If you don't know why Labour failed, Muscat, you're a lost cause yourself
Well, at least it's not an albatross
The Times, today
Time for Labour to examine its conscience – Muscat
The Labour Party wasted too much time on internal squabbles and had to see why it failed to win a general election since 1976, bar that of 1996, leader Joseph Muscat told young supporters yesterday.
“It’s time for us to examine our conscience to see why our party, with the exception of 1996, has not won an election since 1976,” the man introduced as the “leader of the progressive and moderate movement” told supporters gathered at Melita Gardens in Balzan.
The question that really needs answering is not why people didn’t vote Labour, but why almost half the population did. That’s what will give Muscat the answer he needs.
The amazing thing is that he needs it at all, when it is screamingly obvious to the rest of us – even those who voted Labour in those days – why Labour lost.
Another question that needs investigation is why more than half the population was willing to allow Alfred Sant to become prime minister last year.
I think the answer to both questions is the same: hdura rules.
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Shouldn’t you rather see why Gonzi and Pn will lose the upcoming elections daphne. Ha ha I will enjoy seeing your party demoted to the lowest position in politics.
[Daphne – Very grown up, Mark. Perhaps it’s time you got a grip on yourself. And it’s not ‘my party’. It’s the party for which I vote.]
Markie, your puerile comments clearly indicate it that you have lost it. However, keep it up, we all need to be amused.
I’m confused. Are you saying Labour LOST because hdura rules? I would have said the opposite.
[Daphne – Read it again, Tim. The answer to the question ‘why did so many people vote Labour when Labour lost’ is ‘hdura rules’. I repeat: the question that Muscat needs to have answered is not ‘why did Labour lose so many elections’ but ‘why did people vote Labour when they did’. Let’s face it – what sort of person would have voted Labour in 1987, and why?]
In fact I think egoism rules Labour supporters – and single-issue thinking. Promised VAT removal, promised lower water rates are enough to win a Labour vote. They don’t understand that the freedom to criticise a party and to elect another one was won for them by the Nationalists, and specifically by Eddie Fenech Adami.
To all you Labour supporters out there – that’s right. Remember who brought freedom back to Malta. Now you can protest freely about water prices (under Labour you got beaten up for it). Now you can have your own radio and TV stations (others couldn’t even have an electronic notice board). Now you can buy whatever you want in the shops or on the internet. Now you can take the government to court clearly and simply. Now you’re free to go wherever you like in Europe to study or work or shop and you’re respected (instead of having to go to Sicily to buy toothpaste and chocolate and being laughed at by the Sicilians). Then vote for the same people (Debono Grech, Sceberras Trigona, Leo Brincat) that denied these freedoms to the people for decades.
L-aqwa li jaghtini chairmanship tal-Housing Authority, jew flat tal-gvern, jew idahhalni messaggier u ma naghmel xejn…
Dejjem skond il-bzonnijiet TIEGHI. U l-pajjiz imur jinhexa…
In all fairness, this egoistic thinking crosses party lines but is more prevalent amongst Labour supporters. It’s also true that since Fenech Adami relinquished the leadership the PN has lost dynamism and vision but boy oh boy to want Jospeh Muscat as PM and Anglu and Toni as his deputies would be hysterical if it weren’t so sad. We’ll just have to thank God Lorry isn’t around any more and enjoy the pantomime.
“Then vote for the same people (Debono Grech, Sceberras Trigona, Leo Brincat) that denied these freedoms to the people for decades. We’ll just have to thank God Lorry isn’t around any more and enjoy the pantomime.”
Your argument is a little bit romanticized. Give you one example of freedom to people. Marsa Sports Grounds was opened by Mr Lorry Sant than Minister of Sports now after 20 years the grounds are locked up, thanks to Mr Clyde Puli and the Nationalist Party.
I’ve been jogging at Marsa, every weekend, for the last 17 years; now I have to go on the busy roads. Marsa Sports Grounds are all closed to public, some parts given to football clubs some to rugby clubs and the track to MAAA. Ironically the track was named after the late Matthew Micallef St John who was hit by a car while jogging on a main road. Now we are telling the public to go back jogging on busy main roads.
These grounds have a 24/7 watchman, but they don’t open on Saturdays and Sundays even though there’s always a watchman on duty.
Our Health/Sports dept should support such sport and encourage people to jog.
This is one example why people will vote Labour coming election.
[Daphne – A really good reason, I must say: f**k up the country so that you can jog at the Marsa. Ahjar insabbat rasi mal-hajt.]
Leonard Ellul Bonici
You make it sound as if the Marsa sports complex has been given to “barunijiet” and “friends of friends”. In fact it has been given to sports associations working hard to foster love of sports among young people. As a rule, these NGOs are more efficient and better suited to manage the facilities than any government department.
