How to be an amateur, by Labour
Il-mexxej tal-Mittilkless - direzzjoni success
The clunking, slipshod amateurism of anything and everything associated with the Labour Party drives me round the bend.
Forget policies. Set aside the violence of the past. Leave the crackpot approach to Europe for a moment.
Turn a blind eye to the ongoing freak-show of blasts from the past and hapless, hopeless, sub-literate sods from the present.
What really gets me is that they can’t do the simplest thing right.
The devil is in the detail, and when even the most basic things are royally messed up, you really don’t want to entrust anything major to such crass incompetents.
It looks like Labour leaves the organisation of projects and communications initiatives to cub scouts on bob-a-job week, teenage chavs, or somebody’s mother who has a bit of spare time in between sweeping her ghatba and tlesti l-borma.
Let’s face it, if they thought Marisa Micallef is a communications supremo and an akkwist who will help sweep them to power, that says much about how her (non)contribution to the Nationalist Party’s success was logged over at Labour HQ.
They didn’t even get that one right.
I am left bug-eyed with disbelief at the Labour Party’s mammoth incompetence – as when, during the last general election campaign, Super One held a televised fund-raising marathon to pull in money at precisely the same time the Labour Party held its biggest ever mass meeting on the Floriana granaries.
As Norman Hamilton sat there haplessly in the Super One studio trying to drum up funds with letters written by people saying they will never vote PN again (all in large capital letters and felt-pen, so that they could be read off the screen) you could tell that it had dawned on these smooth operators a little too late that 50,000 Labour supporters were standing on the fosos screaming ‘Viva l-Labour’, rather than sitting in front of their television sets at home and ringing the donations number.
Then there was that business when somebody with a Big Brain came up with the idea of taking the now infamous image of a Labour ballerina (mittilkless aspiration) originally designed for a billboard and using it for those giant cubes they chose instead of bill-boards.
U ejja, mhux xorta: instead of redesigning the image to fit the cube, so that there was one ballerina on each of the four sides, they wrapped a single large ballerina around the cube. If you approached from the north you got an eerie hand waving at you, and if you approached from the south you got an amputee.
Now there’s the Labour Party’s counter-offensive to my website www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com – because in their sparrow-minds, it is a Nationalist blog and I am a Nationalist politician and co-leader of the PN, rather than just another person who votes PN and who, like many thousands of others, thinks Labour is a dangerous joke.
As with that ‘Stop Project Piano’ campaign organised so transparently by Labour elves in their secret grotto, they haven’t worked out that it is impossible to have credibility or to be effective when you are anonymous. It is still more impossible when you are anonymous, sub-literate, have little or nothing to go on, can’t understand the mechanics of successful mockery and wit, and have the mental age of 10. But let’s leave that for now.
When you are anonymous, you are ridiculous. The only exceptions are when anonymity is the result of an oppressive environment in which there is little or no freedom of expression and the real fear of extreme violence or death if you speak out.
Anonymity in Malta in 2010 is the fruit of cowardice, embarrassment or both. Cowards are universally despised, even by their own kind, but the Labour Party hasn’t worked this one out yet. What is the main reason I have credibility? I always use my name. Whatever I say, I sign.
But there’s more. www.tasteyourownmedicine.com appears to have been set up in a different time zone, but is administered in Malta. The Giant Brains who administer it here haven’t yet worked out how to adjust the time settings to CET. The net result is that the site looks like a gathering-place for nocturnal zombies and insomniacs who haven’t taken their medication (or people who live in North America, like the star of the internet, Denis Catania), with the vast majority of comments logged between 1am and 5am.
And then, of course, we have the blog-posts which are uploaded complete with ready-made comments, something which is beyond hilarious in its ineptitude. If they’re going to fake comments, I recommend they wait a while before uploading them.
Then there is their obsession with my appearance. You would think that, like Helen of Troy, I am planning to devastate the Labour Party with my looks, rather than what I have done for the last 20 years, which is pick it apart with my wits.
To my readers, it is irrelevant whether I am ugly, beautiful or boringly ordinary. What matters is whether I make sense and can string a decent argument together in an entertaining and informative way. I can do that from a wheelchair, with scars all over my face and a bald head.
Of course, I understand that this is all part of the general strategy to make me out as an evil witch. And witches, as we know from childhood fairy-tales, are ugly. But then here we go again, with the Labour Party undermining its own message of progressive modernity by revealing that it thinks in pre-Enlightenment terms (woman, ugly, witch, burn her) and believes its audience does likewise.
