Just as predicted – Muscat is going to console Mallia with some other prize
From here on in, Manuel Mallia is going to have to stick to films about men in uniform
I think it is absolutely pathetic and predictable that the prime minister is trying to portray himself as having the done the right thing and having taken a Big Hard Decision.
The way he and his ghastly minister of state have handled this business has been one hell of a lousy mess from start to finish. Muscat certainly doesn’t get any kudos – rather the opposite.
He has taken three long and painful weeks, weeks during which the imbroglio was allowed to run and run, causing permanent damage to him and his government, to do what he should have done immediately: force Manuel Mallia out.
He only did it now because he was left with literally no other option. Even last night, he was hard at work trying for another way out: asking Mallia to sack himself so that he wouldn’t have to.
By now he knows Mallia well enough to have worked out that somebody with his botched-up and perverted sense of right and wrong was never going to resign because he would truly not see why he should. So I immediately understood last night that all that wrangling while journalists waited was to thrash out some kind of deal: “If you say you have resigned, I will give you X.”
But it didn’t work, and faced with this colossal fiasco, pressure from the press, pressure from the public, pressure almost certainly from his own cabinet, with his back to the wall and a gun to his head, he actually organised everything for the swearing-in of a new minister, and had the press informed about it, beforeMallia resigned. Maybe he was hoping that at that point Mallia would do the obvious and save him having to confront the situation.
But Mallia, as we have seen already, does not operate to fundamental standards of decency. He operates outside the normal morality bubble and nothing embarrasses him. So literally at the 11th hour, when Carmelo Abela was about to be sworn in and there was no sign of a resignation yet, Muscat announced that he had “dismissed” him.
Do we laugh, or do we cry?
And then the inevitable happened, as predicted. Instead of being sternly disapproving as the context demands, Muscat actually thankedMallia for his work, said that he admires and respects him and considers him a friend, and that he will find him something else to do.
And be sure that whatever else he finds him to do will be far more prestigious and better remunerated than the position of minister of state.
Come on – surely you didn’t expect otherwise? Look at his track record. He removed Anglu Farrugia from the party’s deputy leadership and instead gave him the far more prestigious position of Speaker of the House – appointment, in other words, to Constitutional office.
He had Cyrus Engerer resign as a European Parliament electoral candidate, a race he was unlikely to win anyway, and instead made his boyfriend chef de cabinet to Malta’s Perm Rep in Brussels, Marlene Bonnici – a position which Engerer himself would have been given had his criminal record not precluded him from holding it. And Engerer himself was given an unspecified job in the same office.
Muscat sacked Karmenu Vella from the tourism ministry and then sent him to Brussels as Malta’s EU Commissioner. The only person he sacked and hasn’t compensated a hundred times over with something much better is Godfrey Farrugia, and the only reason for this is that he is afraid of Jeffrey Pullicino’s reaction. He only ever appointed him in the first place so that he could sack him shortly afterwards – a pre-planned exercise in public humiliation that he would have planned and executed with Pullicino as this is exactly how both their minds work.
In a year’s time, Louis Galea’s term in office as Malta’s representative at the European Court of Auditors, in Luxembourg, comes to an end. I think we should be looking at that, among other things.
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What an incompetent prime minister we have, unfortunately. The 36,000 majority has been translated into a stepping-stone for a perverse action plan for morally disordered individuals to seize control of the country to their benefit and the benefit of their corrupt associates.
From here on, Joseph Muscat is using the same strategy he used with Anglu Farrugia.
Traffic policeman on the Kappara rawndabutt
I was thinking more of an ambassador to North Korea.
No wait, he could actually BE the roundabout.
With his stature and form, a warden would be more apt.
As long as they do not put him as a sleeping policeman on the Regional Road…
Hekk sew u xieraq ghax wara li l-mummy taghtu l-bottle u gie jitfewwaq f`wiccna issa l-papa ser jaghtih il-gazaza.
