Truth is the first casualty of war and in politics it is no different, especially when you bear in mind that history is written by the winners.

So far, but I don’t read the Labour media or MaltaToday, preferring to hear about their words of wisdom by osmosis, a difficult task when a few thousand miles away, we’ve been spared the predicted whining by our new bosses about how they can’t, sorry, implement the thousand and two electoral promises that they made because the Nasty Nats left such a mess that we’re actually going to have to imitate Cyprus after all.

Give them time, though, I’m sure that when the promised chickens come home to roost, we’ll be given all sorts of reasons why their eggs won’t be hatching all the pretty little chicks that were heralded. This will be despite Konrad Mizzi’s back-to-back meetings with his hapless minions, who will have to put into action his blithe undertakings about reducing bills by 25 per cent when, in truth, they should probably be increased. We should most likely brace ourselves for a few more volleys of ‘shame on you’, while he tries to find reverse gear.

We’ve had a spasm of finger-pointing already, when we found ourselves regaled with horror stories about how the shiny new ministers found themselves without the wherewithal to start performing their honourable duties. In this context, perhaps a slightly less urgent demand for everyone and her sister to resign might have helped but the new heroes were talking about not finding computers and phones and pencils, rather than warm bodies.

The problem for the whinging ministers seems to have been, however, that what they were complaining of didn’t really happen, no-one seems to have nicked the wiring out of the walls, after all.

Shame on you, then, for trying to hoodwink us - I am allowed to use that phrase, I trust, provided it hasn’t been copyrighted by young Mizzi.

One of the myths that seems to be well on the way to being perpetuated is the one about Labour being magnanimous in victory. We had two small, but telling, episodes of convenient omissions of the whole truth and one particularly disgusting episode, also very telling, to debase this particular bit of faux gold.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s media machine made much of the Tagħna Lkoll slogan being brought to life when it reported that the Ambassador to the EU, Marlene Bonnici, successor to Richard Cachia Caruana after the latter was brought down by the snivelling whelp, was being kept on. The impression we, the people, were supposed to get was, obviously, how inclusive Muscat’s bunch are being.

Small catch, there, Bonnici is known to be a Labour supporter and while this in no way makes her any less an excellent ambassador (why else did the Nationalist Government appoint her?) it renders her use as an example (and I’m not blaming her for that) less than efficient.

Likewise, when Muscat’s PR gurus neglected to point out that, in inviting Lawrence Gonzi to the Pope’s installation, the Prime Minister was merely reciprocating the exact same gesture made years ago when his predecessor, soon to follow him onto the no-longer-despised EU gravy train, Alfred Sant, was invited to Rome for the same reason.

The way more, more serious episode, the one that should give us pause for thought, is the one that involved Daphne Caruana Galizia. She was mobbed by a bunch of obviously Labour-supporting oiks and had to seek the shelter of the Franciscan friars in Rabat (you can get the full story from her blog, easy enough to find) and while this is bad enough, the ‘she had it coming to her’ sentiments expressed in its wake are pretty disgusting too and are symptomatic of the strong surge of intolerance and triumphalism that permeates the pro-Labour blogosphere.

Sorry, lil’elves and peculiar pundits, you don’t have the right to attack anyone, just because they don’t think that the Labour Movement, whatever it is, isn’t the best thing since sliced bread and nor do you have ‘the power’ to stop us because we live in a democratic country, no thanks to your slightly older heroes. I would have expected some genuine magnanimity from Labour’s side in the wake of this disgusting incident. It was a PR spot made in Valhalla for them but they failed, with absolutely no criticism of a prancing mayor’s apparent involvement having been reported as at the time I’m writing this, about which I am not even one whit surprised.

The Malta Tagħna Lkoll writ only goes so far and it certainly doesn’t extend to condemning attacks on journalists.

And while on the subject of prancing about, what price that Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando bloke now, ay? If the person appearing in a video of someone who looks rather like him doing a jig on a bar, thankfully sans pole, leading vulgar chants, is indeed him, that really makes him a fit and proper chairman of the MCST, doesn’t it?

Oh, but, of course, I forget, he had already rendered himself fit and proper by his earlier activities, before he came out as a true blue movement darling, so now he’s splash-proof.

What a far cry from his days as a wannabe disco-operator in Mistra, only a few short years ago, when Labour loved him about as much as they now like to be reminded that most of them were trying to keep us out of the very same EU over which they’re going to preside.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20