And that’s to say nothing about the fact that, because I am not invisible and do occasionally leave my home, when people see me after reading Labour’s ‘evil witch’ propaganda, the first thing they do is wonder what in God’s name they were on about, making the Labour Party seem rather more foolish and desperate.
As for Maltastar, the English-language face of the Labour Party, it just beggars belief. The amount of negative publicity it generates for Labour is unquantifiable, and I speak here as a professional and not as a PN voter/gONziPn SpINDokTir/friend of CHarLes CrROwFoDR and GOrDOn Psiani.
I am not talking only about the content, which is poor enough. There is a far more damning message which is picked up from the subtext of bad writing, pidgin English and interesting use of punctuation marks.
Maltastar’s leading articles (what some know as the ‘editorial’) appear to be the work of teenagers from educationally deprived backgrounds, who seem more intent on playground jeering than delineating the policies and objectives of the Labour Party which might persuade us to see it in a new light.
The leading article is crucial, because it is the ‘voice’ of a news medium. In Maltastar’s case, it is also the voice of the Opposition party. I have monitored Maltastar’s leading articles over several months, and on that basis I can say that Maltastar’s voice is that of a brainless teenager of the sort pilloried in Southpark. Hence, that is the voice of Labour: a brainless teenager of the sort pilloried in Southpark.
I cannot work out why, for example, the people who write Maltastar’s leading articles use interrogation marks instead of full-stops, so that these childish panegyrics read like a litany of questions. I suspect it is because they are affected by too much viewing of E!, Gossip Girl and America’s Next Top Model, and think that cool people who speak English end all their statements with an interrogative lilt.
Or perhaps the answer is simpler still: the full-stop and question mark are immediately adjacent on the QWERTY keyboard. Either way, this is clearly the wrong sort of voice for the Labour Party.
Perhaps it is because this is the field in which I work, but these are the things that really drive me nuts about Labour. They drive me nuts because they are so easy to sort out and avoid, but that takes it for granted that they are genuine errors and not the inevitable result of deeply ingrained and widespread amateurishness in the Labour Party.
If the slipshod errors and the roughly cut corners were just mistakes due to haste, mistakes which are corrected when they are noticed, it would be one thing. We all make mistakes. But the truly worrying aspect of all this is that the people in charge – are there any people in charge? – don’t even begin to understand which mistakes are being made and how and why they should be sorted out.
By putting Labour’s communications in the hands of Kurt Farrugia and Jason Micallef – two men who can’t even begin to understand the people they need to communicate with to garner those highly desirable ‘floating votes’ – Joseph Muscat has done himself no favours.
They will only undermine him.
They haven’t even managed to work out that I am a perfect fit with the voter profile they are so desperately keen to attract – which means that if they repeatedly miss their target with me, they miss it with thousands of others.
If I laugh out loud in disbelief at Maltastar’s editorial voice, then so do the vast majority of AB voters. What Kurt Farrugia and Jason Micallef fail to understand is this basic truism: I am not unusual, but typical of my kind. I think like other AB voters. It is the reason why I have a strong readership. It is incredible that they haven’t yet understood this.
Perhaps it is because the only AB voters they have contact with are the ones riven by lanzit. Farrugia and Micallef need to understand that these are the exception and not the norm.
I am actually boringly ordinary. The difference is that I articulate my thoughts because it is my job to do so, while others tend to keep quiet.
Since Joseph Muscat appears quite keen on undermining himself – going to China with Alex Sceberras Trigona, for example, thereby prompting a slew of North Korea wise-cracks – it is no surprise that he has failed to notice just how much harm Kurt Farrugia and Jason Micallef are doing to the party by broadcasting its ineptitude.
This article is published in The Malta Independent today.
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With regards to your comments about Maltastar. Can it be that Joseph Muscat is leaving the situation to degenerate to such a point that he will have an excuse to sack Jason?
No. Jason Micallef’s character is far more powerful than Muscat’s is. He is determined, focused (on the wrong things, but still focused), bitchy and spiteful, and a natural-born plotter – straight out of central casting, in fact, as the master of machinations in the medieval court of the king. Blackadder in tight white trousers.
Maltastar’s standard of English is atrocious, I’ll grant you that.
The problem is that Malta and its voters are faced with a modern-day Morton’s fork: to vote in the incompetent, or the willfully corrupted?
That Labour is incompetenent is indisputable. But to say that the Nationalist Party is wilfully corrupted is largely a matter of opinion.
