Author: Jacques René Zammit

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I.M. Jack (shorts)

A few comments here and there while we gear up for the usual article writing and news observing. There’s lots of titbits being thrown up in the news that deserve at least a fleeting bit of attention.

Exhausted Parliament
For those who missed the farce that calls itself parliamentary representation yesterday there was much to hear and see. On the PN side most members faffed on about how nothing had been proven and hence the administrative decision is sound. BWSC contract apart we are still left in limbo as to whether the administrative and procedural shortcomings will be seen to. Franco Debono yelled “transparency law and regulation of political party funding” to an audience too distracted (tired) to listen.

Joseph and Anglu tried hard to emulate the PN coup of 1998. They’ve been at it for some time now – instead of concentrating in building a strong and valid alternative to this tired and exhausted government they still pin their hopes on what? On a lapsus, a renegade MP or on their dramatising a problematic democracy in what they hope would be a reversal of 1981. He even got his walk out. Who knows? Maybe a long sabbatical out of parliament might do the Labour party good – enough time to get it’s ideas right.

Poster for a Russian circus show named "1...
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Lawyers Without Restrictions

An Egyptian group calling itself “Lawyers without Restrictions” has called for the banning of “One Thousand and One Nights“. They are suing Egypt‘s very own General Authority of Culture (they might be twinned with our classification board) and they are suing under article 178 of the Egyptian Criminal Code which bans publication of material deemed “offensive to public decency” with violations of that code bringing a jail sentence of up to two years.

Ludicrous isn’t it? Arabian Nights, Ali Baba and all being banned because they are offensive to public decency. Thank deities of choice that we live in a Western community where such lawsuits are relegated to our medieval past. *ahem*

Language Lessons

Tonio Fenech did not spare a few tirades at the level of English on the Labour side of parliament. Ironically though whenever he read from the Auditor General’s report he did not exactly strike us as the champion of the English Speaking board. We just loved “hundsajt” – a rendering of the word “hindsight” that is right up there with “majtezwell”.

Euro Crash

Having planned a trip to the Big Apple in the near future I am somewhat demoralised by the rapid decline of the buying power of the Euro in the US of A. A few months ago a euro would have bought you a dollar and a half. It is now down to a bit more than a dollar twenty-five. Thank you Greece, thank you UK, thank you Freddie bloody Mac and Fanny bloody Mae. Greece is still not out of the merde and we’ll just have to see what the European Economic Summit will bring us before wondering whether our purchasing power in New York will have gone up in the angry flames of Athens. How some idiots can still claim not to feel “involved” by the politics in other countries (let alone being “bored to tears” by relevant developments in their own) is beyond any reasonable persons ken.

More to come.

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Frankly it's Franco

The debate in parliament has begun in earnest and the Times of Malta reports Franco Debono’s intervention. The young (no longer youngest) nationalist parliamentarian is busy calling a spade a spade and exploring possibilities of what could have been done and what can be done. Here’s Franco’s (reported) words:

The auditor also spoke about Enemalta having been placed at risk because prototype equipment had been selected. He had pointed to administrative shortcomings, rather than irregularities. He also said he found no hard evidence of corruption. Suspicion, however strong, remained just that unless it was proved, Dr Debono said. The auditor had not found any violation of the laws which would annul the contract. But he said that some things could have been handled differently.

Quite so. If you feel “involved” with Maltese politics – a bit more involved than, let’s say, the UK election would grip you – then you would find this Auditor’s report business quite interesting. The governmental reaction has raised more than a few eyebrows: the bulldozering trademark arrogance of Austin Gatt, the enigmatic responses of PM Gonzi and the foot-in-mouth syndrome that seems to have afflicted Tonio Fenech do nothing to reassure the voter about its capability of handling such situations.

A tender process is about administration. A power plant is about future costs, future environment and future quality of life. Brushing the ugly incosistensies highlighted by the Auditor’s report under the carpet is surely not the way forward. The government’s reaction gives the impression of being as knee-jerk as it is opaque. You do not have to be an energy expert like Profs Mallia to smell that not all is well with the particular options that would be purchased by this tainted contract. The Times editorial had some harsh words for the government on the 5th May:

It would seem that often enough the government is acting rashly as in its enthusiasm to defend itself at all costs it fails to adequately assess the implications of assessments made by those whom it asks to investigate. This has glaringly been the case in the Fairmount ship conversion contracts and, even more so, in that of the award of the contract for new power generation plant at Delimara. It is all very well for the government to say now that it would seriously look into the recommendations made by the Auditor General in the case of the Delimara contract. But the investigation is as yet inconclusive. The mind simply boggles at the number of serious shortcomings listed by the Auditor General. (…) Good governance, propriety and accountability demand that the tale in both cases does not end before the whole truth is found.

