When is the Nationalist Party going to get itself a backbone?
Godfrey Grima was invited to speak at the PN Ideas Convention along with his equally fossilised old-time ‘boyfriend’ Oliver Friggieri. It’s as though time has stood still for the PN.
If the Nationalist Party were a woman, it would be chasing its abusive husband’s affections, making him one meal after another while he smashes it to the floor because it’s never good enough, gives her a good slapping, then slams out to fornicate with another woman in as publicly humiliating a manner as possible, while jeering at his wife and mocking her shortcomings and, for good measure, screwing her over financially.
And after a fair bit of this, when he’s showing signs of being sick of the other woman or the other woman isn’t as accommodating as he thinks he should be, the wife – instead of laughing out loud – sees it as her opportunity to coax him back.
There is one word to describe this behaviour: stupid. Sorry, two words: damned stupid.
If you allow others to wipe their shoes all over you, that is exactly what they are going to do. But it goes beyond that: people with certain sorts of personalities and characters don’t change. They don’t do what they do because of rational thought or because other people have goaded them into doing it. They do what they do because there’s something intrinsically wrong with them, and that’s not going to change.
Let’s take John Bundy for instance. Because he has publicly fallen out with Manuel Mallia’s chief of staff, the Nationalist Party perceives an opportunity. WHAT? I have heard through a complicated grapevine that it is courting John Bundy, and that he is thrilled to bits because this somehow plays into the notion that he is in any way relevant.
The Nationalist Party clearly does not understand that being associated with people like that, still more chasing their tail and trying to persuade them on board, affects its own credibility really badly.It makes the party look weak, desperate, stupid and above all, all too ready to reward seriously bad behaviour.
Chase the people who haven’t stabbed you in the back, for God’s sake, not the ones who have. Celebrate good behaviour, not bad. Lionise those who behave with dignity and not charlatans.
And by this, I don’t mean ordinary people who voted Labour because they genuinely believed Joseph Muscat. No, I don’t mean people like that at all. I’m speaking about prominent individuals who went out of their way to do the Nationalist Party as much damage as they possibly could, persistently over years, either through systematic networking out of public view or prominently on Labour TV, Labour radio, parliament and the press in general.
Where those individuals are concerned, the way to gain the respect of the electorate is to treat them as they deserve to be treated, and not to trust them because they can’t be trusted.
If the Nationalist Party brings John Bundy on board, it will lose more respect and not gain it. How hard is this to understand? But clearly, it is.
Thank God Simon Busuttil has had the backbone and the common sense to slam the door permanently on that millions-moving Bahamas skunk John Dalli, with a public declaration of war. That is exactly what people want to see. It should have been done years ago.
Too bad that he was initially undermined by his secretary-general Chris Said, who rang him Dalli when the Police Commissioner said that the case against him was closed,biex jaghtih il-prosit. Nobody would ever have known about that had Dalli himself, as the skunk he is, not used the fact to his advantage, telling the press about it.
Now I read in the press – Malta Today, actually – that the Nationalist Party held its Big Ideas Convention at a hotel yesterday, and that the Fat Controller’s brother, who has spent the best part of the last two decades lost in undying admiration first for Alfred Sant and now for Joseph Muscat, was a guest speaker.
That’s right:
Veteran journalist Godfrey Grima advised the PN to start looking at is own leadership and realise how it had let the people down.
Oh, just f*ck off, will you, Godfrey? I mean, really. Where does he get off, spending years ranting against the Nationalist Party on Super One and then taking the podium at a PN conference to tell them what they’re doing wrong? And why is he still around, instead of grazing in some pasture for past-it wrecks?
The Nationalist Party is seriously misguided indeed if it thinks that the way to win back the electorate and win for the first time the sympathies of new generations, is using the names, faces and advice of washed-up old fossils like these, most especially washed up old fossils who preferred Alfred Sant and Joseph Muscat and their Labour Party to Lawrence Gonzi and the PN.
Run after the normal people, not these nasty pieces of work. With them, it’s too late. And you affect your own credibility negatively by chasing them. They’re not going to vote for you anyway, and that’s aside from the fact that politics is the one sphere in life where turning the other cheek is always dangerous.
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I give up, for about the gazillionth time.
Same here.
The Nationalists can be hard work to understand sometimes but is there any other sensible option? No there is not and it’s being proven on a daily basis.
Maybe this tactic can be seen as similar to the Labour, when these have taken on anybody (and I mean anybody) who was interested, winning them the elections.
A septuagenarian? Jesus Christ almighty. There are plenty of 16-year olds who are interested, and ambitious, and power-hungry, and who will be voting in 2018. It is they that the Nationalist Party should be courting, not a bunch of has-beens.
Let’s put it this way: Godfrey Grima doesn’t need an iced bun from the NP, because he’s made his little pile. The young one are just starting out, and would support the Nationalist Party in exchange for iced buns.
The NP needs strategically-placed laghqizmu, not Oliver bloody Friggieri, PROFESSOR Friggieri if you please. What carrot could they possibly dangle?
I give up for the gazillion and first time.
[Daphne – Wrong reasoning. If the Nationalist Party has to hand out iced buns to get support, then it is in worse trouble than imagined. It doesn’t need to do that, and it’s wrong and ultimately self-defeating anyway. The PN is at an advantage now because it has become embarrassing already to own up to having voted Labour, let alone boast about the fact. Do you see any smart people waving Taghna Lkoll flags and messages on Facebook now? They’re all pretending they never did. The country is full of young people who have already done more in their 25 years of life than Godfrey and Oliver did in both of theirs put together. Life for people now is so completely different to what it was for Godfrey and Oliver at that age that they would never be able to understand. They are from a different era and worse still, they don’t know they are.]
