There was an eerie silence during a recent TVMHemm discussion programme in which I took part with a GonziPN stalwart down at the Where’s Everybody studios.
The whole issue centred on whether we are fit to govern or not. That is obviously for the electorate to decide, whichever verdict I will fully respect.
What I found intriguing was how my counterpart suddenly changed tack and distanced himself from his earlier attack when I quoted an e-mail that I had received from an eminent Cabinet member in June this year. This came in the wake of a blistering attack he had just made on me – possibly at GonziPN’s diktat – only hours earlier, during a parliamentary session.
It was an attack that has by now become stock in trade of all the frontmen of the GonziPN communications machine, including the usual suspects and the paid bloggers whose mission statement is that of serving up as much negativity, bad blood and animosity as possible – in the hope that we will react in kind and deflect our focus from our own political agenda.
In the e-mail the minister concerned apologised for mentioning me in the House the way he did “in the heat of the debate”. He claimed that he did not mean to offend and that he apologised if he did.
I am serious minded enough to not even give a single thought to the tempting idea of exposing the minister concerned. The only circumstance under which I will do so will only be if the GonziPN machine would try to imply that this e-mail is a figment of my imagination and a bit of rear guard action on my behalf.
I have singled this e-mail out because it is symptomatic of the double standards that the GonziPN machine applies… daily. Even under Batman’s ‘Robin’ Simon Busuttil: sociable and friendly during one-to-one meetings and discussions, bending over backwards to accommodate us when they need legislation to be speeded up during the Committee stage of the House, and yet invariably going for the jugular – when in full view of their rank and file and wider audiences. All part of their by now predictable game and tactics of demonisation.
As an avid follower of the American scene, I have long noted that this time round GonziPN have more than ever cloned to perfection the most negative aspects of US-style campaigning, without going for the substance of the cut and thrust arguments brought forward during the presidential and VP debates. Such expertise has been further perfected through their crash-orientation stint in campaign social networking conducted at the height of the recent presidentials.
On the other hand the PL remains firmly on track. Setting its own agenda. Pushing forward its own priorities. Thinking positive while allowing others to wallow in their own self-concocted quagmires.
GonziPN have one sole objective. That of making people forget that in their majority they are clearly worse off than they were when Lawrence Gonzi himself assumed power. That social inequalities have been exacerbated further. That the governing inner circle has shrunk by the hour. And that disgruntlement has been spreading like wildfire within their own ranks, way before Franco Debono pulled the plug. As a symptomatic reaction to Gonzi’s so-called ‘new way of doing politics’.
It is pointless for them to point an accusing finger at us as if we had just committed an act of disloyalty by voting against the Budget in a vote of confidence in the House. The way they articulated their hollow arguments they almost made us sound like disloyal members of the same coalition Government!
The people I meet are yearning for a change not only because they want a truly new style of doing politics but they are mainly interested in future prospects rather than in lopsided and jaundiced trips down memory lane.
GonziPN are so irked about the calm and serenity with which we are conducting our campaign that they have even tried to label our genuine concern about the ever shrinking Maltese and Gozitan middle class as a revival of the class war and class struggle. Simply because the word middle class has the word ‘class’ built into it.
I am of the firm opinion that in the same way that various administrations have helped the middle class grow in Malta – particularly since people in this category are often classified so through self-definition – never has there been an administration that ran so roughshod over the aspirations of the Maltese middle class.
I was recently shocked when an apolitical couple that I visited in The Village, San Ġwann, referred to themselves – in spite of being a hard-working couple – as a family that once formed part of the Maltese middle class.
If GonziPN dared to look at the positive rather than the negative side of the American presidential campaign they would, or rather should, have realised that when Bill Clinton took the stage to offer a forceful defence of Barack Obama’s record, he was surrounded and cheered by enthusiastic delegates waving signs that said ‘Middle-Class First’, while his 1992 campaign theme song Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow blared out over the public address system.
This had contrasted with the same shrillness being adopted by GonziPN in all media – sound and vision, printed and social media. A tribal clan mired in the ideological rigidity of conservatism and unwillingness to compromise.
Joseph Muscat’s message is coming across effectively because he talks and offers shared prosperity, economic growth and shared responsibility; a ‘we’re all in this together’ society in which change will be a positive change. That will build on the previous government’s successes and discard its endless failures and short-sighted, unjust policies.
The reason why the middle class has been discarded these last five years is that GonziPN is not only out of touch with it but even worse – it tends to confuse its own narrow self-interest with the national interest.
(I take this opportunity to extend the seasonal greetings to all readers – irrespective of their political views and opinions).
brincat.leo@gmail.com
www.leobrincat.com
Leo Brincat is a member of the Standing Parliamentary Committee on foreign and European affairs.