Viva l-Labour, eh, Astrid?
Astrid Vella spent years marching, campaigning, demonstrating and being strident on Super One, only to lose her megaphone and placards in March last year.
I even seem to recall seeing her kissing Opposition leader Joseph Muscat in thanks and gratitude after a vote in parliament.
But it is only now, under the Labour government and after long years of trying and failing, that the owners of the old Naval Clinic and the vacant lot outside it have got their permit to build a multi-floor residential and commercial complex.
And there goes Astrid Vella’s seaview, sunlight and wide open vista. Once the block is built, she will have to get used to living on a narrow street, her only view that of the balconies opposite.
Viva l-Labour, eh, Astrid?
Mrs Vella was the only person to raise objections at the public hearing about this project, according to newspaper reports. They said she objected on the grounds that the area lies over a World War II shelter.
The newspapers reported this faithfully. They probably don’t know that Mrs Vella lives in a flat right there, that what’s really bothering her is the fact that she will have to live for a few years with the Chinese-torture sound of rock-breaking excavators, then cranes, building, mechanical shovels and shouting, and when it’s all done, she’ll have lost her seaview and her light and will be living on a dark and narrow street.
I really don’t blame her for being upset. In her position, I would be selling up and moving out. But she really should have declared her interest.
Oh yes – and viva l-Labour, too. It was really wertit, wasn’t it, Astrid, going out of your way to help them to power. And then they knifed you, because they owe far more to the others.
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Your argument doesn’t hold water when you consider that government by democracy is the least available evil in the opinion of the majority.
Vella’s plight is what makes people martyrs. I know that this is most probably not the case in this particular instance, but I am talking about general principles.
It is therefore not illogical – or even inconsistent – for Vella to cry “Viva l-Labour” while her own “conditon” will take a turn for the worse.
My point is that one cannot pass judgement on the efficacy of particular policies by the effect on individuals as individuals. One must look at the common good. There. I said it. Common good. So sue me.
And who decides what is the common good ?
The “perceived” common good – you’re right, the phrase has to be qualified – is decided at the ballots. I won’t go into the “absolute” common good, as this is not the right place (nor, probably, the right audience).
Come now, Mr Scicluna, I think we can all agree that the common good for Malta is less buildings. The place is overcrowded as it is. There are thousands of empty housing units. So there is a glut of housing, not a lack of it. There is no justification at all for building more tower blocks.
(Nor, probably, the right audience)
I see you have difficulty with commitment, symptomatic of Muscat’s Labour.
You will explain the common good, perceived and not, belonging to this case.
Suffice it to say I don’t mind rehabilitating that scar, albeit not that idiotic apologetic compromise of a proposal.
Jozef, “tpaxxa” and “gawdi”:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2874678/Trip-memory-line-Artist-draws-incredibly-detailed-pictures-famous-cities-entirely-MEMORY.html
So the common good is more concrete monsters? One can be scathing about Astrid Vella and oppose this construction project, you know.
I was talking about the logic not the specifics of this case *sigh*
I was talking about the logic too. This construction project is bad, irrespective of Astrid Vella’s views. It is against the common good. Malta doesn’t need more buildings, but less.
Logic Baxxter, is an imported good in this place.
Just look at the verticals of the clinic set under the squat modules, obviously nine courses high, intent on reflecting the structural horizontals.
Ghax hekk ghallmuna l-universita’, the outside in, ornament dnub mejjet ghax bilfors redundant pastiche and ultimately, shock horror if there’s any mental texture bringing it together.
I really don’t think anyone has yet realised the actual size and proportions of the real and proper windows nestling in Piano’s geometrically machined erosion of parliament’s facades.
Piazzetta again truly a case of the superintendence led by nerds who cannot envisage future wrath at such intellectual boredom. If the clinic’s facade is so precious in form, why do they accept anything other than a rythmic logic to take it higher?
They’ll tell you form and function don’t meet obviously. Of this, is our culture made. Bring on D’Annunzio and his plans to bomb Rome to bits.
Now they’re talking aesthetics board. Alla maghna.
Jozef, we shall need to have a longer conversation, perhaps over a Barolo or two.
The thing that the Maltese intellectuals seems not to understand – I don’t expect The People to do so, for who will teach them? – is that architecture is a language. It needs to engage the reader.
Martin Scicluna invented the term ‘uglification’. He needs to explain what it means. How can Maltese architecture be ugly? Surely, it is glitzy and big, with big balconies and fantastic sea views?
The ugliness comes from the discordance. It does not speak to the viewer.
I shall never cease to proclaim Renzo Piano’s genius. That man has understood the essence of architecture. You look at his creations and the first thing you say is not “Iii xi gmiel”, or “Maaa, how horrible”, but “Hmmm, interesting.”
And that is the intellectual element of architecture.
You mentioned intellectual boredom. Yes, for the few who seek the intellectual conversation with architecture (that’s you and half a dozen others at most). But in Malta it starts with intellectual laziness – of the architects and their audience.
Beautiful architecture speaks to you. And it takes a mental effort to have that conversation. The Maltese, bless ’em, love “Baroque”. But it takes a lot of mental effort and meme-memory to understand Baroque.
Piano’s genius is this. It’s the conversation. He knows his audience, he knows the history, and he knows the memes. In Lyon’s Cité Internationale he uses red brick (ah!) and the rooftops look like the vineyards of Bourgogne and Provence (Lyon – gateway to the East and the South!).
London’s Shard is nothing but a large steeple. It is British and it is English. It is the glass steeple midst the glass houses of the village that is Southwark.
In Valletta it’s the Renaissance trattato di geometria. It’s the Città Perfetta and the rectangular grid. It is also the textura and the beloved “gebla tal-franka immermra”, so lovingly (and artificially) reproduced on many a “house of character” facade. It is the angle of a bastion (“…is-swar kienu jipproteguna mill-furbani. Jozef, bizzejjed ghax taqla’ copy!”). It is the interplay of sunlight, shadow, straight lines, flat surfaces and changing angles.
So the building engages the viewer.
This new Sliema tower block, along with almost everything built since 1960, takes its memes from Miami. Since 2003, most Maltese buildings reference the Dubai meme. Then we whine about uglification. It’s no wonder.
It’s no bloody wonder. Maltese artists and architects are either intellectual snobs who talk down to their audience (Richard England [no offence, he’s a splendid man], Giuseppe Schembri Bonaci [good heavens], or Kenneth Zammit Tabona [he’d take offence if I didn’t mention him]) or total nerds with no culture, about as cosmopolitan as galletti bil-gbejniet, churning out big glass-and-concrete boxes. Architecture by the metric tonne.
Jozef, Baxxter – chapeau!
If you want to understand how the common good can fail and where your argument falls apart, then you should read https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Tragedy_of_the_commons.html
It’s good to know that the development of the old naval clinic is for the common good.
No Ciccio, he meant that ‘viva il-Lejber’ is the common good. Unfortunately, the vast majority believes that JM is good.
