Now that the dust is settling, I thought I’d have a calm (er) look at some of the implications of the big story, by way of follow-up to my blog, which readers can find on timesofmalta.com. For the record, I fully expect to be pilloried for the ideas I’ll be laying out.
I’m used to it.
The story started when evidence surfaced of what, with the benefit of hindsight, turned out to be something of an error of judgement on the part of one of the PN’s deputy leaders, Mario de Marco. As everyone now knows, de Marco’s legal firm was acting for Silvio Debono’s outfit in connection with the project at the ex-ITS site in St George’s Bay, described variously as a land-grab, a very (very) sweet deal, and a radical imbalance inflicted on the playing field, depending where you’re standing.
De Marco has since renounced the Debono brief and the story has moved on, with Debono and the PN arguing the toss about how much was paid to the PN by Debono for what and how.
Debono is also asking for his money back.
From Prime Minister Joseph Muscat down to the humblest PL-leaning commentator, there has been a cacophony of jeers and cat-calls, with the orchestra playing one tune: the PN has been exposed sucking up to – horror of horrors – big business.
With all due respect, to use the time-honoured phrase, what balderdash. In the spirit of injecting a dose of reality into the proceedings, I’ll support my retort.
Premier Muscat, as already noted, has let it be known that he looks down his nose more than somewhat at the way the PN has taken money from Debono. In so doing, Muscat seeks to perpetuate the myth that political parties operate in a vacuum and on thin air, and that donations aren’t sought and received from many sources.
To hear him and his fellow travellers speak, you’d think that the poor old Labour Party is struggling against insolvency, having never taken a red cent from anyone.
The people who swallow this fairy story should, if they would be so kind as to have a moment of lucidity, ask themselves if they really do believe that perhaps the two parties pay the rent by receiving a euro for every word I write, or something equally moronic. In other words, people in general should get real.
The Prime Minister, and his minions in particular, should stop being faux naive at the same time; it doesn’t suit them. It tempts people like me to succumb to the temptation to call them hypocrites who have forgotten about the Fourth Floor Project that the current Speaker had dragged out from under their slimy stone.
Debono clearly failed in his attempt to buy the PN’s silence, which means that this episode shows exactly the opposite of what people like Premier Muscat and his minions are trying to say it shows
Let’s examine Debono’s behaviour in this whole thing, shall we? Clearly, and there’s no real argument against this proposition, Debono had paid over, in some way or another (and less of this “paying salaries” rubbish please, obviously salaries are part of a political organisation’s costs) significant amounts of cash to the PN.
So far, so good, or whatever: but this is not the point. If you want to discuss party funding, get in touch with Judge Giovanni Bonello, tasked by the PN to come up with some ideas. In the meantime, the world is what it is.
It transpires, in this world, that no sooner did the PN start pouring scorn over his sweet, sweet deal with the government that Debono, acting on whose advice I’d love to know (so I will be sure never to take advice from that quarter), stamped his little foot and asked for his money back, pronto if not sooner.
What are the inescapable conclusions that one can draw from this?
Firstly, Debono clearly tried to buy the PN’s silence, to have friends in high places (albeit in Opposition, but hey, why not?) There are many who think that this is tantamount to trading in influence, which the last time I looked was a criminal offence. Debono’s PR guru might say that this isn’t so, but if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck and there are no two ways about it.
Secondly, Debono clearly failed in his attempt to buy the PN’s silence, which means that this episode shows exactly the opposite of what people like Premier Muscat and his minions are trying to say it shows. It shows that the PN has not been bought. Why else would Debono want his money back, if not because of ‘services not rendered’?
Thirdly, Debono clearly tried – even if he failed – to buy the PN’s silence. This means that scurrilous wags like me are entitled to ask how much he “would have been prepared to pay” for an active leg-up to his entrepreneurial ambitions, if mere silence costs so much and is so important to him.
There’s plenty more to consider in this story, such as the irrefutable fact that Simon Busuttil has taken hold of his party and drawn the lines even more clearly than he has been doing of late, but space considerations dictate that I close this off.
The bottom line is that a cool, calm and collected analysis of what is happening in the real world must lead to one conclusion: The PN has come out of this a lot better than people’s knee-jerk reactions led them to feel when the story broke.