Why do you keep attacking the government all the time on all fronts seemingly oblivious to the prevailing international crisis and totally neglecting the impact it is creating? Is this your new way of doing politics? You say all the things your supporters want to hear from you and warn that now that “the worst is over there are no excuses why Budget 2010 should not be a ‘good’ one” (September 13). Why raise bogus expectations? Where does the national interest figure in your equation?
You might take the gold for raising false hopes but your not-so-progressive party’s “confused” propaganda reveals an alarming deficit in bona fide politics. Running roughshod over the sacrosanct truth, your media’s misinformation tactic, toys with people’s emotions, preys on their worries and feeds on their vulnerability.
Why are you ignoring the government’s efforts to protect and create jobs? You pounce on government for the rising deficit and yet in the same breath you irrationally urge it to reduce taxes, utility tariffs, VAT on restaurants, hence increasing the deficit further! You strongly urged MIA to consider the national interest and then you go and do the exact opposite yourself! May I point out that if, to quote you, MIA has “a major impact on the economy”, so do you!
A brief look at your last campaign strategy will reveal how, without offering any solutions on how the country was to overcome the various challenges ahead, your phantasmagoric claims were simply intended to rouse your partisans. To quote an editorial in this very paper: “In his almost desperate quest for votes he has adopted a please-everybody-at-the-same-time attitude and this will certainly come back to haunt him” (March 20).
Your party’s billboard: “Xokk” (shock) clearly suggested, with your blessing I suppose, that the increase in water and electricity bills was unjustified and unacceptable. You also heavily criticised the revised utility tariffs in a piece you wrote: “Institutionalised theft” (January 11).
Obviously it came as no surprise that when the campaign was over (June 14) you whistled a different tune admitting that as Prime Minister you could not guarantee a reduction in the water and electricity tariffs. Now you are proposing a different plant at Delimara. Why do you want us to pay much more for our energy bills once the plant proposed by the government meets EU standards?
Consistency and credibility are seriously not your forte, are they? In your campaign’s steadfast coalition with fiction, another “vote-catching” falsehood broadcast was that the government was planning to do away with free health services. Although the Prime Minister repeatedly denied this claim you kept up your scaremongering tactics insisting that the government intended taxing health services. The billboard: Saħħa…Gonzi iridek tħallas (Health…Gonzi wants you to pay) parroted this outright lie.
The irony is that Alfred Sant had promised to keep healthcare free but immediately imposed the infamous tax on medical certificates as soon as he grabbed the throne!
And what were you thinking when you arrived half an hour later for the leaders’ debate on national television? Believe me, your smile and nonchalant arrival at the studios, both caught on camera, spoke volumes. To add insult to injury you had the audacity to say that you did not understand “why there’s all this fuss’ (The Sunday Times, June 14). I know you are an educated person and I know that you know that punctuality is a sign of respect especially towards any Prime Minister of any country, so…!
Another questionable decision of yours must be your failure to turn up for the official opening of the EU-Arab League secretariat aimed at fostering dialogue between the EU and Arab states (October 15). How progressive is that!
A word of “free” advice (lol): Once you are aspiring to become Prime Minister you just cannot announce that you prefer hamburgers to state dinners! To quote a popular blog referring to your bizarre behavior: “One minute he’s playing the historical hero at the foot of a monument. The next he’s crowding for a Big Mac” (March 31).
Also, what possessed you to try to weaken government’s case vis-à-vis Italy on immigration? After spending months alleging that government was not doing anything to solve the problem you finally admitted that: “Migration (is) proving to be a very challenging problem for Malta”. Dah! You also insisted over and over again that Malta is contributing more money than it is receiving from the EU and this when, up to the year 2013 some €1,159 million are in the pipeline! Why?
Tongue in cheek (lest I be misunderstood) may I add that I simply loved your sense of humour when you jokingly said: “I want to see this country emerge from the problems it’s facing and we have to do this by making a quantum leap in the way we do politics” (The Sunday Times, June 14).
But your brilliant proposal that “government should start importing goods itself” takes the Oscar. For crying out loud, are you really suggesting we re-adopt the archaic and obsolete bulk buying system? If so, this must be the quantum leap of the century – but backwards! Seriously Joe, which world are you leaping on… the planet of the apes?