Now that's something to protest about
BBC News/Business
6 January 2011
Mixed European retail sales picture
The retail sales picture across Europe remains mixed, the latest official figures have shown.
Sales in November across the 16 nations that used the euro at that time fell by 0.8% from October, but increased by 0.1% from a year earlier.
For the 27-nation European Union as a whole, November’s sales were down 0.4% from the month before, but up 0.8% from October 2009.
In the eurozone, Portugal saw the biggest month-on-month sales decline.
Portuguese retail sales fell 4.2% in November compared with October.
By contrast, Malta saw the biggest increase, up 5.5%.
The fall in Portugal’s retail sales comes as the country’s government continues with efforts to try to reduce the country’s public deficit.
The eurozone now has 17 members after Estonia adopted the euro on 1 January.
Ah, but John Dalli and his little band of backbiters could have done better. And Joseph, Toni and Anglu would have done better still. That’s why the first lot are bitching to anyone who will listen while the second lot contributed to sales figures by setting up a – lights, camera, action! – protest rally in Valletta.
Ma, xi dwejjaq ta’ nies. Qrid biss.
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Do not give me any of these BBC News/Business reports. Humbug.
This is nothing less than Indhil Barrani in a modern guise.
Memories of Prof Metwally come to mind.
Can anybody explain how the ‘measures’ that Joseph Muscat will take when he is prime minister, as reported in the media, will reduce the cost of living?
Switching the power station to gas has already been proved to be a very costly exercise, naturally coming out of the national money-box.
The meaningless rhetoric in his speech, such as investment in alternative energy (already being done btw), introducing transparency in the purchasing of oil (what does this mean anyway?) and increasing competitiveness in the energy section, could only impress the bunch of whiners in front of him.
I was waiting for him to explain how he is going to convince the oil-producing countries to reduce the cost of oil and gas, or how he would subsidise the costs (and go against EU regulationss).
How many more Nationalists you should add to John Dalli!
[Daphne – Silvio, anyone who doesn’t support the Nationalist Party or vote for it is BY DEFINITION not a Nationalist. You can’t call yourself a Nationalist and vote Labour. You can’t call yourself a Nationalist and not vote. And you can’t call yourself a Nationalist when you oppose the party and its policies and want it voted out. End of story. People who vote Labour or plan to do so should have the intellectual honesty to call themselves Labour supporters – not Nationalists who plan to vote Labour, which means that they are in denial about the fact that they have become Laburisti. There is the world of difference between criticising the policies of a political party you support and wishing ill on that party or feeling Schadenfreude when things go wrong, then planning to vote against it. I hate this powerless/victim/martyr attitude of kvetching and being spiteful and wanting to pay people back with a vote.]
I am not going to vote Labour.
The Nationalist Party is not the party of Eddie Fenech Adami anymore…..it is not in the centre anymore…it is veering to the right.
[Daphne – Not at all. It is actually veering to the left. Right-wing politics do not enlarge the welfare state and give more and more away for free. Look at the Conservative-Liberal coalition in Britain, for instance, and the policies it is implementing. What were those student riots about, as just one example?]
Also should we be like the die-hard Labour supporters and no matter how much we are trampled upon remain supportive?
[Daphne – I don’t see any trampling, Silvio. Rather, I see the opposite. I see people who have been rendered childish and immature through relentless sheltering and babying. Getting everything for free or heavily subsidised for so many years has made them regard the bulk of their wages as disposable income. But that’s not real life, is it.]
It seems you are becoming like ‘ Super One’ preaching to the converted and away from reality….the ones writing on your blog all at once are all die hard no matter what Nationalists (no different then the Labour’s die hard).
[Daphne – You’re wrong there, I’m afraid, Silvio. Nationalist supporters are rarely ‘diehard’ because generally, what makes them choose the Nationalist Party over Labour is the ability to think clearly.]
Sour grapes for John Dalli and his little band. It’s too complicated for Joseph, Toni and Anglu to understand, let alone manage it.
The common factor between John, Joseph, Toni and Anglu is that they are jealous of Gonzi’s performance. They are doing their damn best to put spokes in the wheels of this administration, and they are power hungry.
Yesterday’s Xarabank survey showed that the highest percentage of viewers were not in favour of having an ‘energy’ pay rise. That alone says a lot.
One of John Dalli’s worries is that Christmas and Easter were not included in the official EU diary.His efforts will be more fruitful if he concentrates on this issue. And we will be thankful.
John Dalli: “It’s political… political responsibility must be shouldered by the prime minister.”
Primus inter pares: the PM has the right to hire and fire his ministers without giving explanations. He could have chosen not to make him a minister but he trusted him with the foreign ministry.
Dr Gonzi fired John on a ‘false’ report. He was also the one who offered him the prestigious position of an EU commissioner. John accepted this gentlemanly generous offer. We’re fed up of these crocodile tears.
[Daphne – There is an important point which makes all the difference in how this story is perceived, and which Dalli chooses to keep concealed, as do his people at Malta Today. He petitioned the prime minister for the EU Commissioner job. The prime minister did not offer it to him. He agreed to give it to him after he asked for it.]
The problem with Gonzi is that since he became prime minister the PN was never in the opposition benches. Gonzi had no time to build an aura around him like Eddie did. If he were in opposition his office would have been in the PN headquarters where the grassroots go, not in Castille.
[Daphne – I always wondered about this grassroots rubbish. What does a grassroots look like? I’ve never met one. If grassroots is a euphemism for the working-class, then they’re everywhere because about 90% of the population is working-class, and you don’t need an office in Pieta to meet them. And if grassroots means people in the party structure, then they have a vote like everyone else. The problem with the Nationalist Party is not that it cut itself off from ‘the grassroots’ (euphemism) but that it cut itself off from my kind of person by becoming more and more grassroots-ish every year, with the result that that whole Sliema crowd (by which I don’t mean people who live in Sliema, which is now chockful of working class people with a bit of money who have bought ‘apartments’) is looking for something else to vote for, and voted Labour in the last EP elections and AD in the EP election before that. And when it comes to Sliema itself, the Nationalist Party should keep a wether eye on its demographics. They can’t keep thinking of it as a Nationalist stronghold when the demolition of houses and their replacement by flats has changed the socio-economic profile completely.]
U veru ta dwejjaq dan Dalli, kemm hu arroganti dan il-bniedem hi. Dan ikkontesta ghal Kap tal-Partit u tilef – ‘end of story’.
Sar qisu xi ikona ghal Norman Hamilton li ma setghax jaghmel programm fuq il-faqar ghax inkella kif irid jispjega is-success tal-business tieghu. Nixtieq insaqsih min imur ghal cruises. Tghid dawk li kienu jipprotestaw?
I would like to hear more about John Dalli’s achievements in Europe. Perhaps he can bother to tell us.
In the old days I considered John to be one of my favourite PN members of parliament. Now things seems to have changed and I just consider him to be a member of the opposition.
Pity– because John Dalli has brains and it is indeed a pity that he is being put in such a bad light