The Malta Amateur Athletic Association is made up of people like you and they are now responsible for the track so that it can be used by people like you. There really is no excuse to go jogging on the roads.
A perfect example of Labour thinking as described above – single issue…u skond il-bzonnijiet tieghEK.
Marisa – don’t you despair too? Is this what you really want?
Mela ergajt qlibt, Len? Fixkiltni issa. And sport? Isn’t that sort of passe?
Let’s face it – what sort of person would have voted Labour in 1987, and why?
Especially when you remember Raymond Caruana’s murder. Kienet veru tal-misthija that the PN won by only a few thousand votes in 1987.
“I think the answer to both questions is the same: hdura rules”…
…hehehehe!!! A bit rich coming from your pen, Daphne, don’t you think !
[Daphne – No, I don’t. I don’t vote to deprive others of things. That’s hdura. Sorry, make it lanzit.]
Yes hdura rules OK in your case.
To put it in italian “La lingua batte dove l`dente duale”
Check this out Madam
[Daphne – Hdura is rooted in envy, Ray. I am not envious of Labour Party supporters and politicians. I would say it’s the other way round.]
Why do you want to “put it in Italian” if you can’t write the language properly?
La lingua batte dove il dente duole.
” the man introduced as the “leader of the progressive and moderate movement” told supporters gathered at Melita Gardens in Balzan” , where the dress code was, presumably, “bad-taste striped tops, preferably from a cheap English chain store”:
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/ms09dart.asp?a=6619
Giga, thank you for the link to that particular maltastar literary gem. It makes hilarious reading, replete with revolving speeches, youths being “adornments at meetings”, and “entities like the environment”.
If those are youths, then I’m an embryo.
The persons who do not afford to buy clothes from reknowned Italian boutiques have the same right of thought and decision as you have Giga. This mentality of classism is regaining momentum and sorry to say, it reflects poor capability of judgement. Attack the message dear.
Ooo-la-la! It looks like a sense of humour is lacking in some quarters!
The continual mud-slinging and hatred campaign by the Labour Party since 1987 against all that is reflected in the PN, and that includes businessmen, white collar workers and generally those who effectively provide employment for most of the MLP’s base, bred a generation of people whose class hatred and thirst for revenge blinded them to such an extent that they would choose Sant or any other freak any day.
eros, you have succinctly pinpointed the core of the problem. Solution? Not on this rock, maybe next century.
Wow! Another perceptive freak. This one is convinced that the ‘Nationalists’ are all the employers whilst il-‘Lejburisti’ should thank their lucky stars for being given the opportunity to work for them. Anyone seen an elf?
Well, I stopped voting Labour in 1987 because of: mediocre life, could not spend my money how I liked (few things in shops and everything was the worst…we all had Abanderado pants, for example, same shirts etc); we depended on the whims of the prime minister and his immediate lackeys (what to eat, what to wear, etc.); corruption galore (bribing to get a colour TV, telephone etc); no chocolate but one could buy it under the counter for 10 times more.
I got fed up with the restrictions and persecution of people with different opinions….nobody could protest. I could not stand the violence and the free-for-all with the Labour thugs. Ministers’ drivers and incompetent people ran the country.
In 1992 still I could not vote Labour as the same people were still in command of the party. I did not vote Labour either in 1996 for the same reasons and I did not want to change a good horse. After the Sant expierence of 1996/98 who could vote Labour? Then there was the EU question…..how can one lose a referendum (52 %) and say one won and that an election will decide it (really we ALL knew that if one voted Yes in the referendum one would vote Yes again in that election). And again, who wanted a PM with such reasoning in the 2008 election?
[Daphne – I hate to tell you this, Silvio, but more than half the population were prepared to make Sant prime minister by default in 2008 – mainly qabda koccuti of my generation and older who were/still are pissed off with their lives and need to take it out on someone. The 2008 election was won with the votes of my sons’ generation (new voters), a huge number of them with Labour-voting parents and from working-class backgrounds.]
Apart from that I find that Labour has contempt for the working class! All is ‘lussu’ – a piece of bread with pilchards ( remember the budgets) and oil are enough; councils were ‘hela tal-flus’; flowers on roundabouts were ‘lussu’. Everything had to be grey and ugly like Labour’s communists friends.
If Joseph Muscat cannot understand a few of the reasons I gave (there are more) how can he fill the complex role of prime minister?
There’s no denying the hdura factor; but you get this in other democratic countries. I think that equally important was the mentality of people to readily accept what’s mediocre, or less than mediocre, because they lacked awareness of quality standards. For me this explains why the PN won the 1987 election by less than 5,000 votes but after five years of modernization and improvement in the quality of life, increased its majority to 13,000 votes.
