A brief note to the Lil’Elves: a political party has the right to accept people to contest in its name or not, and it does so on the basis of various considerations, not least of which are integrity and loyalty. Thus when the Nationalist Party – or the Labour Party or any other party, for that matter – decides to bar anyone from contesting in its name, this is not a reflection on the democratic credentials of the party concerned.
What you want to read into it insofar as concerns the credentials of the people barred, on the other hand, I will leave to you. And, again addressing the Lil’Elves, do you really think that peoples’ grasp of political reality is as faux naive as yours? The various consequences of the PN Executive’s barring of the three renegades yesterday are perfectly clear to all, don’t worry, but sometimes, it becomes time to say “enough, now”.
And though it has been said to them, and not content with it being made clear to them what their standing is within the Nationalist Party, Pullicino Orlando and Debono are persisting in their efforts to make equally clear to us the extent to which they are in dire need of focussed counselling. Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that I’m suggesting that they need psychiatric help, all I mean is that they need someone to take them aside and give them some sound personal advice, consisting in two words “away” and “go”, though not in that order.
The extent to which they need any other form of counselling is up to them to determine, or those around them if they are incapable of so doing.
Pullicino Orlando, then, has written to the PN Executive (one hopes he remembered to actually send his message this time) to tell them who of his witnesses is going to corroborate which of his accusations against Mr Cachia Caruana.
Apparently, none of them is going to have anything to say about the second charge, so does this mean that Cachia Caruana is now free to sue him for defamation? Implying treason without evidence is a serious libel. Or is Pullicino Orlando going to be relying on what was said in the House, in which case, excuse me while I fall about laughing.
And insofar as concerns the other two charges, Commissioner John Rizzo and Mr Gordon Pisani have already said they have nothing to say about the third one, and EU Commissioner John Dalli seems to be of much the same view, so that’s another of the charges out of the window, for all that Pullicino Orlando is still saying that these three are going to substantiate his charge that Cachia Caruana was responsible for fomenting trouble for the PM within and without the House.
This leaves Pullicino Orlando with only one more charge with which to keep trying to blacken Cachia Caruana’s name and get him thrown out of the Party, which will be a great result for Labour, since they see him as one of the main architects of their repeated defeats. Of course, that is not why Pullicino Orlando is gunning for Cachia Caruana, and it’s nothing personal, either.
This is the charge that Cachia Caruana colluded with Labour big-wigs to the detriment of his colleagues in the 1996 – 1998 blip. The witnesses here are Mr Karmenu Vella, who has already holed Pullicino Orlando fatally below the waterline, and Mr Joe Mizzi, who hasn’t said anything yet, presumably because he has nothing to say. Various media have contacted assorted other Labour big beasts of the era and no-one had anything to say, which leaves Pullicino Orlando very much up the proverbial without an oar.
Anyone with even a rudimentary sense of decency would just drop the whole thing round about now and try to crawl out of the limelight, but not our hero. Onward and upward seems to be his motto, though the direction in which he actually travels is diametrically opposite, a tendency which he displayed when, with an arrogance that would be breathtaking if it were not so puerile, he exhorted the PN administration to keep certain characters away from the premises next time there’s a meeting.
Isn’t that rich? Pullicino Orlando, who seems to be hell-bent on defining the concept of jumped-up little twerp for us, went to the meeting on Thursday accompanied by two “bodyguards” (why, for the sake of all that’s beautiful, does this village dentist think his body is so desirable that he needs two heavies to protect it?) and then whined because they weren’t allowed in with him, for all the world as if these two characters were an embellishment to wherever they happened to be.
And so to Debono, who has come full circle and made it as clear as daylight that what has actually been irking him all along is the fact that Mr Manuel Delia is going to contest the elections on what used to be Debono’s district.
Debono has been hoist by his own petard, he has spat into the air and had it come tumbling back down on him, he has been the architect of his own oblivion, he has tried to shoot the king and failed, he has tried to fly high and – like Icarus – found his wings melting because of his hubris and because he simply didn’t have what it takes, and yet he acts as if he remains relevant.
What a funny man.