The Labour Party is finding out – to its detriment – that raking up scandals that happened un­der a Nationalist ad­mi­nistration is subject to diminishing returns. The attempts by Labour media to drum up interest in the Gaffarena-PN con­nection is not having the desired effect for several reasons.

In the first place – nobody really considers the Opposition as being influential at this time. Yes, I know all oppositions are supposed to be a governments-in-waiting and that the actions of shadow ministers and Nationalist exponents will have a bearing on the party’s credibility. But at the moment, it is Labour that has its fingers on the levers of power and the the ability to dish out con­cessions and favours.

In other words, it’s the thumbs-up of Joseph Muscat and his ministers that is going to make a difference at this point, not anything Simon Busuttil says or does. Which is precisely why the public expects the Labour government to be subject to severe scrutiny, and not to shake off all allegations made in its regard by finger-pointing the Nationalist way.

There’s another thing too. The Labour party media has re­ported allegations that Bu­sut­til met a member of the Gaffarena family before the last election and demanded to see the docu­ments pertaining to the Daewoo issue. The insinuation is that Busuttil wanted some form of evidence to nail John Dalli with (Dalli having pre­viously been a consultant to the Gaffarena-owned Daewoo concession).

But really how credible is that? Why would Busuttil want to neutralise Dalli in any way? In 2013, Dalli had been made to resign from his post as a Euro­pean Com­mis­sioner. With that huge black cloud hovering over his head and his baggage, he was hardly a prime contender for PN lea­der­ship material or com­petition for Busuttil in that regard.

Why is the Labour media suddenly adverse to uncovering the facts about the Daewoo controversy?

More to the point, why is the Labour media suddenly adverse to uncovering the facts about the Daewoo controversy? Growing up in the 1990s L-iskandlu tad-Daewoo was practically the background music of the Maltese political scene, played on a loop by the Labour media. On February 9, 2000, Labour Opposition leader Alfred Sant had even laid a paper in Parlia­ment stating that following the Daewoo case, a serious inves­tigation about fraud and abusive lending practices of millions of Maltese liri by Bank of Valletta was required.

Fast forward to the present day and Labour takes any refe­rence for more information about the Daewoo case as part of a conspiracy attempt against Dalli. It makes you wonder why. The Labour Party would be well-advised to abandon this line of media attack. It just doesn’t work on so many levels and continues to reinforce people’s distrust of politicians who kick up a fuss about an issue one day, and then go on to attack others for bringing up that very same issue.

• Minnesota dentist Walter Palmer has shot to worldwide fame – or rather notoriety. One week he’s pulling molars and fitting dentures at his dental clinic, the next he has become Public Enemy Number 1. The reason for Palmer’s change of fortune is his having killed Cecil – the iconic lion lured out from his protected enclave in Zim­babwe. Outraged animal lovers protested in a big way and their outrage went viral. This was the cue for the priority police to come in and shame us about not having our priorities in order.

How could anyone be so moved by the plight of one animal and not give a hoot about victims of terrorism/famine/drought and the list of social ills that beset humanity? Had we become so superficial that we could only be drawn to express our dismay at illegal hunting because a lion with a cute name was trending on Twitter? Didn’t we care about factory farming and the sad lives of battery chickens?

On and on it went, the tire­some moral superiority of the Outrage Nazis dictating what issue we should protest about.

What they don’t realise is the fact that caring about the slaughter of a magnificent lion does not exclude caring deeply about the plight of torture victims or child slaves or the poor. It’s not as if compassion and humanity were finite, and if we shed tears for Cecil we would have none left for the victims of suffering elsewhere.

cl.bon@nextgen.net.mt

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