Good one, Giga – can’t stop giggling.
“Il-gvern qed ikompli jghakasna! Issa qed jghidu lil genuturi jibaghtu frotta mat-tfal l-iskola flok ma jaghtuilhom b’xejn ghax il-gvern fallut.”
Sad but true: this was the main item on Super One news yesterday evening, complete with interview with distraught mother and all.
You are probably as shallow as Dr Joe Muscat. Like many others in this island, you live in your own bubble, surrounded with a crowd similar in lifestyle and in aspirations. You have no idea of relative poverty.
[Daphne – I have no idea of relative poverty? Read my article again – the bit where I refer to my standard of living being, for quite a long time, much lower than that of a dockyard welder. And no, I don’t live in what you might wish to know is called a ‘locked in’ system. I actually shun it. It bores and irritates me, and I find it depressing. But then you don’t know me, so you don’t know how I spend my time and whose company I enjoy. You only make assumptions, based on your (accurate) perception of me as tal-pepe. It doesn’t follow, however, that I spend my time in the company of other tal-pepe people. I don’t. Some yes, but mostly not.]
You ‘shallowly’ dismiss this as ‘hdura’ when in actual fact the roots lie elsewhere. People’s perception here plays a vital role, and I’m afraid Dr Gonzi, a supposedly ‘social’ man has been such a disappointment. He is surrounded by social workers who have either decided to forget all about their training, are utterly incompetent or have convinced themselves that reality lies in what apologetics like you say.
[Daphne – I think you mean apologists, but let’s not quibble. When I find something nice to say about Labour, you’ll be the first to know about it. Until then, they look to me like a freak-show of ineptitude and worse. Anglu Farrugia as justice minister? Don’t make me laugh. Don’t even try to tell me that you’d rather have him in that job than Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici because it means ‘change’. Unbelievable.]
Yes, yes we are better off than Canada however right, who can’t switch on their heating?! Ah, you’re crowd is better off than the 80’s though eh?! These supposedly ‘poor’ should get off their lazy asses and grab the ‘opportunities’ that people like you have achieved and if they did’nt, then it must be their fault and they will now vent out their ‘hdura’, these suckers, losers! My word, so besides being an economist, linguist, politician, psychologist, learned perceptive you are now also a sociologist. Shallow who?
[Daphne – I think you need to lie down.]
Characters like Mark C are what I like about his blog – they balance out everything not having everything edited like other blogs.
I really can’t fathom your ‘radicality’ – call it whatever you like. And Mark C reminds me of an Escort Mark I.
Daphne’s spot on here.
This labour “trait” even comes through in the way Labour delegates elect their leader – vote Joe Muscat not George Abela because non-Labour supporters think George Abela is the better choice!
You clearly lack an eye for irony. Talk about pots and kettles!
What I can’t stand is that ghax int nazzjonalist mela inti tal-pepe mentality…. how bloody stupid and totally unfounded. I am not ashamed to say my maternal grandmother was a maid, and my father’s parents where farmers from Zebbiegh. They were Nationalists but definitely not tal-pepe.
Finally. Almost two years after the election we have it from the pen of a well-known person whose writings do not favour Labour that “more than half the population” was ready to allow Alfred Sant to become prime minister. This means that the country has a government which does not represent the majority of the electorate. A late admission, but better late then never. Well done.
[Daphne – There’s nothing to ‘admit’, Alfred. Unlike Joseph Muscat, who needed hindsight to work out that the Yes vote won the referendum, I don’t quarrel with numbers. The thing is, you don’t need an absolute majority to govern, just a relative one. If you’re going to insist on an absolute majority to bless a government with authority, then I think you’ll find you end up having to throw out every government in the democratic world, and stick with those in countries where elections are rigged, like Iran.]
” stick with those in countries where elections are rigged, like Iran.”
And where the “supreme authority” is still unelected.
It’s all very simple. In 2008 people wanted change, but they did not want Alfred Sant as PM and many did not go out to vote.
[Daphne – The more I hear of this kind of reasoning, the more I admire my dogs. ‘People wanted change but they didn’t like what was on offer so they didn’t vote.’ How does that work, exactly? Voting isn’t like going out to buy a jacket, not finding one you like and going home with nothing. With voting, you’re going to get that ‘jacket’ whether you choose it or not, so you must as well choose the one of the two you like best, or least, and vote accordingly. It’s called common sense, but it’s in remarkably short supply in Malta, which is probably why so many people have such messy lives. But that’s another story.]
In 2009 many of those people who did not go to vote in 2008 voted for Labour MEP candidates. In 2013 they will vote for change as Muscat is more trusted than Sant.