Franco Debono’s intervention in parliament tonight is commendable and encouraging. His is the first voice from the government seats to move beyond the hide and seek played over the past week. He may yet vote with the government when push comes to shove but he has now gone on record indicating the necessary remedies for the shortcomings that we have witnessed until now.

Much as Joseph Muscat would like it to seem so, the BWSC contract is not the be all and end all of this government’s term. His grandstanding on the issue – calling for government MPs to vote against the contract, requesting live broadcast on PBS for the parliamentary debate and threatening future “action” risks making a mockery of a valid political point.

The political point is that certain administrative practices must change. The political point is that considerations to be made when administering for the public – tendering contracts for roads, power stations and the like – must no longer be the pocket of entrepreneurs and cliques – they must be the real interests of the people.

Franco Debono makes an interesting step in parliament today. It is not enough. It will not be enough. Nevertheless it is commendable and needs support and encouragement.

Renegade yes, but for a reason.

Meanwhile:

Labour MP Evarist Bartolo concluded his speech saying:

The Labour MP said he agreed with Nationalist MP Franco Debono on the need for a law to regulate political party funding and transparency in this area, so that one would not have corrupt gangs who controlled how decisions were taken.

UPDATE

Listening to audio transmission from Parliament. Minister Tonio Fenech reads from the audiotr’s report “With the benefit of handsight (sic)”… not the best pronunciation. A few seconds later he addresses the opposition “Nispera li tifhmu ghax bl-Ingliz”. We hope so to… between deliverer and recipient there’s not much hope for the Queen’s English is there?

UPDATE II

Just listening to Joseph Muscat makes you sit down and weep. This is not a politician. It is a quasi-journalist living a dream. How can you be “involved” in local politics and not despair at the sad, sad choice that is available to voters. Where are our LibDems???

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Fawlty Electoral Systems

John Cleese explains Proportional Representation in a promo for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in the 1983 campaign. Thanks to CC for the pointer.
You may not be “involved” (now now, that’s a lazy argument innit?) but it’s intellectually educational – whatever that may mean (yawn).

“Compromise is not a dirty word.” Bipartisanism is.

Interesting:

A Constitutional discussion for proportional representation for the island of Saint Lucia (former British Colony).

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Superstition

If you’re an England supporter and ever so slightly superstitious then you should be rooting for Labour. The general election of March 1966 elected Harold Wilson‘s Labour vindicating his early call in order to increase his then slender majority of seats. Four months later England’s  football team would lift the world cup for the first and only time.

There’s all sorts of superstitions or quirks related to elections. One has to do with rain. Apparently Labour voters are supposed to be more likely deterred by bad weather – though this theory has been rubbished in practice.

For Italy supporters there’s another interesting coincidence. Three times out of four the team winning the campionato before an Italy world cup success has been Juventus: 1934, 1982, 2006. The odd one out has been Bologna (1938). Inter won a pre-WC league in 1954 and 1966. In 1954 Italy were eliminated in the first round by Switzerland (4-1 in playoff). In 1966 they also failed to pass the first round hurdle when they were eliminated by the memorable Pak Doo Ik goal (North Korea).

I’d hate to be an Italy supporter this year!

Harold Wilson
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Hang On – UK election unfolds

It’s the last day before voting day and the three main parties in the UK have unleashed their last attempts to lure voters to their fold. Or should it be to scare voters away from their opponents’ fold? The Fear Factor, redolent of the Top Trumps Horror Series, has become a major player in this election that could have seismic consequences on the British electoral system.

Here, for example, is the Daily Mail’s toon – moved to the front page today for extra punch. MAC (the cartoonist) depicts the obvious choice for anyone toying between the (LibDem friendly) hung parliament and what the Tories would see as an alternative: strong government.

maconthemail.jpg
Mac on the Mail

In it’s front page article the Mail is ruthless on those “wrong-headed” individuals toying with the idea of a hung-parliament. And the usual suspect arguments are out – shot at the crowd with wanton abandonment.

The Mail cannot stress too strongly how wrong-headed and dangerous it believes this view is. Whoever wins the election, Britain will desperately need bold, decisive government if we’re to avoid the nightmare into which Greece has been plunged. A hung parliament, with the probability of a coalition or pact, will result in a weak administration, dependent on back-room deals and shabby compromises.

Now now. A bold, decisive government like Mr Brown’s (and Blair’s before it did preside over the initial tsunami of banking and financial chaos but this is not the time to remind the giddy electors is it?

