Not at all – the real problem was that it was underplayed, not overplayed
I clipped this from Simon Busuttil’s interview with The Sunday Times today. That assessment is wrong. The sticker album wasn’t a good idea not because it was in bad taste (how does bad or good taste even come into something like this?) or because it was overplayed, but rather the opposite.
It wasn’t a good idea because it was ineffective, and it was ineffective because the context undermined the message. You had a really serious issue – the appointment of dozens of Labour cronies, campaign donors and campaign assistants to public office and the public pay-roll – packaged in a humorous and jokey manner for consumption by the public.
Serious issues require serious packaging. Jokiness should be reserved for relatively minor matters.
And please let’s stop it with the bad-taste arguments. I’ve had enough of that stupid nonsense. In my long experience, the only people who natter on about ‘bad taste’ in politics are those who are utterly clueless – and here I don’t mean Simon Busuttil, but the usual tasteless suspects behind the scenes, who resent anything they haven’t come up with themselves.
The Nationalist Party’s public self-flagellation about ‘bad taste’ is ridiculous and self-defeating. The defining characteristic of the Labour Party and its media is their unutterably real bad taste and grotesque character assassination based on lies, half-truths and gross insult, targeting even the private citizens who happen to be sons, daughters or parents of their principal victims.
Does Joseph Muscat self-flagellate in public or private about that? No. For 15 years he was an actual part of that dirty Labour media machine and for the last six he has been its boss.
The ‘sticker album’ is not bad taste but to the contrary, it is an illustration of how the Nationalist Party is chronically incapable of going for the jugular. It has a massive list of clear-cut examples of cronyism which have increased the public payroll bill by Eur22 million per year and it turns it into a joke instead of an axe, then apologises for ‘bad taste’.
22 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
One major omission from that album: MLP MEP candidate Miriam Dalli, appointed consultant to Konrad Mizzi’s ministry.
And really, it’s not about the money, is it? At least, not only that. It’s the way appointments were made and the reasons they were made that is so offensive.
The PN’s mistake was to talk solely about the money. Would Sai Mizzi’s appointment be any less wrong or underhand if she were paid 13000Euros annually rather than monthly?
Incidentally, where IS Sai Mizzi and what is she doing? There’s no sign of an office address, email address or phone number anywhere. THAT is what the PN should be harping on about, and not her salary. She is supposed to be the representative of Malta Enterprise in China but nobody who wishes to do business has any way of contacting her.
Overplayed ! Veru xebgha pastizzi.
I would also add that the album was not detailed with no reference to these people’s political involvement and professional background.
And why was there no mention of Henley and Partners’ links with the PL or the citizenship scheme?
Spot on, Daphne. The PN will never regenerate itself before it learns how to go for the jugular. History should illustrate this to us when we remember that the Nationalist Party was at its best during the strong and fearless leadership of Eddie Fenech Adami, and started losing its popularity when increasing political correctness and the desire to appease and placate softened it and eroded its strength.
As Mr. Spock rightly said “,started losing its popularity when increasing political correctness and the desire to appease and placate softened it and eroded its strength” and Eddie Fenech Adam was egged on by Guido De Marco.resulting in a police force filled with dubious elements.
The paradox is that the deputy leaders of the PN are the sons of these two appeasers.
As long as Daphne and her her admirers continue vomiting their anti-PL hatred in the way they do, the PL is guaranteed to remain in government !
Daphne has been criticising the Labour Party for over two decades. Didn’t do much to help the PL back then. Don’t see the connection.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/mobile/view/20140601/local/enemalta-to-recover-10m-from-electricity-theft.521510
10 million / 400 = 25k?
If the math is correct, surely it cannot be your ordinary Joe who had his house meter tampered with.
I completely agree with you on this. Well done!
I often question the reasoning behind some people’s insistence to go on and on about how the PN need to learn from their mistakes and how they have to be closer to the people.
Perhaps they could benefit from being more open to certain changes in society, but the extent to which this has been taken is laughable.
They were perfectly close to the people when they were steering Malta through a global financial crisis so bad it can be called a once in a century occurrence. And yet, they are slapped with the most ridiculous assertions and allegations as though they spent the past 25 years sitting in their offices playing solitaire all day.
The constant repetition of ‘learn from our mistakes’ and ‘restructuring’ from Dr Busutil and the PN in general does not sound like a political party that brought democracy, prosperity and EU membership to a country that had nothing. It makes them sound like a parent feeling guilty that they cannot give in to their spoilt child when everyone else is.
The PL have been scamming the Maltese for the past few years. Using their “think positive” framing, they have actually managed to make the word ‘positive’ some sort of index used to judge a party. Give me a break.
No one wants a political party that encourages delusion and reinforces false hopes and prejudices. Nothing lasts forever; what goes up must come down. It is the laws of physics, of nature and pretty much everything else. Muscat is not immune to these laws either, regardless of how much money he may or may not have access to.
Not so long ago a pyramid scheme was run in Malta and I was invited to listen to the pitch. I was surrounded by middle aged women and men who were desperate to remain part of the middle class without putting in much effort. I was told to think positive, that I could achieve anything I wanted, that all I had to do was buy my day to day products from a specific online supermarket as opposed to my regular one, and then invite people to do the same while taking commission on them. It felt like a pyramid scheme, and it was.