Approach the problem with pragmatism: the indisputably incompetent are bound to become corrupt (all the indications are there) while the ‘wilfully corrupted’ have shown themselves to be good at running the country, so no nasty surprises there.
B Galea: Better the devil you know, than the one you don’t.
I fear that this excellent article is like water off a duck’s back insofar as Maltastar and those who own it are concerned. Daphne, we owe you quite a bit! Few are those who can write so well. How I wish you were a PN candidate!
We fuc*ed-up big time yesterday red-nose. Raphael was an accident waiting to happen, too little too late from Berba and Carrick was just crap. No use blaming “typical Germans”. Losing your touch?
Sorry I do not understand – please explain further.
Fair enough. http://community.manutd.com/forums/t/83993.aspx
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philmcnulty/2010/04/man_utd_fall_as_e.html
And Labour wish she was a Labour candidate, although they don’t admit it. Maqdar dak li ma jistax ikollok.
The Bus Conductor: I suppose you mean the saying: “Min imaqdar irid jixtri.”
This article was a fine piece writing and made enjoyable reading (I get confused when my eyes stumble upon question marks when they were expecting fullstops) but the following quote is the best nugget by far:
“They haven’t even managed to work out that I am a perfect fit with the voter profile they are so desperately keen to attract – which means that if they repeatedly miss their target with me, they miss it with thousands of others”.
Daphne, Good article, once again, and fully illustrated with examples of Labour’s mistakes, all in a nut-shell (tempted to say: in a coconut-shell). Imagine what bigger mistakes they would make in government. And they keep telling us that they are ready.
nutjobs more like
Inadvertently, you are teaching them too much, Daphne – but they are unwilling to learn from past mistakes and remain unfit to govern.
Another Maltese saying: L-akbar cuc min ma jridx jisma’.
According to a post on TYOM your post are full of “badly written English, obscentities and vulagrities”.
I nealry maed mysefl scki algunhing.
It continues to astound me how such a band of baboons can entice almost half the population to revere them. It must have something to do with IQ level–the only explanation.
Sad truth is because almost half of the population also think like baboons.
And some of them have a baboon-like disposition for courting people by displaying their bottoms, hence Labour councillor Keith Darmanin.
Yes you’re damn right! In fact, according to the last census in March 2008, 1,200 more than half of the voting population thought like baboons.
Nothing to do with IQ level. Here’s my take on the issue:
PN voters, bar the few fanatics, vote PN because they prefer its policies over MLP’s, or because they fear MLP’s policies (like me post-2003).
MLP voters, bar the few floaters, vote MLP because they love the party. And when you’re in love, you’re prepared to overlook stupidity, incompetence, and bad spelling.
Baxxter. Thus, love is truly blind.
Love is truly blind, otherwise Joseph Cuschieri would not have given up his seat in parliament to accommodate Joseph Muscat. In this case the love is one-sided.
It is. But this is not romantic love. It’s like rooting for a team. When you lose, it’s the referee’s fault, the ball was aspherical, the pitch was too sandy, the linesman was a moron, etc etc. But it’s never the team’s fault.
The IQ theory is dubious. I mean I’ve just watched Net News. Dreary, boring lists of figures and buzzwords like “investment” and “EU funds” thrown in, with obligatory footage of flapping EU flags and busy Maltese tricep muscles.
It’s enough to drive anyone up the wall. PN’s media, like MLP’s, is shyte, and aimed at the very lowest IQ level this side of the Atlantic. But I’ll still be voting PN come 2013, because Labour’s POLICIES are shyte.
No, it’s not about the IQ. Political parties never attract the brightest and most articulate anyway. Not in Malta, where your political career starts in the village square among the layabouts at the local Kazin, or in a pompously named Local Council for some microscopic hamlet.
Sure, there are exceptions, like Edward Scicluna, but then they were flying the Labour flag, or the little Labour cocktail umbrella, when I was still building Lego models.
The only way to inject some good quality, no frills IQ into political parties, at least at policy, if not staff, level, is through party think-tanks.
Now the Nationalist Party does have a think-tank, made up of – guess what – c. two persons. Of course there is a strong contribution from party members, MPs, assorted EU and ministry officials, etc, but that is exactly the problem. These people will never stick their neck out, because – to go back to footbal imagery – they’re on the pitch wearing the gear. It’s only the coach and his team who are in a position to hammer out new ideas and drive policy.