All that hyperbole ruined by the misplaced “common good”. Shame.
If Labour = the common good, then I’m the Queen of Sheba.
May be you were not around or too young to know of lot of COMMON GOOD decisions taken by the charitable Labour government.
The whole point of my comment was that the “triumphant tone” of this post was not justified (by which I mean does not follow logically)
For all we know Vella knew what was going to happen in her “neighborhood” and decided to go ahead and support Muscat anyway because she thought it was a small price to pay to improve the country’s lot. I do not know how or what Vella thinks – and frankly I don’t care. I am simply pointing out the “Captain Mainwaringness” in the thought behind this piece.
Etil’s question highlighted the need for me to clarify that when I said “common good”, I should have said “perceived common good” because that is what elections are all about. It follows that perceived common good and true or absolute common good are not necessarily the same thing.
On a personal note, I don’t think Sliema could be further “uglified” (sorry about that, but it is a good word) than it already is. So a new block of concrete will soon find its place with the others, irrespective of which 200 yr old building it’s going to replace or ruin. I wish I could turn back time and have the front look as it used to, but I can’t.
[Daphne – There are no 200-year-old buildings in Sliema. The vast majority of houses there do not predate the early 1900s. But yes, I agree with you re the front.]
Prosit, Daphne! You couldn’t have said it any better.
Is this a ‘hu go fik’ moment?
Is that like Hu-Bastjan ?
Serves her right, oh so right.
She must be very happy now that her vote to Labour resulted in this. She should also ask why she is not being invited on her sofa at One TV anymore.
Ghasel nizlittli din. If it was me I would certainly feel not only used but abused by the Moviment ta’ Joseph. I voted PN and the view I have is IMPEKKABLI. Hu go fik, Astrid,
Actually, let me say I am NOT sorry this happened to her.
If it is not illogical it is logical.
I consider this case to be the tip of the iceberg. Imagine what’s next under Labour.
It’s already rumoured that apart from the LNG tanker in Marsaxlokk, they will also have multi-storey flats and a hotel on the shoreline.
Several NGOs lost their credibility after March 2013 and Astrid Vella’s FAA is one of them.
FAA’s credibility, if it ever existed, was lost long before March 2013.
Astrid Vella presents herself as an environmentalist but operates like a paid consultant , even if she might not receive direct financial payment. For this reason, her credibility was gone long before March 2013.
The reasons for her picking and choosing which developments to object to have always been unclear.
I’m no fan if Ms Vella. She often shoots from the hip and should be more measured in her defence if the environment. I also dislike the way she likes to present herself as some Joan of Arc and obviously loves the attention often forgetting the actual cause she is seeking to defend, noble as it may be.
However, in her defence, if I understand it she volunteers her time to FAA then she cannot be expected to take a stand on all environmental issues. Time is limited and one needs to pick their battles. To all volunteers who give freely of their time for the common good I say thank you. Every little bit you do is more than the nothing most do. It is frightening to me that the defence of the environment, both cultural and natural, is left to volunteers particularly since Mepa has been rendered toothless by this dastardly administration.
I’m no fan of Ms Vella. She often shoots from the hip and should be more measured in her defence of the environment. I also dislike the way she likes to present herself as some Joan of Arc and obviously loves the attention often forgetting the actual cause she is seeking to defend, noble as it may be.
However, in her defence, if as I understand it she volunteers her time to FAA, then she cannot be expected to take a stand on all environmental issues. Time is limited and one needs to pick their battles. To all volunteers who give freely of their time for the common good I say thank you. Every little bit you do is more than the nothing most do. It is frightening to me that the defence of the environment, both cultural and natural, is left to volunteers particularly since Mepa has been rendered toothless by this dastardly administration
@ Wheels within wheels
Astrid Vella may volunteer her time to FAA and may need to pick her (not their) battles, due to limited time, as you aptly pointed out, but how do you explain that prior to March 2013, she had all the time in the world to pick every available battle, megaphone in hand and calling Sliema ladies to parade with her and now the only battle she picks is exactly the one which directly affects her?
‘Wheels within wheels’ and ‘angus black’, you are so naive. I ask again, how does she choose which developments to object to (apart of course from those which directly effect home in Sliema)?
Moqlija b’zejtha.
The members of the MEPA Board are neither poets nor judges but this permit screams poetic justice.
Issa next year ituha Gieh ir-Repubblika. U tkun kuntenta.
[Daphne – They’ve done that already. She was on last year’s honours list.]
And this year it was Marco Cremona who wriggled his way into the honours list – Gieh ir- Repubblika
Karma is a bitch.
She got the lemon treatment. Squeezed and then thrown away in an alley with a block of flats in front of her flat, instead of a sea view.
She should be an NGO for pixies.
Well, I must say that there are many of us Maltese people who have been betrayed by Labour in power.
They promised a lot and at the time of the election I for instance thought things would improve and change for the better.
After two years I admit that we are living under a Communist government and it is not only this woman who ended up regretting her vote but many of us I must say.
I am one of them and today I will never vote again for Labour.
I worked for years in the public sector and today I had to change job because of the Hitlerian way they are ruling in the public service.
We also lost our opinion and the right to speak. They sold us to the first bidder for the sake of filling up their pockets. Well, Labour no more for sure.
Sharpy, this is interesting. Could you tell us more as to how the public service is being run?
Communist? Apart from sharing characteristics typical of parties on opposite ends of the political spectrum — the Far Right and the Far Left — there is nothing communist about the PL. You could say they resemble that Russian oligarchic structure using national symbols, the exclusion of foreigners, warming up to other despots and having rather isolationist tendencies replete with chest-beating slogans such as ‘Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox’.
However, communist they are not, even less so Labour. They are a disgrace to the Labour Movement. The PN is Malta’s Labour party, not that bunch of criminals. Even De Marco recently placed the PN on the Centre Left ideologically speaking, a fact most experts have been aware of for years but which is hard to get across to your average voter.
The point is not that what was promised was not delivered, but WHAT was promised…
Also, if you see the photo of the Piazzetta on the same Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/173790315984149/?fref=ts
you can see where Astrid lives next to the block of flats (her great uncle was not the first one to demolish in that street). You can see the view from there will not be obstructed at all by the new block – so it seems Astrid is not fighting for her view after all.
[Daphne – I know exactly where Astrid Vella lives. I lived round the corner for 21 years.]
Even if it were, her front terrace will now be left in the proposal’s shadow from the very earliest afternoon.
Make that noon in winter.
For those who think that Astrid votes Labour, read this that she posted on Facebook, British in Malta page :
Terry Courtnage “at the earliest opportunity he dropped the bully boys like a hot potato”?? I’m sorry but you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Mintoff appointed Lorry Sant Minister of Public Works in 1971 -under him the wholesale destruction of Malta’s architectural heritage and countryside began. “Minister Lorry Sant used to run his ministry in a rough and quite arrogant way… aggressive towards all employees including the highest officials,” Mr Justice Camilleri pointed out in his 45-page judgment which concluded that Lorry Sant had violated Perit Rene Buttigieg’s human rights.