I get the exact same feeling from Muscat and the Labour Party, and Lord knows the fall out is going to be painful for them and their supporters. Miriam Dalli cried because the PL didn’t get the third seat. What’s going to happen when the PL facade comes crashing down (I believe any day now) and there is no more money to support their over-inflated confidence and ego? Don’t forget that these are people who now have control over the army and the police – they can do whatever they like. Think positive or else?
What is also worrying is that I have seen what this type of disillusionment does to a person, how quickly they panic because they have been programmed to believe that their ability to think positively will bring them money and thus survival, an escape from the terrors of being poor. The result is quite unpleasant and the damage is acute.
The PN are wrong to think that since the people are gripped by this ‘positive’ hysteria they should find their place within its parameters. Their principles and values were what defined them during Mintoff’s years, and they will not fail them now.
I hope they do not lose sight of what they know, although are unable to articulate, to be true. The reason why I think they are finding it tough to defend themselves against this nonsense is because they are unable to make that unethical and ludicrous leap Muscat and his supporters made because they have more sense than that. Once they realise what sort of a leap of faith, or should I say folly, the ‘positive’ campaign requires of them, they will finally end their panic and remember who they are.
Motto for the new PN: Keep calm and stop the public flagellation.
The two biggest mistakes in the sticker album thing were, as you said, that it turned into a joke something serious (but done well, satire is often an effective tool in politics) but, worst of all, that the album mixed up the really scandalous iced buns with very minor ones and, even worse, with a few Labour-leaning individuals who were given an appointment on merit and who are giving good service to the country without leapfrogging over more meritorious individuals and who are not being lavishly remunerated.
The real pity is not that the PN lost votes over this but the risk that now, the sticker album debacle might mean that the PN will go softly on the scandalous appointments that will keep happening. The PL, as is its wont, will smell this and grab the opportunity.
Simon Busuttil l-ahjar ghazla.
If you want to see how destructive a pyramid scheme can be, just Google ‘albania pyramid schemes’.
Edward I agree with you completely. I just cannot bear any more the constant apologetic approach of the PN.
Who doesn’t make mistakes? The PN should have been bragging – especially during election time – of the tremendous effort against all odds and especially against the constant negative lambasting of any project by the MLP/PL.
Why did the PN win the election only by 51% after the disaster and the almost mob rule during the Mintoff/KMB regime?
I’m in my seventies and still remember PN supporters talking about the lack of PR in the Nationalist Party.
Eddie Fenech Adami changed Malta to a modern democracy that made us proud to be Maltese.
Dr. Gonzi managed to steer Malta forward, creating new jobs and opportunities to all who wanted to avail themselves – and many did – when there was the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
But no, a lot of PN supporters wanted and still want a job with the government. Whether they’ll get it under Muscat is another matter.
If you tell them that such jobs, unless really productive are the way forward to us becoming another Cyprus or Spain, they answer “I don’t care”.
The trouble is that should this come about they won’t be the only ones to suffer.
The world in general doesn’t call the Jews “negative” for reminding one and all what they went through during World War II.
In fact, whole museums have been devoted to not allowing people to forget. This is in the public interest. Laws were put into place in Germany to ensure and provide some guarantee that such manipulation of the electorate does not reoccur.
Muscat’s agenda consists in steering people away from MLP remembrance and comparison.
We see that there is no difference and where this has already led to.
In comparison it is already worse than the Mintoff years.
Every time Muscat tries to inject effervescence into his actions, there is the darker reality taking place.
————-
The NP handle on humour is key, but the channel through which it is delivered is paramount.
The NP have people with these skills on call. It should not be understated with its use of powerful, provocative and intelligently produced images and an interplay of these with solid statistics.
It wasn’t overplayed. It was badly played.
The small fry and the big fish were treated to the same light-hearted humour. Scorn, sarcasm and caricature may work well on the small-time iced bunners. With the massively corrupt, however, you need straight-faced, outright condemnation.
Are Sigmund Mifsud and John Dalli in the same league? No. Obviously not.
And would someone please find that Sai Mizzi?
Actually, the sticker album idea was VERY good. The problem is that it was too amateurishly compiled, especially the graphics aspect. PN needed a real graphic artist for this job – not a dabbler.
I totally agree, kev.
I cannot fathom where somebody has stashed the PN’s balls. Surely somebody must have an idea where they can be located and reattached to the party?
Your conclusion really hit the nail on the head. The PN simply is not aggressive enough — and perhaps Simon Busuttil is too much of a gentleman to deal with someone like Muscat.
To beat the dragon, you have to become the dragon.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-06-02/news/armed-forces-union-affiliated-with-gwu-5293178881/
The circle is complete.
It was a mistake only in that it was compiled too late in the campaign.
My opinion is that the album should be updated and sent round right up to the next election. This is what wins elections. People need to have things drummed into them. That is what the PL does so well.
I think what must really irk the ‘players ‘ in the book is the fact that they have been recorded, along with the benefits so bestowed, in a publication which has a shelf life of more than 5 years.
The stroke of genius is that the publication can be revived in 4 years’ time when the PM and those featured in the book will be banking on most people having forgotten what went on in 2013/4.