Career development is a form of iced bun. And let us not be so naive as to think that iced buns are only given to incompetents.
How many people does the Nationalist Party employ? How many people does the government employ? See my point? You have your network of next-in-line-for-promotion and future ambassadors and CEOs and such. And you court them.
Instead, the Nationalist Party courts items from the dustbin of history like Oliver Friggieri and Mike Briguglio, whose usefulness to the party and – more importantly – a FUTURE NATIONALIST GOVERNMENT is exactly ZERO.
That’s is precisely how a political party alienates right-thinking voters.
Oliver is somewhat related to the Marshalls.
[Daphne – No. He isn’t. And you are either related or you are not related. You can’t be ‘somewhat related’ but you can be ‘related somehow’. Joe Friggieri’s and Albert Marshall’s wives are sisters. Joe Friggieri is not Oliver Friggieri. They are different people.]
Perfect analysis, Daphne, but it goes even beyond that.
The Nationalist Party needs a thorough cleanup if it seriously aims to regain power in three years’ time.
It needs to introduce new blood and corral those who have undermined the leadership for whatever reason. They cannot be trusted with executive roles.
It needs to replace those who have raised eyebrows because of unethical behaviour or abuse of power.
Equally suspect are those who were not assertive in their ministerial roles and who had allowed authorities to abuse of their positions.
It is no longer justifiable or desirable to enrol candidates simply because of their family background. A candidate should be able to stand on his or her own merits.
There are many new faces who would bring a breath of fresh air to the party, people with no real or perceived skeletons in their cupboards.
You are perfectly right! The next general election will be won around those who voted for the first time in 2013 and those who will vote for the first time in 2017/2018. That is the battle ground and the PN must be the party of choice for the next generation, the next wave of leaders, those who never had a chance till now, the new blood.
I agree with you perfectly Daphne… Another example is Michael Falzon. Sometimes he is invited on 101 or Net tv to express his views on the current political situation.
All ardent and loyal Nationalists are very irritated and angry when these traitors are invited on 101 or Net tv and just switch channels.
Who will they invite next? Franco Debono?
Daphne, ma stajtx tispjega aħjar. U dawn huma tnejn jew tlieta biss minn dawk li għamlu tant hsara lill-PN.. u minkejja dak li għamlu nerġgħu nagħtuhom ir-riedni biex jgħidu li jridu fi hdan il-partit stess.
U lil dawk li baqgħu jemmnu fil-PN minkejja kollox, lil dawk ħallewhom jittewbu. Il-PN jew javda wisq jew inkella lin-nies li jibqgħu leali lejh, mhux jagħrafhom.
Obviously, Daphne, the above observations, however true and genuinely reflecting the feelings of very many thousands of us, will bring you ‘scorn’ and will again make you labelled as one of the causes (if not the main one) of the March 2013 debacle.
These last few days, however, I have observed an ‘improvement’ in the PN leadership in so far as increased aggressiveness – however slight – against Joey and his clique is concerned.
It would be a great pity were this not to be kept up.
[Daphne – “will again make you labelled as one of the causes (if not the main one) of the March 2013 debacle”; don’t repeat Labour propaganda. The only reason the Labour Party targetted me repeatedly and viciously is precisely because they saw me as doing them harm, not the other way round. If they really thought I was harming the PN they would simply have let me be, given me enough rope to hang myself with.
It is not that some people in the PN can’t see this – if so, then they are even more stupid than I previously imagined – but that they never liked me much to begin with (too posh and brings out all our social insecurities, has a different outlook which means that she works for Satan and the atheists, is a woman and therefore should know her place but does not, also taller than we are even in her flip-flops and we don’t like that because we are men and expect women to be at shoulder-height even in five-inch heels, and preferably with no voice like Marie Tal-Bajd but with make-up).
So they latched on to Labour’s propaganda and used it as an excuse to pick on me. It doesn’t bother me at all on a personal basis because most of my younger years were spent dealing with bitchy, insecure Maltese men in all areas of life so I am more than accustomed to it and actually enjoy teeing them off. But I am cross that backwoods bunny men of this sort should have so much control in a political party whose successes and failures at the polls affect the state of the country and our lives in general.]
I am not involved with the Nationalist Party structure and hierarchy, however, and never was. Rather the opposite. So all of that is irrelevant to me. But the sheer stupidity is just catastrophic. I hear David Griscti was on about roughly the same thing. Not very clever, I must say: the bald truth is that the Labour Party won so phenomenally because it went to town for 10 long years with its personal attacks, many of them nothing more than outright slander, and using every medium at its disposal and access to any other medium it could borrow besides. And the Nationalist Party lost so catastrophically for the flipside of the same reason: it made no personal attacks even when it should have done, allowing those persons to get away with blue murder. The net result? In the eyes of the electorate, the PN and those associated with it were a bunch of crooks and corrupt criminals, while the Labour Party were squeaky clean brand new boys, even if they were Karmenu Vella. Idiots. I could shout it from the rooftops: BLOODY IDIOTS. It’s about time they learned the definition of ‘personal attack’, incidentally, too. Il-vera injoranti tal-ghageb. A personal attack is ‘politician X is an ugly bastard who is even uglier than the two ugly bastards who procreated him’. ‘Politician X is cheating on his wife and hanging around with people suspected of drug deals’ is not a personal attack. It is news.]
And David Griscti is one of the brighter ones. It really is all lost.
David Griscti, bright? A bright flipping idiot if you ask me. Simon Busuttil is surrounded by these leeches.