In 1976 Mintoff added Ministerial responsibility for sports and as if that were not enough power, in 1983 Mintoff added the Ministry of Housing to Sant’s portfolio. This was an important addition as it gave the Minister the ultimate vote-catching power, and this department has been associated with corruption ever since. In order to shore up his increasingly unpopular regime, in December 1981 to September 1983 Mintoff promoted Sant to Minister for Internal Affairs, the most powerful post in the country, controlling the army and police force.
This was the blackest period in Malta’s recent history, characterised by police violence leading up to political frame-ups, savage beatings of student protestors, illegal jailings and murders when young people in the prime of their life, like, Raymond Caruana, Nardu Debono, Wilfred Cardona and Lino Cauchi, were sacrificed on the altar of senseless violence. “According to businessman Joe Borg’s testimony before the Permanent Commission against Corruption presided over by Mr Justice Victor Borg Costanzi, Camilleri, with Sant’s blessing, used to request plots and money in return for granting building permits to individual contractors.
Borg also revealed a 1981 promise-of-sale agreement signed by accountant Lino Cauchi, was never effected after the agreement went missing when Cauchi disappeared in February 1982.” His skeleton was found in a Buskett well many years later.
Terry Courtnadge I can assure you that all the above is factual. Ryan Grech, stringing together 4 minutes of demagoguery and bravado may be a tribute, but it is far from portraying the truth that Mintoff’s positive achievements were overshadowed by violence and corruption for which Mintoff was responsible as he was aware of all that was going on.
My father died at 50 as a result of Sant’s victimisation, and 9 years later his vindictive hatred was still so strong that I, a young woman of 23, was transferred to work on a building site, in the best Soviet tradition. Many still bear the scars to this day, but most of his victims died an early death, hastened by stress-induced illnesses from heart attacks and strokes to Parkinson’s disease. Their families may have forgiven but can never forget.
Does this sound like a switcher to you?
[Daphne – A non sequitur, Joe. This is a description of Astrid Vella’s feelings about the Labour government of the 1970s and 1980s. She clearly has very different feelings about the Labour Party since – otherwise, she would not have embraced all those invitations to appear on its television station and further its propaganda cause. And she certainly wouldn’t have been so jolly around Muscat. Many people are not consistent, logical or even intelligent. That fact has to be accepted.]
Shall we say Astrid was both thrilled and adamant she was the perfect evidence how Labour had changed?
Daphne, can you SERIOUSLY expect us to believe that someone who’s father died under the former regime, would vote for that same party still full of the same people as the first time round?
[Daphne – I never said she voted for him. In fact, I think she voted AD. I said something else entirely: that she helped Muscat to power by serving, whether wittingly or unwittingly, as one of his useful tools.
But you should be a better judge of human nature. The fact that you would not find it in yourself to vote for a party of people who had caused your family so much harm does not mean everyone else has the same standards. By the same token, she should never have accepted invitations to appear on their television station, either, as a matter of principle, more so when it was not beyond her to work out that there was only one reason why they wanted her there. And surely if Mrs Vella could find it in herself to kiss Joseph Muscat outside parliament, she could find it in herself to vote for him, though as I said I think it more likely she voted AD.
I don’t know why you find all this so astonishing. Foremost among the people ranting and raving against the Nationalist Party over the last few years, and who voted Labour last year, were some from the major shareholding families of the National Bank of Malta. The PN in government had never done anything to compensate them, they argued, so in vengeance they voted for the party that actually STOLE the bank and in so doing destroyed the mental and physical health, to say nothing of the ability to get by financially, of several of their forebears.]
You people really make me laugh. It’s bleedin obvious that an environmentalist would vote Green. She’s seen alongside that Cacopardo in press conferences, on TV and radio programmes, has made no bones about the fact that she votes green. Yet you people are so pathologically obsessed by blue and red that you have to paint everyone blue and red, and can’t see what’s staring you in the face. And then you say Astrid is stupid!
[Daphne – She may as well have voted Labour then. AD can never form a government. But this is the same old argument that I don’t wish to get into. I am glad, however, that Michael Briguglio, AD chairman as was, said in public that he voted Labour, not AD, for precisely this reason. Looks like he agreed with me all along even while his AD foot-soldiers laid into me for having ‘a two-party mentality’. Michael is at root a practical person: you vote to choose the government. So choose it.
I did not say that Mrs Vella is stupid. I said that she is not bright. And I don’t think even you can argue with that. Illogical arguments and non sequiturs are the hallmark of a person with a non-analytical mind, and a non-analytical mind is associated with unremarkable intelligence.]
I’m glad to see that you are finally dropping your oft-repeated claim that she voted Labour. So now that you’ve admitted that she votes AD, you turn to running down AD.
You say that the she should have refused to appear on Super One. Since she was banned from the Pravda-like PBS and Net, that means she would have been completely gagged for 7 years. That would have suited you and the PN wouldn’t it?
Funny how I don’t see you saying that she should not appear on Net now that she’s suddenly welcome and appearing regularly there. What a hypocrite you are!
[Daphne – I make no claim as to how Mrs Vella voted because I wasn’t in the polling booth with her and because, unlike me, she never says how she voted. Apparently she is embarrassed by her choice (what other reason could there possibly be?).
I do not ‘run AD down’. I merely point out that AD can’t form a government and that sensible people vote to choose a government not to choose a constituency representative. It is a view with which Michael Briguglio, former AD chairman no less, agrees, which is why he votes Labour and not AD.
‘That would have suited you and the PN. wouldn’t it?’ I am all for freedom of expression and oppose all forms of gagging. The fact that I find Mrs Vella embarrassing as an example of a woman in the public eye (it may confirm many men in their wrongful impression that all women whine and are irrational) does not mean I want her silenced. I would be the last person on earth to want that, given how many people want to silence me. As for the PN, I have no idea what they would or wouldn’t want, and am not interested.
Banned from PBS and NET? What rubbish. The fact that Mrs Vella was invited repeatedly to appear on the Labour Party’s television station seems to have given her the impression that her views were sought after for their own sake, and hence the fact that she was not invited on to PBS and NET means that she was ‘banned’.
The one thing people can’t accuse me of is hypocrisy. What you see is what you get. I used my own money to build and run this website, and did not ask the government for, and receive, Eur20,000 as Astrid Vella did for hers – a fact which she chose not to publicise because she correctly recognised that it would have worked against her. So the government which you say ‘banned’ her from television gave her a large amount of money for a website. How does that square up in your reasoning?]
And a rubbish website it was too. Let’s call a spade a spade.
Well, here’s illogical for you. Most of my family on my mother’s side vote Labour. They’ve been Labour all their lives and most of their children (my cousins) vote Labour too.