Asking Manuel Mallia to represent Malta at the Board of the European Court of Auditors is like asking John Dalli to head the OLAF office.
There’s always Manneken Pis if they ever go to Brussels.
Sorry,math at was for Kanna below.
Agree. It was a hard time to get him to Brussels to do his work on the serious immigration issues for Malta let alone shove him off to Luxembourg.
Mela issa l-mara ta’ Mallia terga tmur timla l-ilma mill-funtana tal-Main Guard.
U jmur jixtri ghand il-Lidl.
Nistghu naghmluh isqof. Forsi ihobb l-ilbiesi tal-patrijiet daqskemm ihobb l-uniformijiet.
What dirt does Mallia have on the Labour Party?
So now , that it seems,that all of us, plus all the irregular immigrants, all the Arabs,and every cat and dog, living in Malta,
( it takes everyone to make up the half a million who wrote on this blog) have had their pound of flesh, how about letting the Govt get down to work for the good of the nation.
After all that is why we elected them, not to waste time on such silly matters that happen all the time in other civilized countries.
Silly matters? My goodness, Loporto, your intelligence and your insights astound me!
The government is free to do its work at all times. Answering questions is part of its job.
Manuel Mallia for the European Court of Auditors? Allow me: HA HA HA!
Will he have to be scrutinized by the EU for this job?
Hekk ried it-tank tal-hama. Jippoza quddiem dawk l-imbecilli ta’ nies bla skola li joghlew fil-grad ghax jilbsu t-torca mal-pavri. Jew jaqbzu lil min hu ahjar minnhom iktar minn zringijiet.
Manuel Mallia jivventila ruhu ai termini bhala Ambaxxatur ta’ Malta ghal Italja.
He can be made a Special Envoy to Romania, at Eur 13,000 per month.
How many months would it take him to earn another Eur 500,000?
Ghax ma nibghatuhx Sao Paulo ma’ dawk tal-corned beef?
Issa rridu lil xi hadd ghall-ufficcju gdid li ser tiftah Malta dalwaqt.
U jkun jista’ jduq il-corned beef li jigi esportat lejn Malta bhala ‘quality control inspector’.
Wherever Manuel Mallia ends up, we can at least be grateful for small mercies in that he will no longer be turning the army, police and state broadcaster into a national joke.
On a personal note, I want to express profound relief that I will not now have to eat my knickers which, at my age, are not exactly a starter portion.
[Daphne – You do have to eat those knickers, Jackie. He didn’t resign.]
OK, OK, I’ll start googling some knicker sauces. I’ll send you some photos for the next edition of Taste & Flair….
And please do not forget to tell us what they taste like…
Mallia – cacciato via;
Codruta – dispiacuta.
Ray Zammit – placed on a lower seat.
Min baqa’ fejn kien – ghaliex fir-‘Rapport’ ma semma mkien.
……U l-poplu staghgeb!
I don’t think the prize will be a Lidl voucher.
Judge? Magistrate? Ambassador?
How about making Manuel a colonel?
There is a precedent in the case of Johnny Cachia in Mintoff’s Task Force, he who did such a monumental task of rescuing the Egyptair passengers in KMB days without any loss of life.
In the meantime, Mallia has thrown his toys from the pram and failed to attend this evening’s parliamentary session.
The prime minister may have just made himself a new and dangerous enemy, though I’m sure he’ll be doing his best to appease Mallia.
Joseph se jagħmel lil-eks ministru Mallia ministru bla portafol, għax flusu jżommhom taħt is-saqqu.
Muscat sounds like some twenty-year-old girl, who upon realising that her boyfriend is not that cool after all, plucks up some courage to tell him, “This is not working out BUT we can still be friends.”
Dr. Galea’s term is for six years, expires May 2016.
I’m betting he goes for one of the judge posts in Luxembourg.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/King,_Don_(2007).jpg
Mallia can follow Don King’s footsteps in his beloved boxing scene