There was a fascinating incident on Twitter last night.
Like a bolt out of the blue, I get mentioned by Robert Musumeci in this piece of sycophantic praise for David Griscti:
“Almenu fadal nies dicenti bhall- avukat Griscti.”
That tells us all we need to know. Not that Griscti is in cahoots with Musumeci (I have to spell out these things for my Maltese readership), but that Griscti’s message is music to The Other Malta’s ears.
And the Other Malta is all the comfortable, smug baby-boomers who shouldn’t even be seen, let alone given a podium at the IDEAS convention of a government-in-waiting.
What. A. Shambles.
Volemosi bene, as the poet Jozef would say. Game of shadows and charades.
My dear David Thake, if you’re reading this: you’re far too good for the Nationalist Party. Please run a mile. You’re alien to their way of thinking. You’re light years ahead. You’re modern. They’re not. You’re 2014 Europe, they’re 1930s Sicily.
Please, for your sake.
Conceptually, they’re stuck and carrying extremely heavy baggage around.
They really need to think: “clean slate” and no useless allegiance to tombstones and effigies.
Baxxter, I can’t think in iced-bun fashion – and never will – but I really do think that the Nationalist Party needs a value scan and update.
Everyone has qualities. Instead of reducing the mass of qualities to tried and tested academics against a barometre of full-blown mediocrity, it still feels as though the notion of eliminating this mediocrity goes in one ear and comes out the other and they still stick with what they know best.
If they want warrants for their Fora, it’s going to be more of same.
Clean slate please NP. Start afresh.
The 2 and a half year first milestone is nearly there. The changes have not been radical enough.
You still have the same old kettle peddlers on board and they need to go.
A person is not “just” valuable for their name.
Names are there to be made.
Oh come on Tabatha. How many of Malta’s pundits, academics and all-round successful careerists got a leg up through the Nationalist Party, its organs (like AZAD) or government agencies when the NP was in power?
I’ll answer that if it troubles you: a lot.
You may not call it an iced bun, but they were certainly provided with the flour and eggs and the sugar and the oven.
It says a lot about the NP that they couldn’t even manage one miserable endorsement any of these inner circle careerists in 2013.
Now they think they are being clever by giving a podium and a microphone to bunch of bumbling OAP has-beens plus a very annoying Marxist wannabe.
Fine going. They may as well put up a billboard with a giant finger saying THOSE OUTSIDE THE INNER CIRCLE CAN FUCK OFF. WE DON’T NEED YOUR VOTE.
Then you get some midhla tal-Istamperija writing here thinking that all we aspire to is licking stamps and putting out chairs for the weekly tombla.
‘…Baxxter, I can’t think in iced-bun fashion – and never will – but I really do think that the Nationalist Party needs a value scan and update…’
Working on it.
This is where I’m going to appear extremely naïve by saying it’s still wrong.
Where the value proposition of the lobbyist is superior, then yes, on that merit.
But not on any other.
I know how politics is done. But at the end of the day, so does an administration need to deliver to get voted back in.
Results are results, in whatever language.
He who delivers a superior end-product with the “same” ingredients deserves the job.
I fully agree with you about access and transfer of message though.
If access is blocked, the process is frustrated.
If the conceptual language is different, that process is doomed.
David Griscti never said anything of the sort.
Where did you get that?
Love the beaten wife analogy.
The PN is completely rudderless :
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141025/local/pn-to-fight-requisitioned-properties-discrimination-chris-said.541168
It has a super hot issue , which is the power station saga, and here comes Chris Said about requisitioned properties used by PL – it was in government for 25 years and did not nothing about this – why on earth deviate your battles on a relatively minor issue.
Hawwadni ha nifhmek, we used to say about KMB’s leadership of the Labour Party. I’m sorry to say I feel the same about the PN today.
No it isn’t.
I do not think it is Chris Said’s goal that the PN wins an election any time soon. Simon Busuttil needs to watch his back.
[Daphne – I don’t know enough about him to comment, but I will say that Muscat had a vested interest in Sant losing the 2008 election, and may well have scuppered Sant’s 11th-hour ‘big revelation’ by blabbing just enough about it at a reception, within earshot of PN people, to alert them to what was coming.]
So now it’s not just Mario Demarco but Chris Said too.
Gerald Strickland, I summon thee from the nameless depths. Please save us from this lot.
That’s mathematical certainty Daphne, what we have now is the same Muscat doing his bloody best to reduce interest in politics.
If there’s one thing he can afford is to split a reduced global vote figure.
Chris Said and a few others are evidently not helping Sinon Busuttil. It is so obvious. Pity, Simon Busuttil has the potential to become a true statesman that Malta so desperately needs.
Correct assumption, P Shaw.
Chris Said is to the PN now what John Dalli was to the PN then.
The same pattern and the same goals will ultimately produce the same results.
And Chris Said is certainly not the only one.
Mario De Marco, who disappeared without trace during the last election campaign, re-emerged enthusiastically to engineer a brand new (uncontested) position for himself at the highest echelons of the party structure, ideal for launching a bid for the top job post-2018.
Come the next election, I fully expect him to make less than a half-hearted effort to get Simon Busuttil into Castille.
There are others playing the same game. These people need to understand that attempting to get Labour out of office in 2018, however remote a possibility, out-weighs their personal ambitions by a few million tonnes.
[Daphne – They won’t understand that, Jackie, because in The Other Malta, it is considered perfectly normal for your personal ambitions and narrow personal interests to take precedence over that of your group and even of the country itself, of the common good.
The behaviour of individual politicians in undermining the common interest of their own party (and of the country, if they believe that their party is the best one to govern it) comes from the same mindset as that of those many thousands of people who predicate their vote on petty personal favours and privileges.