However, they all hate Lorry Sant. He’s an ahdar and vendikattiv because he had made my grandfather redundant after he had a spat with him.
My grandfather found it hard to find another job with the government because of Sant and eventually had to look to the private sector for work.
So they all vote Labour but hate Lorry Sant. Oh, and Joseph Muscat isn’t in their good books either because a cousin who was a Labour councillor was hounded and made to resign to make way for nies tal-qalba. But they still vote Labour.
Sometimes, those who feed the tiger may be eaten by the tiger.
Timely. With the Naval Clinic development and the Town Square project across the road from that, both Gasan projects even though the Town Square applicant was Michael Soler (married to Joe Gasan’s sister) – common good, my foot. Astrid Vella and Co have contributed towards the developers’ greed. Talk about not seeing the bigger picture when they did what they did.
U x’sar minnu Alex Vella the environmentalist and importer of building supplies? Oh yes, they’ve now given him a position on the MEPA board. Dak ukoll kien jishon fuq xejn. Issa immuta.
Living on the dark side of the moon. Min xarbu kielu l-bakkaljaw, Astrid.
Astrid was on the forefront in the fight againsta monstrosity being built in the last remaining open area in San Gwann. Like wise a WWII shelter was found but typically its value ignored or at best lip service to ‘save’ it. The piazetta issue is exactly the same as the San Gwann issue and Astrid was availabel whnever we, the objectors needed her. I for one would have backed Astrid against the project in Sliema. It is pointless picking on Astrid because she is trying to defend her right to a proper environment. Unfortunately it is patently obvious to everyone that this admnistration favours more the devleoper at tehe xpense of practically everything else. The environemnt is just a buzz word nowadays
Daphne, you really, really need to stop barking up this tree. Astrid the environmentalist was born under a Nationalist government and it was only natural and obvious that her pro-environmental movement would be directed against the awful environmental record of that government. The fact that Labour’s pre-1987 environmental credentials were infinitely worse was neither here nor there – there was nothing Astrid or anyone could do about that. The fact that a future Labour government’s environmental actions would also be infinitely worse is also neither here nor there. What would you have had her do ? Remain ‘stumpf’ and let the Environment go to hell in a handcart, simply because criticism of the PN’s actions might undermine their (already doomed) electoral chances and let in a far worse administrator ? That seems to be the line you have advocated, in which case I have yet to hear a sloppier argument. It should be painfully obvious that if no-one were to stand up and cry out in the face of wrongdoing by one administration, even if the other would be undoubtedly worse, then the first lot could safely continue to do whatever they liked, however bad, purely because they could invariably claim that there is no credible alternative to themselves – and I leave it up to you to figure out where that line of reasoning would lead.
Yes, of course Astrid was politically naïve in the earlier years. Her heart and soul were geared only towards stopping the environmental ravaging that was occurring everywhere – and Joe Muscat, a far, far, wilier man, used this environmental enthusiasm and naivitee, perverting it to his own cause. She’s learnt her lesson since, most bitterly – you saw to that. Nonetheless, the fact that you have zero environmental understanding does not grant you the right to pillory her so viciously, so constantly and so unfairly as you have done and continue to do. If the flame of her enthusiasm is, debatably, at all diminished, you probably have more to do with that than anyone else in this country.
Quite frankly, had I been her, had I born the torrent of unjustified, misplaced, vitriol that you unloaded on her and, had my political views been only slightly less entrenched than they are, I’d probably have voted Labour just to spite you.
[Daphne – Oh do stop it. You don’t even seem to realise that what you are saying here is exactly what I have been saying about Astrid for years: that she allowed herself to be used politically. The difference is that you think it was the result of naivete and that she wasn’t aware of what was happening, and I don’t. It was quite obvious to me that she enjoyed it. She enjoyed being the centre of attention and she enjoyed the power-broking. Exactly how naive do you have to be to appear on the Labour Party’s television station repeatedly ranting on against the Nationalist government’s environmental policies and not understand that the medium and context ARE the message? She’s not that naive. In fact, she is not naive at all as those who have known her for a lifetime will tell you. She is actually extraordinarily manipulative.
She did not even have the support of the more established environmental/heritage NGOs, for precisely this reason and the fact that she knows next to nothing about the subject, but filled almost all the media space with her non-professional messages because she gave them headlines and anti-government stories, whereas the more serious organisations were trying to get a proper message across.
There is no such thing as ‘Astrid the environmentalist’. Astrid Vella is your archetypal bored middle-aged Sliema housewife who didn’t work and who needed something to do when the children grew up, and that’s exactly why her main line of focus was Sliema and the rest of Malta did not exist for her. Her idea of the ‘the environment’ is buildings, and even there her lack of knowledge is laughable. Or maybe you have forgotten the ‘baroque house in Sliema’ episode. It should occur to you that the main reason I object to her posturing is because – unlike much of her audience – I know exactly what I am talking about where she is concerned.
Might I remind you that Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando was once named Environmentalist of the Year. Unfortunately, this is a field which is immediately attractive to neurotic, attention-seeking egocentrics who know little or nothing about the subject, because it is considered fashionable and because the vast majority of people know even less. They just know it is ‘good to be an environmentalist’ and that puts you beyond reproach. Once you put on the cloak of a pseudo-environmentalist, nobody is allowed to challenge you.
The harm Astrid Vella did is unquantifiable and far outstrips any positive achievement. Worse still, now that things really are bad, she has retired her megaphone and won’t be encouraging people to demonstrate any time soon. Her behaviour has been the typically irresponsible behaviour of those who have lived a very sheltered, narrow life and have as a consequence retained a childish mentality and don’t understand that nothing takes place in a vacuum and that actions have consequences, sometimes quite serious and far-reaching consequences.]
Andy Lake, I would ask you to compare Astrid Vella and Edward Mallia.
I rest my case.
What extraordinarily runaway conclusions. An environmental NGO, nearly by definition, can only target and criticise the government of the time. Only they can improve or degrade the environmental situation. The Opposition can’t do a thing until it becomes their turn to govern.
[Daphne – NGOs are not there to target the government, but to criticise and monitor government POLICY. Mrs Vella’s mistake – or was it deliberate – was in failing to distinguish between the two. Ask yourself why Birdlife and Din L-Art Helwa, for instance, have never been accused of targetting any government even when they are very specific and hard-hitting in their criticism. It is the way they do it.]
I completely refute your claim that she knows next to nothing about the subject. The truth is quite the opposite – it is only her regrettable, early-on, poorly-considered association with Labour that overrides her credentials in this regard, at least as far as you’re concerned.
