That last interview

If I did not have the habit of scrolling through the news on my phone while still in bed I would not have noticed that the Times was already half way through an interview with Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando by 7.30 am (corrigendum – One TV was, the Times was reporting). If that is not a sign that time is running out on this man’s relevance to the local scenario then I do not know what is.

The only reason his words are being rushed to “online” print as he speaks (rather than being kept for some yawn-inducing suspense until Sunday) is that the level of interest into what JPO has to say will probably be close to zilch by the time a particular meeting is over tonight.

The dentist has not changed one iota from March 2008 when his antics and shenanigans were intended to outwit Alfred Sant’s Labour in a battle of “con the people”. He may have switched allegiance insofar as the inspirations of spin are concerned but the final outcome is (ever so wrapped in poetic justice) same, same but different.

There is a simple logical premiss to be made behind all this. IF JPO really believes whatever he says he is believing then the only step available to him right now is to take his estranged self outside the body politic that is the Nationalist party. He obviously knows as much as everybody else that the only reason that he was not expelled from the party last week was  a matter of convenience – the PN is waiting for him to step out or at worst to be the cause of the premature end of government.

The hemlock had been served but rather than swallow it JPO “fights” on, probably believing that he is some kind of Samson about to bring the whole edifice tumbling down. His is a dirty game. There are no two ways about it. It is a game where values and principles are so far off track that they could be mistaken for whores at a harem.

His final grand “j’accuse” (not that he is worthy of such words) is a mass of conjecture that is being propped up (or isn’t) by a mixture of Labourite wannabe smartarses whose relationship with the truth is one of selective convenience. Worse than that it is more often than not a lack of truth based on a series of implications, insinuations and winks that can only shame the messenger and not the accused. The constant media harangue against the persona of Richard Cachia Caruana ever since the Labour Wikileaks fiasco has only produced a series of unfounded “impressions” and another series of allegations that have been swiftly denied.

The worst part (for JPO) is that the whole business on the agenda now has nothing to do with crude politics. This is far from a party split based on ideological dissent. It is personal. Very personal. Neither does JPO mention, for one second, any issue of governmental mismanagement – you know, of the kind Labour harps so much about. The main crux of his allegation now is some kind of collusion between RCC and Labour in 1996.

JPO knows that his is a lost cause. Hence his preparing the ground with such phrases as “fighting a lost battle”. Funnier still were such excuses as “if I see X and Y at the door I will simply walk out”.

Walk out he should have. Ages ago. Frankly he should never have walked in. When others preferred to waste their spin on alternattiva demokratika candidates remonstrating at Mistra in 2008 they should have focused on the man in sunglasses sitting on the rubble wall or sporting a china tea cup. They might have avoided this raging bull entering their china shop.

Now it’s up to them to pick up the broken pieces. Meanwhile the signs are even clearer that we will not have to wait for a long time for elections to be announced after the summer recess ends.

The lesson for the intelligent voter (if one was still needed) is that voting is not simply a matter of putting a number next to a party endorsed individual. (If you don’t believe me ask Franco on his new blog). You have to really ask yourself – who is this guy/lass I am voting for. After all we now  have a confirmation that the PLPN cannot be trusted when it comes to party endorsements.