Just as it is impossible to explain to such people why it is morally wrong, socially irresponsible and ultimately self-defeating to vote for vengeance because of a petty favour not granted, or to vote for thanks because of a favour, petty or otherwise, granted, so it is impossible to explain to certain individuals in the hierarchy of any political party in Malta the principle of pulling the same rope.
The notion itself does not exist and Maltese has no expression for it: it had to be translated directly from English, and still the concept remains alien. This is common to all Mediterranean cultures, incidentally, and is one of the reasons why development has been so much slower in the south of Europe than it has been in the north. Cooperation is essential for progress. The inability to pull together holds everyone back.
Another reason is that Malta has no real military history/culture of its own to speak of, except for the British era when it was superficially imposed on the fce of Maltese society, and then just a narrow part of it: the ‘team spirit’ mindset, even in sports, grows out of military culture.
If you don’t all pull together with the same goal, the entire ship goes down, and if you work against your commanding officer or the rest of the team you are court-martialled and shot, or nowadays, imprisoned: people in Malta don’t understand this. It is not even understood or adhered to in what passes for our army, hence the ruddy mess it’s in.]
My thoughts exactly, Daphne. Simon Busuttil would do well to heed your advice. Courting those who have caused the party so much harm will just alienate the party faithful.
Please use ‘New Broom’ nom-de-plume.
Excuse my language but in Maltese we have a saying:
Min ma jisthix jahra f’idek, tisthix icappasulu ma wiccu!
I agree 100% that the PN shouldn’t court individuals like Bundy, Bondi et al who have openly done a lot of harm to the Nationalist Party as they would anger us who have stood 4-square with the PN through all the years good and bad.
I don’t mean to vote Labour any time but with this policy the party is showing a certain weakness.
Same goes with me.
I give up too. I have been asking them to stop such fuckwit nonsense repeatedly for years, and yet they appoint such sorry individuals on their policy-making boards. PN WAKE UP.
‘….and yet they appoint such sorry individuals on their policy-making boards. PN WAKE UP…’
So tell me, which of the policy fora set up specifically to get you engaged, instead of these sorry individuals, did you not like?
Godfrey Grima Zejtuni tal-Gelegus
Let the people down? Is this man serious!?
How, exactly, has the PN let the people down? From the ashes of a failed and bankrupt state ridden with conflict and the typical infighting that communism brings, to s nothing of the schisms that Mintoff created which ripped the country in two all fuelled by class hatred and above all lies, the PN built a country that has roads and decent infrastructure, a new hospital, and freedom.
Not that the people cared much for them, seeing as few actually rejected Mintoff and stubbornly voted Labor all these years regardless of the open doors available to them under PN governments ( and the lack of open doors that were available to them before).
No, they don’t care. In fact they would rather blind themselves to it all because admitting they were wrong, or that the Labour Party that coerced them into investing a rather unhealthy amount of emotion admiration and affection for it, is not the party for Malta at all.
The PN have not let the people down. Sure they made mistakes, like all politicians, but they have not let the people down.
One might ask, in fact, what compels a person to label 25years of slow but steady growth as a let down, but 15 years of sharp decline and tyranny as “Golden years”. Perhaps this is the definition of being brainwashed.
It is the people who have let the country down, in my opinion. The PN probably feel that having a back bone might be even more detrimental to the country, as the level of hatred and resentment directed towards them thanks to more lies and false perceptions of half the country promoted by the PL is so great that pointing out that they are wrong would result in total distraction of the PN and consequently the country. I think the PN are currently the victims of their devotion to the good of the country, something the PL not only knows nothing about, but also sees as as weakness to be used against them.
Godfrey, you are letting the people down. You are doing so by not coming clean and telling us exactly how and why the PL have managed and are getting away with such mischaracterisations and convincing you of such an eroneous and distorted view not only of history but also of the present.
Godfrey, you are letting us all down by not coming clean on everything that you know, from what happened to you in the PL and why now this change.
You are letting us all down because you know and understand how the PL have blinded people and why they promote the NLP/think positive religion which has, very predictably, created a discriminatory value system and code of respectability, one which silences criticism and demonizes those who point out difficulties and suspicions.
If you think that you can win me over by speaking at a PN gathering, yo are wrong. I am most certainly not impressed.
Edward, just don’t give this slimeball any credit.
If he was there yesterday, it was also about whether he thinks Labour has any clue.
Clearly he doesn’t, so he’ll do everything to pull the PN down.
Grima was extremely fond of Joseph remember.
No, it seems they never learn. They did the same in 1996. They asked Godfrey Grima to write up a report on why the election was lost. I just want to know who is his link to the party. Then maybe things will be clearer.
I sincerely hope that Bundy will not be welcomed back on PN TV or radio.
This would really give PN supporters and everyone else the message that with the PN it pays to be disloyal because then you will be singled out for individual careful attention and rewards.
I hope Godfrey Grima wasn’t paid to speak at that PN conference, because that would make me angrier still. The more I hear and see the more I feel like giving up.
‘The more I hear and see the more I feel like giving up.’
Totally wrong attitude, Zorro, I’m afraid.
The more the PN is screwed up the more you should be doing to put it on the right track.
Giving up simply plays into the hands of the MLP and especially of those people who are dismantling all the good that was created by the PN over the years.
Admittedly some old faces within the PN do not inspire confidence but these are but a few when compared with those cluttering the MLP ranks.
Now do you still want to give up, Zorro, or wouldn’t you rather use your blade to rip your famous sign into the seat of Joseph’s pants?
