They don't even know the difference between the party and the government
Alex, this is one of the darkest hours in our political history.
There’s panic and outrage beneath the story on timesofmalta.com about the uproar in parliament. And most of it, of course, is incoherent.
Take this comment, for example.
P Grech
It’s is soooo simple. The opposition should declare in public that one in office they will tear the contract to shreads and kick BWSC out, adding that that way those who have been promised commissions will loose and Malta will win a proper power staton. It easy because the PL would not have signed it in the first place. This will only force the government to re-think the contract.
It’s sooooo simple, is it?
That’s what happens when you lead people to think in terms of ‘il-gvern taghna’ and ‘il-gvern taghhom’. They don’t understand that the government of Malta is the government of Malta. The incumbents might change, but the government remains the government.
If the government signs a contract, then the government has to honour it – no matter under whose watch that contract was signed.
‘It is easy because the PL would not have signed it in the first place.’ Somebody please tell this man that it wasn’t the PN which signed the power station contract, but the government of Malta. Two hours of painstaking explanation and he just might get it.
‘Those who have been promised commissions will loose’. Why do I think that this is the root cause of much of the anger? Commissions? Ma tarax! It’s the reason why Joseph Muscat made such a plejtu when he spoke a few days ago and dedicated a great chunk of his ‘speach’ to saying that an ordinary Maltese person would need to save for 300 years to acquire the equivalent of the commission that somebody is getting on the power station contract.
I don’t know anything about commissions or who’s getting what. But I do know this: the country is jammed solid with people who have far more money that I ever will. But do I care? No. Good luck to them. Or rather, I do care – I think it’s great that lots of people have money. It keeps the economy turning over, and the various companies and corporations which issue bonds from time to time count on that money.
I thought the days of the Labour Party inciting envy and hatred and pandering to it were over. But I’m guessing that with Labour, they never are. Envy and hatred are the party’s lifeblood. Muscat knows that he will get nowhere fast by preaching unity between red and blue, especially when his words sound so hollow. So he resorts to good, old reliable incitement of envy instead.
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“Envy and hatred are the party’s lifeblood.”
That captures the essence of Labour.
The truth is that the ones to lose are BWSC who allegedly paid 4 million in commission when they didn’t need to do so, because as the Auditor General pointed out – any way one evaluates the submitted tenders, BWSC would have always been the preferred bidder.
[Daphne – And I am allegedly in the pay of the government and the Nationalist Party, and that’s why I don’t believe any of the crap Labour spouts: because I know what they say about me.]
“..an ordinary Maltese person would need to save for 300 years to acquire the equivalent of the commission that somebody is getting on the power station contract.”
Well, how does Joseph Muscat square that one up with his going on ad nauseam that the ‘ordinary Maltese person’ is unable to make ends meet.
People unable to make ends meet cannot ‘save’. It thus follows that the ‘somebody’ cannot have made much by way of commission.
So, which one is it, Joe?
Look, at least it is clear that Marisa was not behind the engineering of that phrase ““..an ordinary Maltese person would need to save for 300 years to acquire the equivalent of the commission that somebody is getting on the power station contract.”
She would have said “..an ordinary Maltese person would need to save for 100 years to acquire the equivalent of Euro 4 million commission that somebody is getting on the power station contract as claimed by Labour.”
Or else, she does not consider her salary as that of a normal person.
Class hatred and envy have not abated in the last years as one would have imagined. Even with ever increasing opportunities for education, entrepreneurship and the ‘more and better jobs’ reality that GonziPN promised and is delivering, class hatred has been simmering under the surface in the hearts and minds of too many Maltese now.
Every now and then we get a little manifestation of this with a jibe here or there. There is also a dangerous feeling of payback – of ‘you’ve had your turn, now it’s ours . . .” sort of thing.
This is such a sad reality! These people who harbour such resentment don’t realise that they are their own worst enemy. They don’t better themselves, they don’t aspire to move forward and ameliorate their own standard of living. And somehow I get the feeling they are waiting for some other party to come into power and do it for them.
OK, enlighten me here …
With the same logic, in 1987 the Nationalists could have shredded the employment contracts of the 8,000 people the Labour government put on the state payroll in its dying days.