[Daphne – Yes, I agree that this is what they will do. The difference between me and people who think like that – through the seat of their pants – is that I will only go for change if it’s better than what I have already. I will never go for change for change’s sake. I know that lots of people do this – most noticeably in their private lives, hence the mess referred to earlier. They’re after a shag with somebody different and they end up with squalling babies and a rerun of what they’ve just ‘changed’ from, except that they’re older now and have even less patience for it.]
Change is inevitable – especially with the PN in such a mess. We can compare a bit with the UK – Cameron might not be a better leader than Brown but he will win hands down -again, change is a very powerful political message/slogan.
[Daphne – I would say that he is a better leader than Brown, and that Brown will lose because he’s incompetent and not because the British want change. The British, in fact, beat us Maltese hands down for long-lived governments and a hatred of change. Or perhaps you’ve forgotten that the Conservatives were in government uninterruptedly between 1979 and 1997 – 18 years without a break? And that the Labour Party has been in government uninterruptedly now for 13 years – and that it might even, against the odds, win itself another four years? People DON’T like change. In fact, they hate it. That was one of the biggest problems in selling EU membership to electors: the fear of change, of any change. Only a marginal few people enjoy mucking around with change (and strangely enough, or perhaps not, it’s usually exactly the same sort of people who muck up their personal lives for the sake of change), but those marginal few are enough to swing the balance and eff things up for the rest of us. Face it, David, 45% of the population would have been happy to have Labour in government from 1987 right through to the present, with all that chaos and corruption, human rights abuses, and above all, no EU membership. One of the biggest problems Muscat faces now is his OWN people, those whom he so successfully persuaded of the evils of EU membership that they still can’t accept the reality of life in the EU.]
Funny how no one is mentioning Joseph Muscat’s latest rant about Malta and the EU: how we should show-case the country to the rest of Europe when Malta takes the Council’s rotating presidency in 2017. Is he already fantasizing about himself being President of the European Council? There’s incompetence for you…
Daphne so your perception leads you to know that Cameron is better than Brown, as the latter is incompetent, yet you fail to recognise and COMMENT on the incompetences of our PM (Ma tmurx my goodness naghtu xi vantagg lil Joseph!).
You prefer to remain in this ‘election’ mode excusing each and every f**k-up this PM conjures on a daily basis, as a future JM will be worse. Honestly, I cannot understand your logic here.
[Daphne – My dear, there are quite enough singers in the chorus of criticism against Lawrence Gonzi. On the other hand, my fellow newspaper writers in general appear not to have understood yet that Joseph Muscat is the prime minister in waiting, and that the time to start criticising him was in June last year, and not when he begins f**king up the country from his seat on Castille hill. You may be unaware that we have been here before, precisely in 1996, when Sant has gilded feet and gossamer wings and I was reviled for being the only one pointing out that he was a subject for the psychiatrist’s couch who would take us down the short road to hell. Where men are concerned, I like to believe that I can trust my judgement. It’s let me down a couple of times, but on the whole it’s been pretty accurate.]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100119/local/pl-motion-to-study-why-some-did-not-have-confidence-in-political-system
Muscat is sweeping everyone in his party. In the meantime Gonzi is afraid anything he does will rock the boat so he isn’t doing anything. Not a good choice in my opinion since he is being seen by myself as undecided and incompetent. Doesn’t he realize he needs to affirm his position on every single issue instead of diverting attention. Why are Pn still obsessed with the 80s don’t you realize people want to move ahead and not backwards, and that no-one will tollerate violence between the maltese. I think PL learned this lesson well and they did state that the violence of the past is not acceptable in modern day society. On the other hand Pn also have their own sins to admit to so let’s not be one sided here.
“Muscat is sweeping everyone in his party!”
Then I suggest he buys a brand new broom as the one he is using is leaving lots behind.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8467064.stm
Out of subject, but I wonder if he will be allowed to hang out at the Mount Carmel cushy ward too.
I can observe something in Joseph Muscat which to people my age is obvious. He is out of touch. If he wants to reach out to iz-zghazagh he should………ask Marisa.
[Daphne – And how would she know, at 50+ and with no sons or daughters that age? She is not part of the solution, but part of the problem, as she was – incidentally – for the other lot.]
@ Antoine Vella
Thank you for pointing out a spelling mistake in my written Italian.
[Daphne – And here’s another pedant, to remark that he would have had some difficulty pointing out a spelling mistake in your spoken Italian.]
I hope that you are not so nit-picking with your university students. What is important here is that you understood perfectly well what I wrote in my comment. Translated in Maltese it would read “L-ispizjar (or il-qahba) milli jkollu jtik”.