You are so perfectly right Daphne – but only to intelligent people not to those who stupidly believe that the result of the last general election was in any way due to a Labour Party picking up and using the rejects and the traitors from the Nationalist Party.
Daphne, I do see your point here about allowing some bedraggled retired journalist like Godfrey Grima to take the podium at a PN Congress, but at the same time we need to understand that the people have to recognise good from bad and the bedraggled and motheaten from those genuine people who want to do right by Malta.
[Daphne – Well, the PN isn’t going to help on that score by presenting individuals like Grima and Bundy as relevant, credible and valid, is it? By validating Godfrey Grima’s opinion through seeking it for its own conference, it has validated his current opinion in favour of Joseph Muscat. When you put somebody on a podium at your conference, you are telling the world that you believe him to be a credible person with a valid opinion – so what you are doing is marketing HIM and HIS opinions in favour of THE LABOUR PARTY. And that is quite apart from the fact that he really is way over the hill now.]
The PN is right to promote the idea that it should not be an alternative government simply by default but by the power of its listening and its strong strategies that will continue to bring the good that nobody can ever deny they have instilled over the last 25 years!
I do not think that having Godfrey Grima there necessarily means that his opinion was being validated, or that he was being marketed by the PN. He was simply used as a tool to instigate discussion.
[Daphne – Oh dear God, this is so exhausting. When you put somebody on your platform, you validate them and their opinion. Not the content of their opinion, but their opinion itself, their sense of judgement and their perspective. You are telling people: this is a person whose views are important and worth considering; they are so important, and so much worth considering, that we are putting this person on our platform so that you can all listen to him. That’s branding. You are branding him as valid and you are branding your party as the sort of outfit that thinks Godfrey Grima worth listening to.]
Case in point Michael Briguglio was there today. His views are clearly not the PN views and coming after a number of speakers that were there today, he clearly showed his irrelevance in today’s world.
[Daphne – I despair. Shall I try using a loud voice? PEOPLE GO TO A NATIONALIST PARTY IDEAS CONVENTION BECAUSE THEY WISH TO WORK FOR THE NATIONALIST PARTY TO BECOME BETTER AND THEY WANT TO SEE WHAT THE NATIONALIST PARTY IS DOING ABOUT IT.
Does Godfrey Grima want the Nationalist Party’s electoral chances to improve? NO. Does Michael Briguglio? NO.
Are they likely to say or do anything that will improve the Nationalist Party’s electoral chances? NO AND NO.
They are there because they want to feel valid, and they can’t believe the PN was craven enough to ask them onto its platform. Both are has-beens. Both face a future of oblivion. They want every scrap of feeling-important that they can get.
Would the Labour Party ask ME to speak at its Ideas Convention? EXACTLY. Would I go? NO. And this despite the fact that I actually know what I am talking about in this particular field, unlike Grima and Briguglio.
I am going to raise my voice again, out of immense frustration: MICHAEL BRIGUGLIO VOTED LABOUR WHILE HE WAS CHAIRMAN OF ALTERNATTIVA DEMOKRATIKA AND TELLING PEOPLE THAT A VOTE FOR AD WAS NOT A WASTED VOTE. He did so even as his AD party and its supporters were rubbishing me for pointing out that the only government you are going to get is PN or MLP so you might as well choose it. He agreed with me, but kept it to himself until he blurted it out later on television.
Are the views of people like this the ones that the PN should be putting about at its Ideas Convention? An ideas convention convened with no ideas or imagination: THESE ARE NOT RESPECTABLE PEOPLE.]
It is about time Simon Busuttil appointed some advisers who do not have any vested interest other than returning the PN to government. It is a well known fact that he is surrounded by ruthlessly self-serving individuals who are just waiting for him to fail so they can step in and in the process stab each other in the back. Some are actively working against him.
A Julius Caesar scenario.
Without the right advice he is destined to fail. What on earth possessed the party to appoint a COO who is a politician who has never held a managerial position of any importance let alone managed any media outlet.
Now that same person, nice guy kemm trid, is tasked with managing the day to day operation of the PN’s most important PR mechanism; a mechanism that has failed (and is still failing ) to have any impact whatsoever on our society.
This blog run by yourself on a part-time basis is significantly higher impact than all the PN’s media put together. It took a fluke stand-in by David Thake to bring about the first positive sign in the communication war. It was not planned or designed. Thake plugged a hole and in the process was brought to the attention of 101’s drive-time listenership. He has had a programme on 101 in the dead slot after the evening news for a long time, going unnoticed because nobody listens at that time.
FFS Simon, get some professional advice – there are people out there with the experience who are willing to help out. It need not cost an arm and a leg to get sage advice. They can help you with the finances and help you with the organisation and help you with the message. But don’t be trusting and do step up to the plate and take the really hard decisions.
If you want to take a leaf out of that fraud Joseph’s book look at the way he dumps people who show the slightest hint of disloyalty to the party. You should do exactly the same regardless of how important or internally influential they are – and that includes getting rid of Gozitans if they are not four square behind you.
The dead wood who were part and parcel of the failed party organisation last time round have no place in the party now. You have to build anew not build around those who have no hope of finding a decent job in the private sector. The ones who are capable have already left, leaving you with the garbage. Garbage belongs in skips. Joseph can teach you a thing or two on this one.
[Daphne – I wouldn’t be too admiring of Muscat on that point, or many others. He actively collected garbage, dumping it only – as you pointed out – for disloyalty to the party, or I would say, disloyalty to him. But he’s quite happy to collect garbage as long as it is loyal and represents a vote. Now he is dealing with the mammoth problems posed by a government and structure that is really little more than a skip.]