Labour has used the Blair trump to “shake some sense” into the “hung parliament voter”.  In what sounds like a more sensible approach Blair admonished Labour voters who thought of voting tactically (LibDem) to keep the Tories out. The Guardian reports Blair shooting down the LibDems :

guardianblairdontvotetactically.jpg
Tony Blair: Fear Factor '97

The Telegraph pulled out all sorts of rabbits out of its hat. The YouGov poll showing LibDems down to 24% and a surge for Labour to 30% provides the background to a number of anti-hung parliament possibilities. There’s the possible deal with Northern Ireland’s Unionists (better the coalition partner you can chew), or (sit down before you read this) Simon Cowell‘s backing Cameron as “the prime minister Britain needs at this time”. They did say that the TV debates had an X Factor feel about them but hey… Simon Cowell??

If the backing of multi-millionaire Cowell would not dissuade Tory voters from voting LibDem then you had the good old guilt by affinity – remember the “zokk u fergha“? “Clegg styles himself as successor to Blair” – it doesn’t get any scarier for a down and out Tory does it?

For an interesting take on the world outside “tribal pulls” read the Times’ resident genius Finkelstein. Unlike most Brits he never felt the tribal pull so he does not find it difficult to opt for Cameron this time round:

So, annoyingly, this election will be determined by people fighting a tribal urge that I’ve never felt and can’t completely relate to. The best I can offer is this: once I considered myself on the centre Left, and I don’t any more. And once I, too, had “never voted Tory”, but in the end I didn’t find it very difficult at all.

Then there’s Rachel Sylvester (Off with their heads! Soon the cuts will begin) who has identified a bit of the “trash and destroy” in the UK campaign too:

They would like us to think that their inspiration is Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. But in fact, as the country prepares to go to the polls, the political parties seem to have been more influenced by Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail.

Gordon Brown yesterday described the Tory manifesto as a “horror show”. Labour’s recent election broadcast featured a tax inspector with a clipboard going, like the Grim Reaper, from house to house telling families which tax credits and cancer treatments they will lose if David Cameron wins on May 6. It was scare mongering of the worst kind.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are trying to terrify the electorate about the prospect of a hung Parliament with posters featuring a noose. To me the subliminal message was “Vote Tory, get hung”, an eccentric strategy for a party trying to shed a “nasty” image caused in part by rightwingers’ support for capital punishment. Their other most memorable image was a pair of bovver boots.

Nick Clegg is picking up support because he looks like a different kind of politician, one who does not engage in the petty squabbling and negative campaigning of the “two old parties”. But my local Liberal Democrat candidate has just delivered a leaflet that has only one message, printed in huge capital letters across it: “I don’t trust politicians either.” From a man who is himself trying to become an MP, it looks less like a new politics than the same old dirty tricks.

I just love Sylvester’s conclusion. The dilemma is very much alive in the UK as it will be in Malta come next election:

Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this campaign has got curiouser and curiouser. With Nick Clegg going from Churchill to a Nazi in less than a week, Gordon Brown meeting an Elvis impersonator and David Cameron pulling the head off a chicken, there has been something surreal to the whole thing — and not just in spin alley. The election itself will be a bit like the Queen of Hearts’ declaration: “Sentence first — verdict afterwards!” But will the voters also soon shout: “Off with their heads”?

Queen of Hearts 2.jpg
Hang or Behead - Fear Factor Unknown

addendum:

Back in 2008 when the attacks on the “Wasted Voters” were akin to the carpet bombing of Dresden on a bad day I had written an open letter on J’accuse (Daphne’s Invigilators) in answer to their attacks. That it is still very relevant two years on says much about how far we are advancing locally.

Guardian Special: General Election 2010 press coverage the day before

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Tips from the Tip (updated)

The Runs has advice for J’accuse (indirectly of course). We’re in a good mood so we dispense some “tips” of our own. Warning: the contents of this blog have been known to confuse intellectually inferior beings – idiots should proceed under adult supervision.

Here’s the original tip from the tip in answer to (an obviously provocative) comment by Kev.

Kev

I think Mr Crawford is hyping it up himself by being overtly touchy over a few nonsensical blog comments. Otherwise, the Maltastar ‘exclusive’ has long been buried and it’s not like the whole island is buzzing with his name.

(Excerpt from my comment on Jacques’ blog – http://www.akkuza.com/2010/04/30/netiquette-no-longer-the-stuff-of-bitching/comment-page-1/#comment-3125 after visiting Mr Crawford’s whinery… or is it whingery? Pity the words don’t exist.)