[Daphne – Astrid Vella is no more qualified in environmental issues than the next Sliema housewife. She is certainly no more qualified than I am, and I would never dream of starting an environmental NGO and having the arrogance to call myself an environmentalist. She trades in emotion, not science. Her arguments are emotive and her terminology is childish. Right now she is campaigning to ‘save the trees at It-Tokk’ (because she has a second home in Gozo, so now It-Tokk is interesting to her). An environmentalist, or even anybody with the most fundamental interest in plants (like me) would not have said ‘trees’ but would have identified them for what they are: Mediterranean oaks, Mediterranean pines, bay laurels, whatever. In the same way, people who know about dogs never say ‘that dog over there’ but ‘that German Shepherd over there’. The devil is in the detail, and I’m afraid I notice these things.]
I defy you to come up with any article, any message, any statement of hers on behalf of FAA that contradicts my assertion and supports your own. Furthermore, the process of her manipulation by Joe Muscat fizzled out comparatively early on, whereas you carried on and on and on demonising her for it until you had convinced yourself that she was no more and no less than an agent of the Labour Party and any other credentials she held or any evidence to the contrary could go to hell.
[Daphne – The fact that Mrs Vella did an extraordinary amount of damage by fomenting discontent with what was a far better state of affairs than the alternative (as we can now see for a fact) is indisputable. In the 2008 general elections, for example, large pockets of electors in Sliema were refusing to vote because of this project or that project, this car park or that car park. This was largely due to all the rabble-rousing. Left to their own devices, people use their brains. They work out that it is crazy to put the project next door before the economy as a whole in terms of importance – that the latter has a greater, deeper and wider effect on their life than the cranes and building down the road. Was Mrs Vella herself able to work that out? I don’t think so. She is not at all bright, and that is why her arguments swing about with no rhyme, reason or logic. But she is talking mainly to an audience of people who are just like she is – barely educated but raised in the arrogant assumption that they are superior and that they know it all, and so she strikes home.]
The Sliema theory is pure rubbish. Of course it was an incident in Sliema that triggered her campaign. Where else was it likely to have started ? That’s where she lived, for crying out loud.
[Daphne – It’s where I lived for 27 years, but my horizons and interests were a little wider. Why should her interest in ‘environmentalism’ have been triggered by something that happened in Sliema just because she lived there? She was in her late 40s – the scope of her interest should have gone beyond her home town by then.]
As for putting her in the same basket as Jeffrey P O – give us a break will you ? This is where your argument breaks down completely. JPO is a scheming, raving, greedy, unprincipled, malign, deranged semi-psychotic.
[Daphne – I did not compare them. I merely mentioned him as an example of how environmentalism is used as a refuge by those who want a fashionable cause that will make them look good. As with Pullicino Orlando’s case, environmentalism can even be a refuge for scoundrels. People are in the main reluctant to criticise environmentalists in the same way and for the same reasons that they are reluctant to criticise charity workers. This means that those who pose an environmentalists are ‘safe’. But when they are, untypically, subjected to criticism, these fake environmentalists go ballistic. They go ballistic because they are not there to fight for the cause of environmentalism, but to have a role and a purpose and even a guise themselves. A real environmentalist can deal with criticism and even welcomes it as a challenge.]
Astrid was fired up by a genuinely-motivated cause and sacrificed enormous time and effort in her pursuit of it. She gained absolutely nothing in the process nor did she ever try to (unless you consider the tsunami of derision you released, an achievement). If the worst of your accusations against her is true, she still doesn’t come remotely close to warranting comparison with him. The very idea of lumping the two together should make you blush.
[Daphne – I did not lump the two together. They are separate examples of how environmentalism can be used as a refuge for those who want some kind of purpose and the admiration of others. The fact that they both used environmentalism for the same purpose does not mean they are the same kind of person. Fired up? Never make the mistake of thinking that persistence and a tendency to monomania are ‘fired up’. Mrs Vella is the same whatever it is she happens to be doing at the time, whether it is selling clothes off a catalogue door to door or writing an article: 10 telephone calls a day until you say Yes just for the sake of a quiet life.]
I’ll say it again – if Astrid has lost some of her earlier energy and dedication, it has more to do with you than with anyone or anything else.
[Daphne – Hardly. She’s drawn back because she knows rather better than most that laying into a Labour government, with its propensity for vicious revenge (after all, she does know this through direct experience) is not the same as rushing around with a megaphone laying into the benign Lawrence Gonzi & Co. You insult her by saying that she gave up because of a few blog-posts, because that means she was completely unfit for the purpose of campaigning. What would she have done in my position – flung herself off the nearest cliff?]
i) Let’s not be disingenuous here – both you and I know that, in Malta, there exists absolutely no distinction between criticising government policy and criticising the government. You refer to one and you have automatically referred to the other. You, of all people, should know this. As for Din l-Art Helwa not having been accused of targetting the government: in the words of J Mcenroe – You canNOT be serious!
ii) Attempting to imply that Astrid only speaks out on matters that affect her own personal environment is so cheap and ludicrously untrue that I am surprised you stoop to it. Furthermore, by now her environmental knowhow is hugely superior to anything you possess. With all due respect, science has never been, nor has it ever become, your strong point. Your political analysis is second to none but scientific analysis and technique is not an attribute that you should have ever arrogated to yourself – not, that is, if you wish to preserve your argumentative credibility.
[Daphne – This is getting extremely tedious. If you really wish to know what I find most offensive about Mrs Vella, it is this: she has a completely non-analytical mind and her arguments are like cotton-wool. It upsets me because there are so few women in the public eye, and when one of those few is a woman who confirms the (false) misogynistic perception that women are irrational and can’t think straight, it damages the rest of us. I literally cringewhen I read what she writes or listen to her speak. It is as though her mind and her manner of speaking/writing/reasoning have not altered since she was 15. It is the language and mindset of the Sacred Heart Convent schoolyard, and it is beyond embarrassing in an adult that age. She cannot even form a rational and well constructed sentence, and because our ability to construct sentences is directly linked to our thought processes, you can conclude that her written arguments are all over the place because so are her thoughts. As for science not being my strong point, you really have no idea what my strong points are or are not. The fact that this website is about politics and related matters is a response to the other fact that this is what people want to read. If I were to write about science this site would rank 1,500 on the list and not 14 or thereabouts.]
iii) you have still not come up with a single article that supports your assertions and, worse, you leave wide open the debate as to whether it would have been better to criticise PN environmental POLICY and, in so doing, undermine further their re-electability (sorry) if, indeed, that was even possible or choose to say nothing in the knowledge that the administration that was sure to follow would behave even worse.