Simon Busuttil does not want to listen. He accepted to be crowned leader and thrown in at the deep end only to move the party away from the Fenech Adami/Demarco parallelism.
He has never and will never grasp the melting-pot of Maltese politics in general and the PN in particular.
He is extraneous to the real fibre that used to hold together the PN.
His plan might have been to change the face of the PN, transform it into Malta’s Popular People’s Party and move away from the past. I am sure he will succeed in none of this. And to complicate matters, he is now personally in love and distracted.
He is totally out of sync with the people who do not want Labour in government not because they support the other bunch (PN) but because Labour is a danger to Malta.
[Daphne – Interestingly, that’s the very area in which I specialise, and there you have the answer as to why the Nationalist Party doesn’t ‘get’ me either, or understand who it is I’m speaking to (and they’re speaking back).]
His aloofness and fake sensibility do not strike a chord with the people. And his closed group of advisers do not inspire any hope.
I have had occasions to discuss matters with him, and after those meetings I have been perplexed at how he does not grasp the gist of the discussion and remains unconnected.
I’m looking forward to when he calls it a day or when someone tells him so directly.
Asking that Simon Busuttil be ruthless does not mean that one admires Joseph Muscat. The appeasement of trouble makers was, partially, Gonzi’s downfall in the creation of a perception of weakness.
Simon Busuttil is unfortunately following the same path. He asked a loyal and energetic candidate to step aside and not run for Secretary General so as to have a potential troublemaker win hands down. Did this appeasement buy loyalty? Of course not.
It bought him the permanent presence of a viper in his nest.
What is it that keeps him (the SG) there?
It’s not as though he’s loved where he comes from. Much to the contrary, for reasons that have to do with his own commercial expectations and the behaviour of his family.
This is no big secret.
I am sure that, much like me, there are many people who won’t be voting at the next election.
[Daphne – You know what I think of people who don’t vote, so don’t start me off. It’s stupid and irresponsible. You are going to get a government whether you vote or not, so bloody well make an attempt at choosing one.]
… and stick to this incompetent bunch! What smart thinking!
Do what Baxxter does: hold your nose and vote PN.
Indeed. Until the day comes when they can clone Gerald Strickland from some fragment of his DNA so he can lead us, finally, to the Modern Age.
Whatever you do don’t put anyone on an ego trip.
Specify that only that particular one will do.
The Nationalist party is just repeating past mistakes, giving a platform to discredited individuals like these.
Pity that the Nationalist Party has not understood how hopeless it is at communicating. All these conferences will not help them to improve the party position.
I was there yesterday. The man was the epitome of intellectual dishonesty and as apologetic to what Labour’s doing as could be.
In other words, his argument was no better than Muscat’s ara x’ghamiltu inthom.
What got to me was Psaila’s utter surprise when the audience reacted and booed.
I suspect Grima was too annoyed at Busuttil’s latest definition of this government; one elected on plain lies.
That does bring down Labour’s house of cards and opens the PN’s chances to approach those who did vote Muscat.
Or better, those 36,000 voted something else. An alibi if there ever was one. Good.
What was clear was that Grima lost it, turning on the audience and actually stating that the PN based itself on lies throughout the full ’25 years’ and where did those 36,000 come from.
Which does beg the question whether Grima thinks elections should be suspended until Labour get their own 25.
Whether, as he implied, the PN was ‘punished’ in 2013 for what it supposedly did in 1988. And to hell with KMB in 1992, Sant in 96, 98, 03 and 08.
He was that slimey, I pray that syllogisms can and will turn onto their author.
And that’s why the crowd booed. Maybe Frank Psaila should have seen it coming the moment Grima sat there hugging the microphone and quoting Clinton to us tiny Maltese.
I nearly stood up and challenged this David Frost wannabe to specify when did the PN ever scrap an electoral program the moment it was elected.
You should have seen him at the end, flirting with Busuttil like his life depended on it.
Sucker. Next time your ginger coward asks you to retake the agenda just say so. Saves your face and our time.
Friggieri is now an eccentric.
It is the time to rework this nation’s zeitgeist, even because no-one else can. Labour’s delusion that they can somehow reproduce 1987 PN, they call it true nationalist, is where they’ll fail.
Busuttil knows exactly what he’s doing. And it’s not Muscat’s business, he should be busy with matters of state anyway.
The PN starts everywhere except Pieta’, the moment we understand the PN is us, it will come together. Now that’s a movement.
And can we please make explicit where each and every one of these ‘intellectuals’ deform our thinking.
I’ve spent (wasted?) the last 8 years debunking each and every one of these intellectuals, and fat lot of good did it do. The Nationalists avoid me like the plague (ghidlu lil Musumeci), the intellectuals too, and Labour avoid me by default.
‘….Chase the people who haven’t stabbed you in the back, for God’s sake, not the ones who have. Celebrate good behaviour, not bad. Lionise those who behave with dignity and not charlatans.’
The PN is making the same mistake it made when in government: amplifying the merits of certain shoddy sorts and presenting them as demi-gods when what PN should have been doing is throwing them into the skip where they belong. Godfrey Grima is one of them. Just ignore them.
Mela haqqhom ghal dak kollu li qed jigrilhom u gralhom il-PN. Ma jitghalmux u ma jinbidlux u l-hmerija hi li ibaghti c-cittadin onest (il-ftit li baqa).
Never! I can say that from experience.
I am with you on people not voting, Daphne. However, the PN seems to be doing its best to try and irritate those supporters who have remained faithful through thick and thin.
For crying out loud, John Bundy? The same guy who spent years spiting the Nationalist Party and those associated with it, with his show on the Labour Party’s TV station?
