That Labour have a penchant for rewriting history that is of cosmic proportions is virtually a given.
Their shameful 1970s and 1980s past is forgotten, insofar as the truth about it is concerned. They whitewash and refurbish the truth with such gusto and zeal that, if it were not for the fact that we lived through those years, we’d forget that so many of their current MPs and wannabe ministers were high-fliers within the Malta Labour Party in those heady days, the Years of Gold as so many of them, including when he has a small lapsus or two, the sublime leader himself, describe them.
The thing is, they’re now starting to do the same thing with the present.
On BondìPlus on Tuesday, one of the newest of New Labour’s star candidates, no less than Deborah Schembri, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for working to bring in divorce, tried to pull a rather quick one over the audience, to the extent that I got moderately confused for a couple of seconds.
According to this political luminary, Franco Debono wanted Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici’s head and, quote the dear lady, “GonziPN gave it to him”. I’m not at all sure she didn’t actually say it in English, which seems to have become the fashion with Labour’s bright young things, including the leader, with his cracks about the Prime Minister being able to run but not being able to hide, delivered with the air of someone who has coined a beaut. Joseph Muscat really shouldn’t try to make funnies, he doesn’t have the timing for it, or the aplomb.
That Dr Debono wanted Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s head seems to be an accurate enough assessment on Dr Schembri’s part but where, for the love of all that’s beautiful, did she get the rather peculiar notion that it was the Nationalists that gave it to him?
Last I looked, the government side, to a man with the exception of Dr Debono, voted against the motion and it was Labour’s bunch that voted for their own opportunistic, hollow and – forgive my repeating the word – shameful motion, thereby severing Dr Mifsud Bonnici’s head, or so they seem to think. In the long run, this has done that particular gentleman a heap of good with the added bonus that it’s exposed Labour for what they are: cheap, pandering and shallow.
It would be interesting to know what they thought of the motion in Labour’s heartland, the Cospicua area, where Dr Mifsud Bonnici is a respected man. We’ll never know, of course, because Labour will rewrite that bit of the present as and when necessary but it’s pretty clear that no-one is particularly proud of this piece of work.
In fact, José Herrera, one of the astute politicians on Labour’s side who proposed the motion, didn’t even have the nous to shut up about it and his conscience seems to have pricked him to the extent that he couldn’t stop himself showing his doubts after the deed was done. Dr Schembri betrayed her own discomfort with the whole thing as well, by trying, entirely without success, to convince us that there was nothing personal in the motion. No, of course there wasn’t, they all went off to have a drink together afterwards, that’s how not personal it was.
Well, there you have it, Labour hitch a ride with Dr Debono, lop off the head of a gentleman of honour and integrity, and then their star candidate, who used to be a Nationalist but is now all for Labour like her buddy Cyrus (such credentials, those – turncoats of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your honour) turns it all around and blames the other lot.
It’s no wonder that Beppe Fenech Adami tore the woman to shreds. When you think about it: anyone who tries to obfuscate the freshly-minted truth like that is like the baby from whom candy is taken, the fish shot in the barrel. And when she was trying to disassociate herself from Labour’s past, she became even more poignant, impaling herself on the horns of a dilemma created by the inconsistency of being Labour today but ashamed of its past.
Lest you think it’s only the present and the remoter past that Labour are trying to rewrite, consider for a moment the way they’re trying to eradicate the memory of Dr Muscat’s erstwhile mentor, Alfred Sant. I recall as if it were yesterday the way Dr Sant had poured all manner of scorn over the Chambray Project, spinning all sorts of stories and finding himself morally convinced about so many variations on the truth that his head must have spun trying to keep up with himself.
That is all water under the bridge now because it is politically expedient for Dr Muscat to sashay up to Gozo to tell the yokels all about the wonderful things that Labour might think about; commissioning a social impact assessment before actually getting down to doing something. No longer is Chambray the work of Satan and his acolytes; it’s worthy of a visit from the leader, himself.
Consistency, anyone?
Let me close by announcing joyous news and glad tidings: Gozo has an Indian restaurant and it is a fine one, too. Ping’s Dining, on the Xlendi Road (Mrs Ping has two other estimable establishments, but this is the one with Indian food), has obtained the services of a gentleman from the Sub-continent and he is gifted, supremely so.
Next time you’re in Gozo and fancy an Indian, this is the place and no mistake.
imbocca@gmail.com
www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20