[Daphne – The strange thing, Kevin Ellul Bonici, is that you and Jacques both like to think of yourselves as intellectually superior beings who condescend to pop in here once in a while, but the reason that you do is because this is where the action is. The alternative is talking to the few people who hang around your own spaces or mixing with the ghastly subliterate nutcases (and I mean nutcases) on sites set up by fixated bunny-boilers for the express purpose of vilifying me (and how obsessed do you have to be to do that?). Jacques just can’t get over the fact that nobody reads his blog because it’s so damned boring and irrelevant, and likes to make out (and kid himself) that the reason people read this is because it’s trashy. I guess it’s too tough to admit that I know how to do my job – communication – and he doesn’t. Here’s a tip, Jacques: try writing things that people want to read. If you haven’t got yourself an audience in five years, I’d say it’s time to give up.]

Well, I’m sure the bait is all there for us to fall for and here is how we would engage if it was worth engaging in the mud slinging game that attracts the flies and dead carcasses:

So to all you nobodies out there: stop reading this boring and irrelevant (or as David’s synonym would be: marginalised) blog. They’ll keep selling you the idea that it is irrelevant. Dive into the trash from the tip instead. I’m sure it’s worth it. I won’t be asking for an apology because (a) I don’t need one and (b) I won’t get one because I’m not Charles Crawford.There’s nothing tough to admit : trash = sensational = popular. I don’t need to admit it. It’s there for all to see. I don’t “write things that people want to read” because I am not into PR and cheap marketing, I am into substance and content. Results driven? Bah. What a load of absolute, PR and marketing drivvel.

And Daphne, I don’t think I am intellectually superior to a PR busybody when it comes to 99% of the subjects under the sun.

I know it.

Now for some serious points that would never come to the mind of someone whose only style of argument is aggressive behaviour:

1. Blogs cost no money to read – their readership is not mutually exclusive. People read more than one blog and that is how it should be. My argument remains that sensational blogs will perforce attract a larger, wider audience than the standard blog reading audience- and unlike Daphne I have no problem with that.

2. A reminder: linking in blogs is normal procedure when quoting huge chunks off someone else. Judging by Daphne’s double-standards in the event of being informed that it it is not done to quote without linking (a marketing person should know that no? – she lives and breathes communications)  it is hard to take tips about blogging from that same person. It’s actually not hard – just plain stupid.

3. If marginalised means that certain interlocutors ignore questions brought up by this blog because they are embarrassing well yes we are irrelevant. Daphne, because I know you are reading this, how come you have not come clean on the simple, very simple question: WHY NOW? Your whole Plategate furore was motivated/triggered off by one factor – revenge. You still have to explain why you chose to raise certain issues that you had known of long before Plategate only after your taste for revenge got triggered. That is NOT journalism. That is not QUALITY reporting. That is plain and simple PR dirt for personal needs. And the people love it. Oh yes they do. Ask Lou – whose fall in ratings has probably justified the rescuscitation of  the ghost of Norman Lowell.

4. Finally, try as you may you will never manage to equate this blog with TYOM. We have expressed our disagreement with the style and method of both that blog and of the blog that provoked it. The only applause they would get is in the choice of name. It is so apt. You may want to see the level of popularity enjoyed by TYOM when revising your theory on cheap content vs quality. There MUST be something behind their rapid rise on the blogging scene – hmm let me see – sensational bullshit? Yep. Same, same but different.

Sad, but true (even though THAT should be hard to admit) but the Manuel Cuschieri of the nationalist elite has found her ugly alter ego.
***

UPDATE: Timesonline has listed 40 bloggers who really count and weirdly enough the Runs does not figure in the list. We did discover that in the UK Magistrates have anonymous blogs of their own – like this one.

***
UPDATE
More intellectual commentary on the Runs. Daphne posts some observation about the police and the letter of the law and her accolytes jump at the opportunity to somehow debate J’accuse:

H.P. Baxxter says:
Tuesday, 4 May at 1505hrs

Pajjiz ta’ Jacques Réné Zammits.

Cannot Resist Anymore! says:
Tuesday, 4 May at 1532hrs

@H.P. Baxxter

He is of Gozitan extraction and what he says must not offend the Opposition because he may need them some day. But he feels very free to attack Daphne because that makes him look good in their eyes.

Daphne once told me that if I can dish it out then surely I can take it. Here is the reply we’d add on the Runs if it was worth commenting on:

Now,now Daphne letting your fans “do the dishing” for you? (Well it’s safe so long as the dishes stay away from your hands I guess).

@Baxxter – there’s only one accent in René as in Descartes you intellectually inferior buffoon.

@cannotresist- “extraction?” have we been watching too much Lowell lately? Can’t blame you – not much more on offer these days is there?

I almost wrote a treatise in my defence (an apologia) but then I remembered I had to write what the daphne-lytes can read. Hope this is simple enough.

Looking forward to the next flurry of smart and witty comments – bring it on Dee Cee Gee.

We resisted the temptation… an act of mercy. But you just have to love these people. Personal grudges and “min mhux maghna kontra taghna” mentality – 80s labour revisited indeed.