Yes, Malta is full of young people. The PN always managed to win a good percentage of the younger vote. If it really wants to succeed, it needs to work with the younger generations.
It should stop trying to convince those who for money, or for fame, or for a reward dished out by Muscat and his party, turned their backs on authentic democratic principles.
The obvious thing that they should definitely do is to remind people what state this country was in when they took over after 16 years of Labour, and how they left it themselves.
And in the PN’s case, there is no need to rewrite history brazenly and blatantly, as the MLP was forced to do under Muscat.
Bang on.
I stopped paying my party membership years ago when they had on air a DJ/singer (an ex bank official) presenting a programme on Radio 101, who in 1977 during the lock-out of bank employees refused to join his colleagues in their fight for their rights to safeguard his then part-time job at Dardir Malta and singing at nightclubs.
I couldn’t however ever get to vote for this lot in government though.
so you abstained! which is just as bad
John Bundy IS Biffo the Bear.
They got Michael Falzon back, who through his writing didn’t help the PN cause.
Michael Falzon’s tiff wasn’t with the PN but with those people who ultimately screwed up the PN namely those around Gonzi and Gonzi himself.
The greatest electoral loss in the PN’s history proved Falzon and those who analyzed the situation in the same way, right.
Michael Falzon’s tiff was with the people who wouldn’t let him make even MORE money.
Jeez, let’s not be so naive.
Another one to take to task.
That one stated that since development and environmental cannot ever meet, why bother trying.
And that’s an architect if you please.
The cherry on the cake would be an invitation to Peppi Azzopardi.
Er, they did it.
I was wondering whether I am prejudiced and biased until I read your comment and as usual it was bingo on target.
I had planned on going to the event but then I saw that G Grima and O Friggieri were the invited speakers.
At that point I felt it would be totally useless, worse still I felt the Nationalist Party is still so so far away from understanding what it should be offering to fill the growing gap in Maltese politics.
I get really upset when I think about the people who have caused so much harm to the Nationalist Party while they were in government and continue to present themselves as candidates and party activists even now.
I can name a few names but prefer not to as I do not have the money to fork out for law suits and their devious ways are far better than mine for sure.
But please, for heaven’s sake, all you people in the party who have behaved badly in the past and are now pretending to be holier than thou just cut the crap and go into hiding like others have done.
Your self-serving actions are causing a lot of harm to the Nationalist Party and I for one will not vote PN until you are removed for good.
What is this, some sort of Christian pseudo-sado-machosism?
Why allow two mouldy dinosaurs like these two to come out of their moth-filled caves and preach to the PN?
Hasn’t team PN realized that those who did not succumb to the Taghna Lkoll cries do not like dinosaurs?
[Daphne – Perversely, that is probably exactly what the PN thinks: that those who didn’t vote for it are magnetically attracted to fossilied twerps and that is why they went over to Labour. So now they are trying to work up some fossilised twerps of their own, to magnetise us all.]
Inviting disgusting people like that to address the PN’s Ideas Convention is the last straw. I give up and will cancel my PN membership forthwith.
Fl-AZAD qabel l-elezzjoni għamilt sajf immur darbtejn fil-gimgha f’xi working groups ta’ Simon Busuttil, li kellu f’idu il-programm elettorali.
Mort b’entuzjazmu kbir u sibt ruhi mdawwar b’kocc nies dubjuzi li qatt ma hadmu mal-privat, u ma jafux x’jigifieri tqatta bi snienek.
Lecturer tal-universita li kelli faccata tiegħi, u li ghandu programm fuq ir-radju, kont kwazi certa li kien qieghed jirrekordja kollox fuq il-laptop tieghu.
Chairman ta’ working group iehor kien il-gatekeeper tal-idejat tajbin taghna, ihalli u jikteb biss dak li jaqbel mieghu hu biss. U imbaghad kellna lil-insufferable Astrid, li bir-ragun kienet tgerger fuq in-nuqqas ta’ professjonalita tal-working group tal-ambjent.
Insomma, hemm isfel kellna Babilonja shiha u kollox jillijkja iktar minn gharbiel.
Ktibt lil Simon Busuttil …hoss fl-ilma.
Ix-xoghol tajjeb kollu li kien ghamel Busuttil sfuma fix-xejn ghax wara li ippubblika l-programm elettorali il-PN, tal-Labour qrawh sew u ikkupjawh kelma b’kelma, u hargu b’taghhom tlett gimghat wara.
Busuttil irid jitghallem li hemm is-sriep kullimkien, l-inqas li jista jaghmel hu li jinkludi lil kullhadd imma f’working group jaghzel in-nies b’ghaqal iktar.
Xi tmur taghmel jekk ikun hemm min mohhu biex jirrekordjak kif kien jaghmel Cyrus Engerer, u jekk ic-chairman mohhu ikun biss biex jider sabih ma’ Busuttil?
[Daphne – Did I get that right: ASTRID VELLA WAS ON THE NATIONALIST PARTY’S ELECTORAL PROGRAMME WORKING GROUP FOR THE ENVIRONMENT IN THE RUN-UP TO THE GENERAL ELECTION? God, what f**king, f**king idiots. They deserve to be lined up and shot for stupidity.]
Qassmu Panadols fil-working group tal-ambjent?
iminiminminimini……
So was Joe Azzopardi. So was Andrew Azzopardi.
Astonished, Daphne? Told you it was a shambles.
[Daphne – Madonna, x’arakuza. How certifiably insane. It’s not only that people like that can’t be trusted and are completely unqualified to do the job, it’s that they haven’t a clue what a political party is FOR.]