So should this government stop giving pensions to whoever became a pensioner during the Labour era, because it was never approved (and signed off) by a PN government?
One last thing, should the permit to build the MLP Headquarters in Hamrun be revoked because it was a different government that approved it?
This is absolutely ridiculous – do these people actually listen to what they’re saying – I bet they’d find it amusing if they did.
This P. Grech either forgot or was not yet around when the so-called “salvatur ta’ Malta” stopped the contract with White Westinghouse for the construction of the desalination plants and had to pay from the “kaxxa ta’ Malta’ the fines stipulated in the contract.
At the time Malta was in great need of potable water and we had to endure water shortages throughout the 17 years of the Labour regime, the last six being after the manipulation of the electoral boundaries in 1981.
Labour’s attitude then was similar to now with the extension to the Delimara power station. Muscat’s aim is not the well-being of the Maltese but to see a power shortage so that he can hit at the government. In the meantime he and his lot are completely without ideas.
Too true – hatred and envy is what it is all about with the PL. Someone should advise Joseph to stop acting like a ‘prima donna’ because he is impressing absolutely no one. Au contraire.
That P Grech is using computer (banned by Labour in the past) but he had better start elementary English lessons.
Daphne, this is not about Labour, we expect that the taxes that we pay are well spent and it seems that this has not been the case in this situation.
I happen to know a very well qualified engineer and he explained the various shortcomings of this new technology that the extended power station will use and unfortunately for us. It does not seem that the government took a very good decision.
When you consider that the quality of air in Malta is already not very good and that the same government previously indicated that they will be using the technology that uses gas, don’t you think that we deserve an explanation?
This is not a question of envy and hatred, it is justified criticism and in my view, the opposition and everyone else should not take your suggestion and just let go as if nothing happened. They should not be naive and take your advice.
[Daphne – It is not about being naive, Jake, but about being practical. And more than that, it is about not listening to gossip and confusing gossip with fact. Joseph Muscat’s ‘feelings’ about the power station contract are as valid as mine. We both know exactly the same information, but neither of us is competent to analyse the technology. So rather than going with his judgement, I prefer to go with mine.]
I know a manager at a particular company that constantly abuses his power, by using his time at work to conduct his business affairs and at the same time shifting and putting extreme pressures on his subordinates. These people obviously are extremely stressed and pressured, however, they cannot do anything about it because their manager is very close to the ‘inner circle’ of an influential top manager and he can do what he deems fit.
With your reasoning, this manager and that person that allegedly made commissions out of what seems a very bad deal for the country should be left in peace and if the subordinates or the people in the case of the country dare criticise, they are full of hatred and envy.
[Daphne – I just can’t understand the analogy, Jake, but I can tell you this: people who run businesses are not in it to protect their managers but to make money and part of that is ensuring that no employee – however high up the ladder – uses company time for personal reason. All those people have to do is get together and register a complaint with their employers – but clearly they would rather suffer than stick their heads above the parapet.]
I gave the example of the manager that I know about because that was his attitude when some of the outspoken subordinates spoke out, he used to accuse them of envy and hatred!
[Daphne – Well, then they didn’t present their case very well or to the right person. You can’t just go to your employer and say ‘He’s using company time for personal reasons’. You have to give examples.]
This reasoning is very pathetic, sad and insulting and absolutely stupid after all even you and your family will be affected by this decision and in the case of the company that I mentioned, in the long term the company was affected as it lost many good people and money.
[Daphne – I can’t see how I’m going to be affected, Jake, given that on the subject of pollution and environmental technology I would rather listen to Edward Mallia than to Joseph Muscat. Look up what he has said. In fact, quite frankly, I don’t take seriously anything Muscat and his colleagues say. The last time I looked at him he was trying to persuade me of the horrors of Europe and getting me to vote No. With that level of poor judgement, I’m hardly going to think him credible when he speaks about a power station.]
Two things Jake, first thing is that if the fly ash is caught by the precipitators it would not end up in our lungs, and secondly the wind mainly blows towards the sea at Delimara so my conclusion is that this is going to end up like the Mater Dei project …… the PL when in power will double it. I believe that commissions are the key to all this drama.