[Daphne – Look, I work in communication and have done so for many, many years. I don’t wish to spell it out because it sounds really arrogant and that is not my intention at all, but if I tell you that Astrid Vella came across as an anti-PN, anti-government campaigner and a tool in the hands of the Labour Party, rather than as an environmental campaigner, you had better accept it. This is not ‘my opinion’, but a fact. How Mrs Vella and her supporters think she came across is another matter. They are not seasoned communicators and know next to nothing about the field. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of Mrs Vella’s hangers-on are rabidly anti-PN and pro-Labour ‘smart’ types, other than the occasional well-meaning individual. The fact that they supported her so avidly had little or nothing to do with their environmental conscience. I could mention names, but don’t wish to. It isn’t necessary. They egged her on, and the reasons were party-political not environmental. Her stunts were totally out of proportion to the point of absurdity: marching (with MLP sec-gen Jason Micallef) on a fully-permitted Fawwara farmhouse owned by the PN president of the time; shouting through a megaphone on the back of a lorry because of a block of flats in Spinola Bay; leading a demo march in Valletta in the rain with people singing and placards and plenty of fuss. And now we have major environmental threats and the most she can muster is a polite letter.]
iv) the fact that you were not motivated to speak out against Sliema-centred environmental issues, although you lived in Sliema, has no value whatsoever. It simply means that these issue didn’t strike you the same way, if at all.
[Daphne – Oh how wrong you are. I was the very first person to speak out about the subject with an article called The Sliema Scandal, back in 1989, and I was elected ‘sparata’ to the first Sliema Residents Association at the age of 24. Public Works Minister Michael Falzon was at loggerheads with me for quite a while because of an interview with him that I had had published in The Sunday Times that same year, on the same subject. That was when it all began – by the time Mrs Vella entered the game around 2006, it was way, way too late. Where was she back then in 1989? Pushing her pram and doing nothing. I had three prams to push concurrently and it didn’t stop me. And before that, I was at every environmental demonstration going, at a time when it didn’t involve a few genteel Sliema housewives and their random husbands walking down Republic Street in their belted raincoats, unmolested, but an assault course negotiating thugs, stones and savage policemen, with every demonstration ending up with several of us taken for medical care. And where was Mrs Vella then? Who knows. She must have been busy, so the environment would have to wait another 20 years before she discovered it.]
In Astrid’s case, it was an event that occurred where she lived that catalysed the outrage leading to her future actions. As to whether she was 40 or 30 or 20 or 50 years old at the time, do we really need to waste time on describing the convergence of personal experiences that lead us to any given response at any particular stage of our lives ? This argument is getting more daft by the minute.
v) Of course you compared them. Of course you lumped them together. The moment you mentioned Astrid’s name and Jeffrey’s in the same sentence, linking them with the word ‘environmentalist’, you placed them in the same basket. And a barrel-scraping argument it was too.
[Daphne – Clearly you have the same sort of non-forensic mind that your friend has. My point was that neither Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando nor Astrid Vella is an environmentalist, and that both use the cloak of environmentalism for other purposes. The fact that they have/had the same objective in using environmentalism does not make them the same kind of person. In fact, I know they are not the same kind of person. Though some aspects of their personalities are similar, Mrs Vella does not require psychiatric treatment and she is not paranoid, obsessive or dangerously vicious.]
vi) You might choose to believe that Astrid may have cooled off because laying into Labour is a more fearsome prospect than laying into the infinitely more democratic and gentlemanly Lawrence Gonzi but I rather think that is little more than a way to get you off the hook. A few blog posts ? A few blog posts ??? With the possible exception of Consuelo Herrera (who deserved everything she got) I doubt whether anyone, in all the years you’ve been blogging, has ever received such a constant, unremitting, ceaseless avalanche of misplaced, unfairly directed and incredibly offensive insults, jeers and innuendos.
[Daphne – Ah, I see. You are one of those people (which indicates to me that you are a man) who divides the human race into Men and Women, as in ‘these are the men Daphne has written about and these are the women Daphne has written about. Consuelo Herrera and Astrid Vella are both women, therefore let us compare like with like and see whether Daphne wrote about Consuelo more than she wrote about Astrid’. This is what I mean by a non-analytical mind. An analytical mind would not divide my subjects into men and women, classify Mrs Vella with the women, deduce rightly or wrongly that she is the woman I have written most about, then conclude that I have written about nobody else so much and in X or Y manner. Had you a properly analytical mind it would be immediately obvious to you that Astrid Vella is a once-topical side-note on this website and that my top subjects are all politicians. But of course, they are men – so you have written them out of the equation because in your non-scientific mind, women must be compared to other women.]
No, I can’t say which way Astrid’s vote eventually went but I can say that if it did indeed veer from Nationalist to Labour, you were easily the single greatest cause of that particular switch.
[Daphne – I was under the impression that your purpose in commenting here is to defend Mrs Vella against my accusation that she is childish, irresponsible and uninformed, and not to confirm it.]
Daphne, since I don’t have your luxury of inserting my comments in your replies, I’ll reply in points here, not because I hold any torch for Astrid Vella, but simply because when you lay into people disproportionately, you actually win sympathy for them.
[Daphne – More illogical rubbish, I’m afraid. The fact that Astrid Vella laid into Lawrence Gonzi incessantly did not win any sympathy for him, but rather the opposite. The fact that the Labour Party’s entire massive print, broadcast and internet machinery laid into me incessantly did not win any sympathy for me but stirred up a sick mass of hatred. For sympathy to be stirred, there has to be a very specific context. The context you describe does not apply. Also, you accuse me of causing damage to Mrs Vella and then say that actually what I did was win sympathy for her.
You are confusing issues. This is, in fact, how it works: lots of people, but mainly women and a certain type of man, hate my guts. They do so for various reasons which are complex and cultural, almost none of which are political though politics is the context in which they choose to frame their hatred. When they perceive me as having ‘attacked’ somebody, these people will rally round the individual they think I have ‘attacked’. They do so not because they like that individual, but because they don’t like me. When they can also relate to the ‘attacked person’ in terms of social background and so on, they will rally harder and faster. This is exactly how Mrs Vella acquired champions such as Mrs Benoit, Mrs Tomkins and Peter Apap Bologna, among others.
You do indeed carry a torch for Mrs Vella. The only time you pop in here is to defend her assiduously. In your place, I would feel awkward around her husband. Disproportionate defence by a man of a woman usually indicates an emotional attachment and not a rational stance.]
You say that Din l-Art Helwa don’t attack governments but only policy. Of course it didn’t attack the PN Government, yet in the last 12 months its attacked government more than it did in the previous 25 years.
[Daphne – Yet another illogical argument, I’m afraid. Din L-Art Helwa’s stance was softer because the PN government’s environmental policies were better than this government’s, and not because they are PN lackeys. Refer back to what I wrote earlier about how NGOs should make it clear they are focussing on policy and not on the government itself. Perhaps it has escaped your attention that the president of Din L-Art Helwa was one of this government’s first appointees – to the Foundation for National Festivities http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130615/local/bondi-in-new.473989 ]
It even got its past presidents out of nursing homes to attack this government: “The government also intends to amend the legislation to enable the Strategic Plan to be approved by the Minister of Planning alone, without proper Parliamentary scrutiny. Given that the Plan involves a change of such social, economic and environmental importance, the attempt to bypass Parliament is a retrograde step which runs directly counter to the commitment to transparency and accountability which this government made on taking office”.
[Daphne – Martin Scicluna will not take kindly to your suggestion that he was brought out of a nursing home, more so to attack the government. He would like you to know that he is only 79, and that it was time for a change to Labour.]