…and Marco Cremona.
Thank God there was MP Philip Mifsud.
I hope Simon Busuttil learned from these mistakes.
From what I can see, Ms Thake, the convention organiser, did a good job and Simon Busuttil is learning fast, he was brilliant.
I am starting to believe that the PN can do it next time.
The bigger they are the harder they fall.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2014-10-24/blogs-opinions/Up-to-no-good-6736124307
http://normanvella.blogspot.com/2014/10/lil-min-stieden-lil-godfrey-grima.html
http://normanvella.blogspot.com/2014/10/lil-min-stieden-lil-godfrey-grima.html?m=1
A convention is there to draw people who didn’t vote for you in the first place, but who ordinarily would.
Many people rang Simon Busuttil so that they would explain to him why they voted Labour this time round. Then they give prominence to Grima, Falzon et al, who had a personal gripe against Gonzi.
[Daphne – Godfrey Grima did not have a gripe against Gonzi. Godfrey Grima is a Laburist. Briefly, when Mintoff was in power, he supported Fenech Adami because he hated Mintoff (though when Mintoff died he changed his mind so as to be fashionable). Godfrey admired Alfred Sant intensely and believes that Joseph Muscat is Goldenballs. Enough said.]
There are so many young people with ideas and successful ones at that. That’s who the PN should be courting, not has-beens. They shouldn’t even be courting people like me, or any one of us illuminati who write in this blog. We have had it. The young ones need to pick up the future pieces once Muscat leaves government, because leave he will once he has destroyed everything.
Perhaps Simon Busuttil’s generation itself needs to move over. And yes, it’s time for so-called personal attacks. The PN is afraid of Muscat and Manwel Mallia’s police apparatus. But it shouldn’t be. It should step up and do its duty, and get the people inside the PN to sever their so called professional links to any scheme that the MLP hatches. Especially the passport scheme.
Some of those hanging on to Busuttil are actively selling passports for the government. Too many lawyers infest the PN, all waiting for it to get to power someday. It would be interesting for these people to give up all future hope of this, because I’m sure they would switch to the MLP.
My point is that loyalty should be rewarded by the leadership, by listening to those who are loyal. Simon isn’t doing this. He is more interested in the outside than the inside. Fine, but at least a balance must be kept. Otherwise the people who really matter will walk away. Like I have done.
The PN is not the PN of Fenech Adami or Gonzi anymore. Times have changed, and the PN must change. But more of the same? No thank you. Will the next prospective leader step up please?
Jien iswed .
What you wrote, Daphne, is collaborated by many PN members.
They feel that the very same people who wrongly advised Dr. Gonzi are still steering the PN ship.
They feel that in this situation the PN has no chance of winning an election and a big fat chance of losing many members.
Lil kulhadd nissaporti. Jigi mal-PN min irid, basta mhux Franco.
I think the PN ought to employ the services of an actuary. To get an inkling of the people who may/may not still be around to vote/appear on TV pulpits, come next elections.
From what I read here it seems the PN is in a total state of confusion. “Advisors” galore, no strategy, back stabbing allegations. The bottom line is weak leadership, period.
Compare that with the Fenech Adami, De Marco and Louis Galea team. All three worked themselves up through the party ranks, from their student days. All three had difficult times getting elected to parliament, and they gave their all in Opposition and were very close to the grass roots.
This is what is essentially wrong with Simon Busuttil. He just dropped in, as deputy leader, and within a few months became the PN leader – simply not knowing the party, its structure nor its members.
Ultimately, Godfrey Grima participated in this convention with Busutill’s blessing. So yes, he got it wrong again, just like his “press release” about the power station debacle right down to the ice bucket farce.
Why not spell it out. The PN is still overburdened with people with super vested interests who are afraid to let go but stay there to silence threats against their past acts against society, the country and those who gave them the iced buns.
Until say around 2010, Godfrey Grima used to make sensible arguments even if I often disagreed with him. From 2011, his argumentation became more erratic, illogical and even deceitful. It was clearly driven by an agenda in support of the PL.
What I found most offensive (and deceitful) was his comparison of Joseph Muscat in 2013 to Eddie Fenech Adami in 1987. The two men could not be more different.
Fenech Adami was a man of principle who was in politics to be of service. Joseph Muscat is in it for the money and for an ego boost. He is a habitual liar who made pre-electoral promises which he knew he will not keep (for example meritocracy).
In stark contrast to Fenech Adami, Muscat is an opportunist with no sense of morals.
The first part of your article or post can be interpreted either as stupidness or as the height of love and fidelity.
[Daphne – Take it from a grown-up, David: it is stupidity, unless you define ‘love and fidelity’ as the sort usually associated with Fido or Spot.]
On elderly people are these incompetent persons fit only for the rubbish dump or an old peoples home? Are Italy, the UK and the Vatican led by incompetent persons? Are France and the new European Commission led by soon to be incompetent persons?
[Daphne – The British prime minister is in his 40s, David, and the Italian prime minister in his 30s. Your example of the Vatican is unfortunate as it proves the point with the two popes immediately prior to this one. Hollande is, what, in his 50s? The European Commission definitely has at least one highly incompetent person – ours. But he would have been incompetent at 35. Now he is incompetent and rambling.]
Women who remain faithful in face of their husband’s adulteries can be saints as Saint Queen Elizabeth of Portugal. On Italy’s and the UK leaders I was referring to their heads of state.
[Daphne – Their heads of state are not decision makers, so their age is irrelevant. Women are not divided into virgins, whores, nisa hziena and saints, David, and none of those things are predicated on sex, except for the first, anyway.]