A perfect example. The Maltese taxpayer, under a PN administration is being forced to fork out thousands of euro in compensation to a prison warder who was framed during an MLP adminstration as an accomplice in the escape from a prison of a political prisoner who was detested so intensely by that administration that the public was warned that he was very dangerous and could be shot on sight!
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
Mur ara lil Skandinavja qabel ma tparla fuq socjalizmu.
That’s why the British electorate booted him quickly after the war and installed a Labour government.
He proved himself to be a good war prime minister and that’s it.
Hatred is part of Labour’s religion, even in these days of ‘change’ you can still hear them saying “inpattulkhom” Then you have the instigaters of hate, running the party and preaching more hate. Such people like Gadget, Toni, Alex the sailor, and the rest of the SS.
As for myself, better DEAD than RED.
By the way, I was listening to Pamela Hansen on RTK the other day. She was incredibly obnoxious and I even found myself sympathizing with Toni Abela each time she interrupted him with her preposterous remarks.
[Daphne – Another mohh ta’ tigiega, made worse by the fact that she thinks she’s so very intelligent. A debate between Toni Abela and Pamela Hansen sounds like something the Japanese might have come up with in WWII as an alternative to strapping you down on bamboo shoots.]
Maltastar is down. Maybe an army of Labour voters are furiously checking their beloved website with the hope that they are greeted with the following headline: “Gonzi steps down”. Or perhaps the site administrator pressed the wrong buttons.
The situation in Greece is the fruit of Socialist politics and way of thinking – envy and hatred. I hope I will not be around if and when the Maltese will elect this “SKIFAGNI” to power
I’m astounded by how many anti-socialists we have on these blessed islands, when the PN has been successful because it has used socialist ideals where it was convenient.
Strict adherence to ideologies no matter what is dangerous.
I will not call Joseph A Borg “stupid” but just miskin! He must not have been around when we had to go to Sicily to by a bar of Mars. I was in Syracuse once during those terrible days and a Sicilian there selling car-loads of stuff to Maltese shouted Viva Mintoff ta Malta” I smiled and asked him to clarify his remark not being a Maltese. He answered me by saying that Mintoff (whoever he is) made him rich.
It should be made more widely known that the choice of technology, contract etc went through a selection process, with a number of professional people, not less than 23.
None of the other bidders contested the choice of BWSC.
So how can you challenge the outcome, and why would you do so? And legal commission is not corruption: it is a percentage agreed upon beforehand and paid after the sale.
On a video uploaded lately on timesofmalta.com http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100507/local/deputy-speaker-to-resign-pl-to-withdraw-from-parliamentary-committee, Justyne Caruana claims she has been the victim of a frame-up. I wonder what Pietru Pawl Busuttil will think of this statement.
I would have liked to buy a big Mercedes or BMW whose emissions are practically nil….but because I can’t afford such a car I opted for a lovely Peugeot diesel.
“Democracy is not a game,” Dr Muscat said. (maltastar.com)
But the actions of the PL make one think that it is a game.
I actually beg to differ. Democracy is a game. Games normally have their rules, and above all, fairness is one of the rules of games. Referree (in this case, read the Speaker) decisions should not be contested.
That said, we’ve had enough of Joseph Muscat’s games, and his behaviour is giving his game away.
Every time there is an issue Joseph Muscat stirs up his people in the hope that this time the PL will topple the government.
It is not fair that he is misleading his supporters in this manner making them believe that at any time time the government will fall. Read the message boards on timesofmalta.com – they make me sick. The majority of those posting comments just talk through their hat. Sorry guys and dolls, PN are here to stay for another three years and accept that once and for all.
This is a democratic country or have you not noticed yet? Now the deputy speaker is to resign and the PL will not participate in the parliamentary committees. What twerps they all are.
Allura issa li id-deputy speaker irrizenja u mhux ser jiehdu sehem fil kumitati x`ser jigri? Nisperaw li ma jithajjarx Norman Lowell jidhol flokhom.
Qieghdin kif Alla jridhom: jitolbu l-Alla forsi jivvota xi hadd minn tal-PN favur taghhom u il-PN jirrizenja mill-gvern imbaghad jirrizenjaw huma.
Partit tal-Mickey Mouse