Premier Muscat got very annoyed because Dr Busuttil tore his Budget to shreds. Very, very annoyed, to the extent that things got very, very personal. Par for the course, that, and it would hardly have been noteworthy had it not been for the extent to which Premier Muscat’s Government’s ineptitude was exposed.
It is axiomatic that when you can’t attack the message, you attack the messenger, if you’re of a certain frame of mind. This bunch go further and they attack the messenger’s messenger, or more precisely, those who they choose to see as the messenger. Just to help you get that, because I admit it’s pretty convoluted, they attack people like me, because we put across messages that they simply can’t abide. As soon as they see that we can’t be brought onside by flattery or by cold hard cash, they resort to other means.
Premier Muscat seeks to rise above the fray, of course, albeit unsuccessfully because as soon as things get sticky, he regresses to type and becomes little more than a playground bully, sneering and smirking like the cat that got the cream. His court jesters, on the other hand, don’t even make a pretence of trying to raise their game, they shout and scream and wag their fingers at the drop of a hat or the mildest poke at their little foibles.
Who can forget, for instance, Dr the Hon. Husband of Sai Mizzi Lang, Konrad of that ilk, with his “shame on you” mantra, rising in pitch on every repetition? It’s at times like this that you wish we had something on the lines of Spitting Image, because the sight of Mizzi’s head exploding would have been delicious to behold.
It is axiomatic that when you can’t attack the message, you attack the messenger... This bunch go further and they attack the messenger’s messenger
As an aside, I’ve just heard a recording of Sai Mizzi Lang asking to be judged on what she achieves, an interview recorded three months ago.
Need I add anything at this point, except to state that today “Malta does not have a consulate in Shanghai”, according to the Chinese telecoms people? And it’s not only the Chinese who haven’t heard about the consulate, because when the Foreign Office was asked for the number, the chap being asked almost fell about laughing.
So we have to judge Mizzi Lang to have achieved the sum total of nothing much at all, despite her not a penny more and not a penny less salary, do we not? Clowns or knaves, I don’t know which describes them better.
And what about Parly Seccy Fearne’s shock horror because it was brought to the public’s attention that assorted relatives of his receive public salaries? The dear chap was mortally offended at this, though why this was so escapes me, given that publicly-funded officials are, duh, answerable to the public.
Minister Edward Zammit Lewis also got on the stand-up comedy bandwagon, with his outburst on Xarabank recently. He had just been poked in the ribs by Beppe Fenech Adami about the oodles of cash being shovelled in the general direction of Labour Party deputy leader Toni Abela for professional services.
Zammit Lewis’s rapier-like wit led him to parry with a veritable rant about me and the megatons of dosh (I wish, check the PQs if you want a list, the best one is the one given to that Pullicino Orlando specimen) I had got in the past. He also had a jolly old outburst about Ann Fenech earning gazillions, moving her to make it pretty clear that he wasn’t being entirely honest, to be euphemistic about it.
What a sad life this man Zammit Lewis must lead, being so obsessed with what other people earn that he has to go on Xarabank (that elegant and slick show) and get up close and personal like that.
This sort of arrogance isn’t limited to when they attack people who don’t agree with them, which at the end of the day is a legitimate, if outdated and archaic, tactic when you militate in the pigsty that passes for the political forum on Premier Muscat’s watch. If you believe that thelittle things expose them, consider former minister Manwel Mallia’s antics in the queue for the Gozo ferry last week, when he is reported to have deemed it his divine right to breeze past at least three rows of cars waiting to board.
I wasn’t there to witness that stunt, but it has been reported without denial, so we have to assume it’s true.
I did, however, just see Mallia’s successor Carmelo Abela board his ministerial jalopy, which had reversed up Melita Street so that the dear chap wouldn’t have to walk all of 50 metres to Old Bakery because of the works in Strait Street. He even had a soldier hold his door open and salute him, it need hardly be added, because the dignity of his high office requires this little touch.
Very small things, these, you might say, and you’d be right, but they’re symptomatic of the sheer arrogance that has overtaken these clowns.
I sometimes wonder who is to blame, whether it’s us for electing them (well, I didn’t, but anyway) or us in the media for not holding them to account, which I and very few others actually do try to do. Not all of us do, though.
Saviour Balzan, who in his stream-of-consciousness rant masquerading as a blog a few days ago saw fit to characterise me as resembling a character in Dad’s Army, and I doubt he was being complimentary. Precisely what Balzan was trying to achieve is beyond me, but perhaps that’s because his style is so packed with non sequiturs that we of small brains tend to get lost. I suppose it all adds to the gaiety of the nation, so more power to his elbow.
When the watchdogs become lapdogs, though, people like Premier Muscat and the motley crew of his ship of fools start to think that the sun really does shine out of their nether regions.
When this happens, they start to adopt the smug and satisfied demeanour that inspires them to the sort of loutish behaviour that was on display in the House over the last days.
And meanwhile we, the people, have to bow down and submit to their will, obsequious supplicants for the crumbs that fall from the table of the High & Mighty while they turn Tagħna Lkoll into Kollu Tagħna and while their mommies, their daddies, their brothers, their sisters, their aunties, their uncles, their cousins and every other manner of hanger-on stuff their snouts into the public trough.
Let’s move on to more pleasant things, shall we?
We had a really enjoyable lunch at Fork and Cork on Saqqajja Hill in Rabat last Saturday, a family summit at the summit, as it were, to discuss an upcoming happy occasion. A bunch of us had dinner at the Harbour Club on Friday, to which thumbs up.
On Sunday we decided to be tourists in Malta and visited the Wignacourt Museum, a splendid place and then Palazzo Falson, always worth it and then some, and then St Paul’s Catacombs, a work-in-progress that promises to turn into a very interesting destination, unless some amateur appointed to a position of trust mucks it up.