You all say Mrs Vella was naïve, maybe so. But none of you mention the fact that under the PN environmentalists who spoke up were banned from PBS or Net. What would a committed person have done in that situation, curled up and died, or accepted the only station that gave them airtime? From what I follow, it worked, as phone-ins from the lower classes have swung hugely against the speculators.
[Daphne – Shall I write this in capital letters? THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE. Appearing on Super One to talk against the government is not like appearing on PBS to talk against the government or appearing on NET to talk against the government, or writing a piece for this website against the government. SUPER ONE IS A TELEVISION STATION 100% OWNED BY THE LABOUR PARTY FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF TRANSMITTING PROPAGANDA MESSAGES TO UNDERMINE THE OPPOSING PARTY AND NOT TO EDUCATE PEOPLE ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY. Ignorance about communication, when you are operating an NGO, is not bliss but catastrophic. But I don’t think it was ignorance. ‘Phone calls from the lower classes’ – unbelievable. ‘The lower classes’, as you call them, have always been against speculators. It has nothing to do with the environment. It has to do with money. Given half a chance, many of them would be speculators themselves. And not just the ‘lower classes’ either, because by far the most envious people are in Mrs Vella’s social context.]
Of course Daphne feels that Astrid should have kept silent in the face of PN abuse like others did. I agree that the alternative was (is) worse, but remaining silent is only the option of cowards or those on the take. Sliema residents were enraged in 2008 not because of Astrid, but because George Pullicino was the worst thing since Lorry Sant.
[Daphne – What an unbelievably stupid remark. Really. And then some men say that women are irrational. Get a grip on yourself. Now I understand all this passion for Mrs Vella where most men I know switch off at the sound of her whining: you same the exact same tendency towards irrational hyperbole.]
If anything Astrid’s group opened Gonzi’s eyes to the need run on an environmental platform which swept him to victory in 2008. Of course after being taken in once, the electorate were not going to believe him again in 2013.
[Daphne – No, they weren’t taken in by Gonzi because they were way too smart. So instead they got taken in by Muscat and his Big Plans for a Power Station and the destruction of the environment via land reclamation and backing from the developers lobby. Are you here to advertise your stupidity? Please don’t go on, because you’re only making things worse. At first your defence of Mrs Vella came across as gallantry. Now it is beginning to look as though you genuinely can’t see how ludicrous the situation is because you are roughly at the same level she is.]
You keep on saying that FAA only talks about Sliema. Why don’t you inform yourself for a change! I just went through FAA’s 2014 press releases on their website and found lots about Gozo and abusive boathouses at Armier, more about the south, air quality, Ta’ Hagrat, Government policies and lack of enforcement. Out of 22 PRs NOT A SINGLE ONE WAS ABOUT SLIEMA.
Finally on the subject of her delivery, I admit that Astrid is not the most scientific person around, but when did science ever win over our indifferent public?
[Daphne – How interesting that you should say that, given that her other Arch Defender here claims that she is of a scientific bent and knows ever so much about science. At least you can see the obvious.]
Do you see Edward Mallia convincing anyone with his frankly deadly boring scientific arguments?
[Daphne – Edward Mallia fails to convince because he doesn’t put himself about and because he is incredibly rude, unpleasant and obnoxious. But when people want a serious opinion about environmental matters, they go to him and not to Mrs Vella. Mrs Vella does not convince people either. Her core support consists entirely of people exactly like her: ‘Sliema woman whining to other Sliema women and their husbands + George Debono on a bicycle. Oh incidentally, he’s another of those who hates my guts and rallies behind Mrs Vella for that reason. What did I call them once? Ah yes, Astrid’s Toy Soldiers.]
Maybe Astrid is cleverer than you think. She definitely is, as a course colleague of hers told me she was the only one to graduate ‘Cum Laude’ in her course, something they only got to know from the rolls not from her, so she’s hardly the ignorant housewife that you always make out.
I trust that you’ll be man or woman enough to publish this.
[Daphne – I have, in its entirety. You do not work out whether people are intelligent (not clever, which is different) by looking at what class of degree they obtained 35 years ago, but by listening to how they speak and reason. First degrees from the University of Malta do not prove or disprove intelligence, especially not when they are degrees in English, and looking at university degrees as ‘certificates of intelligence’ is so Maltese that I don’t know where to begin. It is only people who are not themselves very bright who must refer to certificates to check whether others are bright or not. The truly bright can suss out the intelligence (or lack of it) in others in the space of a few minutes of conversation. There are key indicators, one of which happens to be the ability to speak in complete sentences.]
iii) you have still not come up with a single article that supports your assertions and, worse, you leave wide open the debate as to whether it would have been better to criticise PN environmental POLICY and, in so doing, undermine further their re-electability (sorry) if, indeed, that was even possible or choose to say nothing in the knowledge that the administration that was sure to follow would behave even worse.
This point is so flawed that I can’t even decide where to begin explaining. In a few words what totally seems to fly above your head (I add intentionally) is that Vella unashamedly and unequivocally joined the MLP bandwagon to attack the environmental policies of the PN government. This amplfied the effect false criticism amongst the masses who think it is cool-to-be-environmentalist -this group now includes Sandro Chetcuti.
I’m getting a little bit fed up of this but, re point vi) below, have you gone mad or something ? How on earth did you infer all that man / woman misogynist / misandrist crap from my claim that, out of all the individuals you have targeted – man, woman or beast – in all the years you’ve blogged, the one who was the butt end of the highest number pf posts was,probably, Consuelo H, with Astrid a close second ? Get a grip on yourself, will you.
[Daphne – Hello, Mr Tyrrell. You always lose control and give yourself away in the end. All it takes is my pushing a few of your buttons. Have a nice Christmas, and stay away from the Berkshire sheep.]
Andy Lake will explain how the FAA’s statute allows her to remain ‘co-ordinator’ since the NGO’s inception.
Which it doesn’t.
‘..Once you put on the cloak of a pseudo-environmentalist, nobody is allowed to challenge you…’
The recent Mafia Capitale scandal in Rome had this born again ex-convict, patronised by the left’s perbenisti circles, thus championed by everyone, secretly plotting with a NAR fascist to take over the whole no-profit scenario in Rome.
The duo made millions off immigrants and gypsies. Everyone scrambling over each other to state they had no idea.
Daphne, if you think that Astrid’s retired her megaphone, you must be too busy looking at your own navel to know what’s going on. This week while zapping around I caught her lambasting this Government’s crazy bridge to Gozo idea.
Then I ran a search online: this week she was listed as a guest on 3 radio programmes – I heard the RTK programme where she laid into pro-Labour Sandro Checuti, Government’s manipulation and MEPA’s corruption.You
cannot argue that she calls a spade a spade unlike so many who just pussy-foot around.
