Allow me a couple of personal notes to kick off with this week, if you would be so kind. As part of the fall-out from that horrid rag Kullħadd’s front-pager about me, about which a little more below, it was made known in another area of the media that, on the family front, we’re going through some serious health issues. This is true and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their good wishes and thoughts.

It’s astounding, as everyone knows who goes through this sort of thing, the levels of kindness and generosity of spirit that you come across, from all quarters. Thank you all, you know who you are. Incidentally, anyone who says that the national health service (ours and the Brits) is anything but good deserves a smack in the mouth.

What brought the above into light was a front-page report in the aforementioned horrid rag, Kullħadd, which was picked up by others in Twitter and Facebook. The story, which is untrue, was already the subject of a libel case instituted by me against Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, and now, Toni Abela as editor of Kullħadd, and Aaron Farrugia, who picked up the lie and ran with it, have had suits filed against them. We are also considering others who chose to spread the lie.

Labour’s track record in the Constitutional stakes is terrible, to say the least

I don’t recall ever filing for defamation except where people lied about me. In this instance, the lie was compounded by the fact that, more than a year ago, we had already sued Pullicino Orlando about it, so it was in the public domain that the story was a lie.

The facts, briefly, are these.

I, in my real life, am a shareholder and director in a regulated company which offers trust services. This is a function that countless professionals offer and, on the same lines as them, I share the fees charged, by way of my participation in the trust company. We do not participate in the commercial activities of the companies in which we hold shares as nominees. We’re not unique, hundreds of professionals do it the same way.

Consequently, Kullħadd’s “shock horror” story about me, running dog lackey of the Nationalist Party that I am, receiving a €2.5 million contract just before the elections is nothing short of a lie.

People who report lies are liars and people who report lies knowing that they are lies are lying scum and if they don’t like being called that, they should not do it.

For the record, because assorted envious professional and social inadequates have often seen fit to point out that I have been paid money by government entities, this is true. I am a professional in a specialised area of practice in the context of which my services have been sought, paid and accounted for, to the tax authorities and anyone else, including ‘honourable’ members who saw fit to ask parliamentary questions about me on a regular basis.

In the real world, professional service providers are selected on the basis of expertise and trust and it is the client’s right to make the choice in the manner the client sees fit, then and now, and this is as it should be, whatever the inadequates think.

But enough about me. Sorry it took up a bit of space but some things needed saying.

Events in Libya, tragic as they are, have served to demonstrate the way this country seems to be run by people whose respect for the electorate is mirrored by their respect for language.

Either that or they’re clowns.

The Foreign Minister, for reasons known only to him, continues to confound everyone by his choice of words. Reprising his tour de force about the Ukraine, he’s told us, on different occasions, that the situation in Libya is stable, all the while knowing that a Maltese citizen had been kidnapped, no sorry, abducted, no sorry taken into custody, no sorry, is completely free as a bird.

Now he’s going on about how there’s no need to evacuate, no sorry, we’ve suggested to people that they might like to high-tail it out of Dodge pronto, no sorry, we’re laying on evacuation flights, no sorry, it’s not an evacuation, merely a guided tour of the best bits of the Med between Tripoli, Benghazi and Malta (I added that for comic relief).

He’s echoed, to the extent that you’d think that the national emblem should be replaced by that cute puppy listening to an old gramophone (His Master’s Voice, for the younger among you) by the head of the civil service, appointee of impeccable Tagħna Lkoll credentials, who had to hoover up his Prime Minister’s shameless jockeying for position during the photo-op when Martin Galea was repatriated from Libya, where he had been held.

Amazing, first the primus inter pares zoomed up to the airport accompanied by his foreign minister and his minister for police catering, clearly intending to bask in the reflected glory of a successful rescue, and then as soon as it became clear that the Prime Minister wasn’t actually going to come out of it all looking like Robin (that he’s no Bat- or Super- man is pretty much a given, have you seen recent photos?) the story had to be rolled back.

The problem for Mario Cutajar, of course, is that Galea has now given his version of events and he, for sure, didn’t come out of it looking like a clown.

Someone else closely associated with Libya, to the extent that he had bought a home there (why not the South of France, say?) is John Dalli, formerly of the Gilded Brussels Cage, presently of Portomaso, who in another section of the media let us have the benefit of his knowledge of the unhappy place.

This guru of the old Gemaheriya let it be known that he has advised people lately not to invest there because it was obvious that it was about to go to hell in a handcart. Forgive me for failing to be impressed: I, a mere reader of the papers and follower of the telly, could have made this profound observation. I didn’t need to be snapped in my snazzy polo-shirt at my kitchen table.

Going off at a tangent, isn’t it amusing how so few real Labourites are being canvassed for their views about anything?

The papers seem to hang on every word uttered by aforesaid Dalli, an ex-Nationalist, by Josie Muscat, an even more ex-Nationalist than Dalli and by, gawd ’elp us, chairman of the law reform commission and meddler in matters constitutional, Franco Debono, whose political career is not over (he says) and who was asked, by the Nationalist Party (sheepish red faces all round) to renew his membership.

From genuine Labourites, not a dicky-bird do we hear, just the morsels of brilliance chucked our way from people like the trio just mentioned.

Am I the only one, to revert to being serious, who is extremely worried by the fact that it is Debono who has been entrusted with concocting a new Constitution?

Labour’s track record in the Constitutional stakes is terrible to say the least, to say that they have scant respect for the proprieties of that particular arena being to put it mildly in the extreme, and by putting this individual at the cutting edge they have demonstrated that they don’t intend to change their stripes.

Or maybe it’s a cynical ploy: Debono, if he ever gets anything done (and, perversely, his record as law commissioner speaks volumes in this regard) will no doubt have his efforts shot down and dismissed out of hand by the Nationalists, who would be craven and undeserving of the slightest respect if they even pretended to countenance cooperating with him.

Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that Muscat will then propose a second set of changes, which the Nationalists will have to consider, to save being characterised as negative and unyielding?

Bottom line, folks: don’t mess with the Constitution, it’s fine as it is.

imbocca@gmail.com

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20

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