Il franco tiratore

Oh what a night that was. Xarabank’s editors invited Simon Busuttil and Anglu Farrugia for what was meant to be the battle of deputy leaders only to find that in the last moment the Labour party had opted to send Franco Debono to face up to the nationalist party’s champion. Improvisation is never a spin-master’s forte and the night threatened to spin out of control quite quickly – and so it did. The facts of the story are known to all so it is useless repeating all the steps of this marvellous pre-festive pantomime though there is more than one tasty morsel for us to chew upon.

Labour

It was their moment. They sprung the surprise on an unwitting Where’s Everybody. I’d love to watch the harassing of JP Vassallo by that One TV hack over and over. Bereft of script and prompting WE’s JP cut a poor figure and you could observe him turning a whiter shade of pale with every question. The lady in question (who had earlier been told to find some manners by Simon Busuttil) could have asked him anything – I doubt he was listening in the end. You could sense JP wishing the earth to open up and whisk him away to some programme where he could read the list of the days’ sponsors calmly and lucratively as he knows best.

There is no doubt that the element of surprise went Labour’s way. For a few minutes they had the upper hand. Had they just left it at that and opted to let the headless cast and PBS to solve the impasse with the postponement they would probably have carried the night (for what it is worth but more about that later). Peppi Azzopardi would lend a helping hand to foment further suspicions later on. Still smarting from Franco’s suggestions about further coaching and mediation services for the nationalist party he turned up on TVM with a paleRuth Amaira (not embarrassment but excess make up in this case) and proceeded to morph into a stepney for the main PN arguments of the night. His culmination point? “Ma riduhx jigi lill-Anglu Farrugia”. Really Peppi? Is it up to you to say?

Labour though couldn’t resist putting up a show on ONE TV and that is when it all started to go horribly wrong. The less people like Kurt Farrugia and Anglu Farrugia speak the better. Anglu Farrugia made a brief appearance and managed to fail to express himself clearly and got his words in a twist. It is hard to imagine this man debating with himself (a debate he’d probably lose), let alone pulling anything off with the astute and experienced Simon Busuttil. His fleeting statement was a disgrace. Had he sat there and told his interviewer (the one dressed as an elf in red tie) that the Labour party simply wanted to cock a snook at WE and their programmes he would have pulled something off. Instead he claimed that their “mishap” was inspired by democracy because they genuinely wanted to give Franco Debono a chance to speak. Bollocks.

Anglu managed to turn a sly move into a farce in the space of thirty seconds. All it would take was Kurt Farrugia turning up the heat (or so he thought) dwelling and mulling on how “Simon beza’ minn Franco” and then proceeded to basically state in no unclear terms that Labour expects to dictate the time, place and compère of the next debate. Smooth Kurt. Smooth indeed. Shooting oneself in the foot does not even begin to explain the effect of Kurt’s statements. When assessing the aftermath of their evening dramatics Labour might be disappointed to find out that while diehards will easily fall for the lie that Simon shied away from the debate and while many a voter would have been happy observing the WE team squirming in uncustomary discomfort, their follow up antics will have set all the alarm bells ringing among the voters that really count. We are probably not even talking of a pyrrhic victory.

The Nationalists

Well. You have to look at the nationalists tonight through Franco’s eyes. It is inevitable. All through the antics of the rebel MP before the paparazzi there were two words ringing in every viewer’s mind: History & Irrelevant. Well there was history and irrelevance managing to upstage a prime time programme on the national TV station and getting enough embarrassing coverage and insinuations to feed the disgruntled one more time. This was Franco post-JudiciaryGate – we all knew he was burning to remind us of his proposals for reform and how the PN ignored them (they included a reform of the appointment methods of the judiciary). As he yelled at the closed room where Frank Psaila and Simon Busuttil were cooped up he let loose some new revelations regarding Peppi’s attempts at mediation.

As Simon Busuttil was bundled out of the room towards his car he was surrounded with the generation of young turks – the Carol Aquilina’s and Frank Psaila’s who doubled up as impromptu bodyguards. There’s something about the smirk on the face of Aquilina as he pushed and elbowed away reporters (reporters mind you – not a violent crowd) with arrogant disdain that serves as a strong reminder of the kind of arrogance that has so stained the nationalist milieu in recent years. Simon did his best of patching up and claimed victory for his side. “Tonight Joseph Muscat’s Labour has shown its true colours. A coward party built on gimmicks and dishonesty” was his summary on facebook.

Oh the irony. Bullying reporters? Gimmicks and dishonesty? Here’s the history lesson then. Back in 2008 a JPO coached by Peppi Azzopardi was given a journalist’s card in an attempt to constantly harass Alfred Sant. Back in 2008 all was fair in love and war and no mention was made of bullying tactics. I also remember an incident when One journalists were not allowed to leave Villa Arrigo in order that they may not harass Gonzi with questions. A case of double standards, no doubt about that and it is useless pleading that this is not a case of comparing like with like. Both Franco and JPO were tools used by the two parties to get what they wanted.

That strategy had just about worked for Gonzi PN (just about since it turned JPO into a hero – yes, that’s you voters who gave him your number one choice) and Labour were dabbling in the same arcane arts. Sure PN sympathisers will still see Franco in a bad light and call him names. Sure they feel that Labour shied away from sending Anglu Farrugia to cross swords with the Great New Hope (do you blame them?) but in the end the PN too is left smarting with wounds and a clear warning that it will not be so smooth – even on home ground like PBS. Pyrrhic victory? Not on your life.

The Debate 

A telling image of the night was the interview with Carmel Cacopardo (as Arnold Cassola held his coat in the background). The alternattiva politicians were caught in a battle that had little to do with them but they were asked to comment just the same. Little wonder that they complained of the failure of the system to give them a chance to once again air their views. How could they? All the dramatics, both the PL and the PN shouting victory but in the end the main victim was reasonable debate. That is what the PLPN style of politics will get us to.  Clear debate on clear issues remains off the agenda and we are two days away from the moratorium.

Franco Debono

He gets knocked down but he gets up again. There he was huffing and puffing but he could not get the house down. he did make a couple of points though. Whether or not he was being used by Labour he has shown the PN that his irrelevance and relegation to the footnotes of history has been postponed – at least until March 9th. Labour would be stupid to allow the people to forget Franco through the campaign (though their calls and moans about the fractitiousness of the PN lack sincerity – since when does a party worry about the other party’s woes). Franco is a convenient distraction from the fact that Labour lacks heavyweights who can sell ideas to the votes that count and more importantly a convenient distraction from the fact that Labour still has not any ideas to sell.

Once again Franco fails in PR. His method cannot be endearing even to the most sympathetic of his observers and he never fails to turn an issue into “Me, Myself and I”. Strategically speaking he must be aware that he is grasping at the last strands of opportunity as his utility factor will dwindle even within the coffers of Labour’s strategy plan (if there is one). It will be interesting to see how he follows up this latest performance – sadly it will be to the detriment of real political discussion on real pressing issues that we so desperately need to address.

Merry Christmas?

Will the parties really afford to allow the current momentum to turn into a period of festive inertia? Is the momentum bigger than any of the two of them? We can only find out over the next few days, meanwhile these are interesting times to follow and whatever is going on in the strategy rooms in Hamrun and Pietà will be revealed to us … probably much sooner than we were expecting.