Malta Today filled half an article with what she wrote against Government’s plans to open ODZ to development, and then there was her Times back page about Government’s destruction of heritage. For someone who’s not paid, she dedicates a lot of time to this.
And before you start on about how she only talks about Sliema, her other pieces that I read or heard focussed on the south or Gozo.
[Daphne – I live and breathe the media, Joe, so if my perception is that Astrid Vella has simmered down, then imagine what the perception is out there among people who rarely read and listen. They’ve probably forgotten who she is already. RTK? The back page of Times of Malta? Please. Four years ago it was mass demos in Valletta in the rain with some idiot singing ‘Give peace a chance’ and a whole array of placards, or Astrid on the back of a lorry in St Julian’s, shouting through her megaphone about a block of flats in Spinola. Now we have real, actual threats to the environment, like land reclamation and the development of a large tract of coastline, and the only thing she does is write a couple of meek and polite pieces. Incidentally, are you her spokesman, or what?]
And the power station. And the Malta-Gozo bridge.
FAA is not an environmentalists’ lobby. It’s a club for antiques enthusiasts.
Or Astrid and her cohorts would have fought tooth and nail on single most important environmental issue since man first set foot on the Maltese Islands – the interconnector cable. When you have upwards of 600,000 people crammed on 300 square kilometres of territory, consuming energy at a frightful rate, the real life and death issue for real environmentalists is energy.
(Edward Mallia was decades ahead of his time. There lies your real environmentalist.)
“because they owe far more to the others”, sums it all up.
A realisation too little, too late, don’t you think, Sharpy?
The writing was always on the wall and it baffles me how many were lured into the den only to be gobbled up by the lions. Pity we’re in the same den too thanks to thousands of switchers the like of you.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20141218/local/updated-mepa-approves-sliemas-pjazzetta-development.548703
Astrid Vella replied to J.Sammut:
What would you suggest? I remind you that the project also received the go-ahead from Transport Authority (in that the situation is so bad they don’t care if it gets worse) and from the Superintendence who have decided to downplay the shelter as an ‘underground corridor’.
Well you can start by putting your house for sale and then organise a protest march in front of MEPA and put your “Midalja għall-Qadi tar-Repubblika “ you got together with Mark Camilleri, Joanne Cassar and Lino Cassar tax-Xewka for auction on Ebay.
I sent this reply just now :
J Sammut Astrid Vella • 3 minutes ago
Hold on, this is waiting to be approved by Times of Malta.
Well you can start by putting your house for sale and then organise a protest march in front of MEPA and put your “Midalja għall-Qadi tar-Repubblika “ you got together with Mark Camilleri, Joanne Cassar and Lino Cassar tax-Xewka for auction on Ebay.
You’ve been hoodwinked by this lot.
Kemm konna aħjar meta INT kont tgħidilna li konna agħar.
When Astrid nee Mifsud’s family built the block flats she lives in, knocking down a house to do so, they blocked the sun from a few houses and upset quite a few families there.
Oh dear.
It was not the Mifsuds that knocked the house down, but the father of George Camilleri, the Secretary General of Din l-Art Helwa. It was the Camilleri family home and in fact, when I was around years ago, most of the flats used to be occupied by Camilleris.
So now are you going to start laying into George Camilleri, or is he protected since he’s part of ‘they who can do no wrong Din l-Art Helwa’?
Not at all. They’re all w*nkers. With a few exceptions that prove the rule.
It is suddenly dawning on Astrid Vella that Joseph Muscat used her as he did others, and all she has been left with is a worthless gong.
If I was Mrs. Vella, I would gather what vestige of dignity I have got left and retire gracefully from the ‘enviormentalist’ scene and grow bonsais or succulents to help while away the time whilst trying to unload that flat of hers to a potential passport-buyer in need of an address of convenience.
Malta Taghna….u naghmlu l’irridu:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152682174113019&set=gm.808528152553006&type=1&theater
Why didn’t Astrid Vella carry on with her vociferous opposition to the development when years back it was evident that ‘unknown persons’ had surgically and with intent pulled down, or caused to pull down what was behind the facade so that the development approval process would be easier?
Anybody can make a case nowadays to build on scheduled areas by causing the structure to fall down (sic) and then claiming that not issuing a permit would further degenerate the structure.
In this specific case everybody knew that the structure behind the facade was being pulled down. Since that time (and years have passed) why has Vella kept silent, knowing that it came up on MEPA’s agenda? She receives, free of charge, all Mepa notifications and decisions.
But Astrid Vella would be no Astrid Vella if she does not have a camera in front of her.
So, Daphne, if Astrid was not banned but simply not needed by PBS and Net under the PN, how do you explain the fact that she’s now seen very regularly on Net? Pure coincidence I suppose?
As for the funding of their website being proof of the PN government’s magnanimity with FAA, you’re wrong yet again. The funds were never released. It must have been an attempt to buy her silence just as they succeeded with other NGOs. When FAA continued to speak out against abuse, the PN must have changed their mind.
[Daphne – The funds were never released by the PN government because they were voted out of power shortly afterwards. But the government is the government is the government and so this government is obliged to release the money if there was a contract.
If Astrid Vella thinks it was an attempt to buy her silence, she shouldn’t have accepted it. But she did.
NET invites Astrid Vella for the exact same reason and purpose that Super One did before the change in government. If she’s happy with that situation, good luck to her. Is she still banned by PBS, incidentally?]
The PN Government was voted out of office over a year after the money was pledged – you knew that and are dissembling as you had made a fuss at the time. Wasn’t 24 months enough to write a cheque, considering that so many cheques were written on the eve of the election?
I don’t know what Astrid’s attitude to the sponsorship was. For me it’s enough that she continued to speak out against government abuse even after the funding was pledged, unlike some other NGOs who fell silent once the money started rolling in.
[Daphne – Oh dear, oh dear. You had all the facts you needed here – a simple search using the box top right would have helped you out. Twenty-four months, you say, but it was in fact between three and six months before the dissolution of parliament: http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Papers-Laid-PQ-777.pdf The pledge was made in the third quarter of 2012, which means July, August or September 2012 and parliament was dissolved the following January.
And Mrs Vella fully expected the Labour government to settle those dues, because in June 2013 she wrote about what she planned to do with the money: http://daphnecaruanagalizia.com/2013/06/mrs-vella-claims-her-eur20000-of-public-money-was-used-to-build-a-website/
So it was THIS government which failed to pay her.]
Miskina l-karozza, min jaf kif ha timtelielha trab.
Kieku jien nghidilhom jirrangawli ghal xi flat Town Square. Wertit wara l-placards, protesti u hin mitluf hux?
Understandably it is doubly hard to be a woman, when your opponents are shady men and your target is to preserve heritage, culture, historical buildings and places.
But this isn’t a good enough excuse. Fight if you know you are good enough to win. If you’re good, battles can be won almost automatically.
Therefore next time Astrid, fight battles you really believe in, battles you know you are going to win, to save precious time but to bring back successful results..