Maltese political parties are too reticent to take new people, relative unknowns, into the inner sanctum. The result? Policy is still driven by the political players. Wrong.
You cannot have your General Staff fighting on the frontline, Harry.
Baxxter. Your analogy of ‘rooting for a team’ is interesting. Most diehard supporters of major teams never criticize their team since the team can do no wrong–in other words, they are mindless. It then follows that supporters of Labour are also mindless, thus bringing into question their thinking abilities–may I say IQ?
How to be an amateur, part II. Copy and paste names and comments from this site – but still get the spelling wrong.
Or, sit for a law course exam, cheat, and still manage to fail.
“As for Maltastar, the English-language face of the Labour Party,” face? or did you mean farce?
I like the article Daphne
Is that a rocket in his pocket?
Or is he just pleased to see me?
No rocket in his pocket, but right now there is a large one under his bum…and its name is Jason.
No, it’s not a rocket. It’s a coconut. Muscat smuggled him into China.
Could it be Sharon’s sex toy? Maybe Kev would care to enlighten us?
Once again, fine article. Keeping me chuckling in Saudi.
My compliments on your article; it makes great reading. I would like to add one thought. In my opinion, the Labour Party’s inadequacy goes beyond incompetence and a lack of an eye for detail. It stems from a general lack of direction. The present Labour voter started off as a Mintoffjan, but when Mintoff abandoned the party, he left a void which has so far never been filled.
It is not just Mintoff though – in general with the fall of communism most European left-wing parties haves been depleted of their reason for existence, of their driving force. The same thing is happening in Italy. Here the left represented communist ideals, pretty much what Mintoff’s politics were centred on, but it is now fragmented and with no direction – with elements from fervent communism sitting in the same party as centre-right moderates or “centristi”.
In Malta we are seeing the likes of Alex Sceberras Trigona mixing with these new mitilklass breed. They have nothing whatsoever in common, and then to add insult to injury they throw in Marisa Micallef with Kurt Farrugia and Glen Bedingfield. This of course leads the averge floating voter to exactly the reaction you are describing in your article – with the result that these floaters will probably still go and vote for the PN.
In the last fifteen years I have never read, heard or detected a vision in Labour’s politics, it’s all mouth and no trousers, literally and metaphorically.
Unless Labour understand that they need to create an image, a direction, a raison d’etre for the party (they cannot even agree on a name and an emblem) – then, sadly, there is still no alternative to the Nationalist Party – after twenty-five years.
@B. Galea. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. You tell me if there has been more devolution in the western-democratic-style administrations of our country than those labouring under Marxist delusions which ironically try to sell themselves as democratic.
I’m not sure what your point was – presumably it was a veiled reference to the MLP administration in the 1980s?
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. So very true. And also, by extension, the reason to be suspicious of an administration that has been in power for too long.
One of the strengths of democracy is that it allows for cyclical change. In Malta, the pretenders to the throne don’t inspire much confidence, true. But all I know is that the current administration seems to think, talk, and act like a horse on its last legs.
Wishful thinking spiced with a little (or much) envy!
Daphne, you should write these pieces during an electoral campaign, when they won’t be in time to change tactics and put people with common sense at the helm of their strategy.
And those monkeys have the gall to challenge your writing!
Have you seen the deputy prime minister?! h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s
http://maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=8280
Winning an election, Paul, is much like making love to a beautiful woman: You send out party invitations, make empty promises, press some flesh, make speeches about a bright future together…. perhaps a single red rose in your logo. Then you talk of Belgian chocolates and fine French wines. And when the moment’s right, you draw the curtain, grasp your pencil, and fill that box.
[Daphne – You’d better point out that you’re referencing Swiss Toni here. My, doesn’t he look like Anglu Farrugia?]
H.P. Baxxter
Scooter HQ
Under the radar and Over the top
Allright crew,
I hereby declare that I am referencing Swiss Toni, a character in a BBC comedy sketch. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely accidental.
Respect to the man in the ice-cream van,
Hans Peeter Baxxter
To all people involved in Maltastar:
Maybe this might help you a little with the writing:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/75sI2D/courses.cs.vt.edu/%257Ecs3604/support/Writing/writing.caveats.html
Daphne semmiet South Park, allura ghidt: Hmm…ejja naraw harigx episodju gdid. U fil- fatt:
http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/267112
Skwizitezza assoluta. Araw x’xatterija ta’ nies. Il-PL all over.
Daphne, you are extremely correct about Jason the strategist – worse still is that he is being led by another strategist ex GWU.