analytic skills and yes, dare I say it, poor intelligence.
Zammit Tabona says “I am in fact very surprised that the PN has never once mentioned that it intends to be a government for all and that worries me.”. The PN does not need to say it because it is and always was a government for all.
The jobs generated benefit all. There are senior people in the public sector who are Labour-leaning. Scholarships are awarded to anyone who satisfies requirements, irrespective whether they are red or blue.
Malta was, is and will remain ‘Taghna Lkoll’ with a PN government.
Zammit Tabona is perceived to be the leading gullible Maltese gay man by the intelligentsia.
Joseph Muscat does imitate Eddie Fenech Adami in every way possible. I am fully convinced that he has taken some sort of intonation or voice modification lessons as the sound of his voice is truly “uncannily” similar.
That cannot be a coincidence.
He sounds like Fenech Adami not because he is remotely similar (dalle stelle alle stalle) but because he consciously imitates him. I am convinced that deep down Kenneth Zammit Tabona knows that.