Just when Michael Falzon thought I was petrified, I was reminded by some old Labourite veterans about Michael Falzon’s past.

But before I proceed, I have a bone to pick with DCG. She is, as everyone knows, rather busy pumping PN strategies that could lead to shafting either Labour or Alfred Sant. She could of course try to take care of the timing of her comments. They seem to be in complete synch with what Richard Cachia Caruana was preaching to the young blue Turks at the Westin.
The new PN campaign, by the way, aims at reminding the whole world that New Labour is not new at all but rather old. Which is rather strange considering that the only startlingly new thing I observe in the Nationalist camp are RCC’s white hairs.
On the same day a billboard with all the old faces of New Labour found its way next to Jesmond Mugliett’s moon-like roads, DCG was coincidentally talking about the same subject in the newspaper that carries her opinions. Well, what really surprised me is that on that billboard I failed to notice Michael Falzon’s image. There was Marie-Louise Coleiro but no Michael Falzon.

Now Dr Falzon, who as you all know has filed libel suits against this newspaper and thinks we will buckle or rather that I will crumble, should be very proud of his political past and links. Why the Stamperija continue to think he is ‘new’ is rather mind boggling.
When everyone else was sort of trying to live a life in the eighties, Falzon was Mr Dennis Sammut’s special buddy. Sammut was the man you would not want to deal with unless that is, you wanted to have dozens of unpaid bills.
Now, for those who cannot remember Dennis Sammut, Mr Sammut was not only the executive chairman of Bank of Valletta from 1982 to 1987 but also a shameless Labour candidate who disappeared from the island after having spent thousands of Liri and never paying up. He started his early life as a radical with the young socialists, and like all good socialists he learnt the difference between talking theory and living it.
Dr Falzon of course was then discovering his vocation in politics, and more importantly he was finding his feet at Bank of Valletta. His beginnings were as difficult as all the people who lived the 80s and who had no Dennis Sammut as a friend.
I am not, not even attempting, suggesting that he was abetted by Mr Dennis Sammut. That would be unfair.
Yet Mr Sammut unashamedly surrounded himself by an entourage of young upstarts who happened to find cosy jobs at Bank of Valletta. Not Michael Falzon. Dr Falzon did everything as it should have been done.
(By the way Sammut also had these wild parties and gatherings with colourful people).

But back to DCG and RCC and all the other Nationalists who think we should like some Labourites more than other.
If you ask me, if I had to choose between, say Joe Debono Grech and Michael Falzon, I would freely and lovingly choose the former, even though Joe from Birkirkara has found his place on RCC’s billboard, while Michael Falzon is portrayed by the PN strategy group as New Labour.
Debono Grech may growl and bark, but he is the most predictable man you can ever imagine and believe it or not, as minister he was rather efficient.
Now this electoral campaign has been dotted with numerous examples of what we call election promises. Politicians are the only people in the world who make promises and actually never pay for them. Sant is promising to cut the surcharge, Gonzi promises to cut income tax for the better off and AD has lost their bearings and promised better tax conditions for the better off. It is of course very nice to hear that everyone is concerned about how much we will earn in the coming months.
One has to look closely at what politicians of all hue are promising. Let us start from Josie Muscat. Here is a man who has the gall or rather the pig-headedness to suggest that we should renegotiate our position with the EU. His public relations are as tasteless as the leaflet I received from his hospital (only this week) that we should be checking if we have intestinal cancer, and this in the wake of Alfred Sant’s operation.
Then we have the Greens who have now tried to court the disgruntled Nationalists in their four-wheel drives and turbo diesels and inform them they too will reduce their income tax. Alfred Sant is of course on a tax-free holiday spree offering tax cuts and this has worked wonders with his grassroots. And Lawrence Gonzi is insisting the economy is faring so well that it will be no problem to reform the tax bands. It is party time.
There have been some very special political concessions. Namely the Sant declaration that he will not allow his ministers to hold on to their first time jobs. The statement is brave if not revolutionary, but it is of course all very cosmetic. Most of the politicians with any business acumen have already prepared for this eventuality. Notaries have passed the signing of papers to their associates, sons, wives, daughters, cousins and what not. Anyone who works with notaries will tell you how notaries arrange for the paper work and the signatures.
Architects and other professionals have done the same.
Silvio Berlusconi started this tradition of resigning from positions in his companies only to leave the reins of power to his next of kin. I am sure there are few people who are gullible enough to believe these gimmicks. Nonetheless, it is clear Labour is learning as well.

Looking at the events organised by the PN, one is getting the feeling that no one is thinking. They really look like Labour gatherings of 1992. Yesterday’s Qormi walk-about could have been a Labour walk-about in 1992.
Labour on the other hand, have learnt a lesson or two. They have controlled situations with everyone dressed or overdressed like a silly model from Versace. It is only the obesity that gives the game away.
Which brings me back of course to Michael Falzon, who seems to find a serious problem mentioning Nationalist ministers, but perfectly comfortable pinpointing journalists such as yours truly by their name.
Michael Falzon, considered by the Nationalist think-tank as a nice guy and someone who should be handled with soft gloves, is easily identified by his traditional bent. I have said, and I will say it again, that I would not vote for the man, and I hope that any Labourite will go for other candidates when they come to choose.
Last Friday, when he addressed Labourites in Freedom Square, he started off with his usual rhetoric devoid of any content or proposals. As is usual in his speech, he praised the Beltin and congratulated them on the feast of St Paul and then he talked of the need to have a better government. How he never gets down to explaining how it will be a better government beats me.
Then he talked of the long list of corruption scandals in the Nationalist camp, but as he did on Bondiplus he chose not to refer to names. “I do not like being personal,” he told Bondiplus.
Now that is so very convenient! Most Labourites think he is either too soft or not up to it. Under the Nationalist-like tent structure, Michael Falzon, who has up to seven libel suits against this newspaper (just like old Bertie Mizzi who also wants our blood), chose to at least mention one person by name.
And wonder of wonders, it was not Jesmond Mugliett, or Lou Bondì or Peppi Azzopardi or Natalino Fenech or any of those people that all the other Labourites have criticised.
No. It was the long forgotten Renzo Piano!
Yes, Renzo Piano. The world renowned and respected architect who probably would struggle to recognise the difference between Michael Falzon and a Bengal cobra. But there you go. Renzo Piano is miles away, does not read Maltese and will never in any way get to know what the heck is happening in Malta.

In Malta, most especially before elections, we tend to have these typical Gianni Psaila il-Pupa kind of guys who cross the political border, become turncoats and start regurgitating over the political masters they once adored and revered. They should perhaps remember that after the storm (the elections), everyone forgets them and like squeezed lemons they are discarded.
In this political game of ping-pong, all politicians have little or no respect for the volume and pitch of their voices. Comment is free but when the storm passes over, we are left with the spoils and the promises.
Worse still, we are left with the elected representatives. The kind you would not want for a mechanic, let alone as your parliamentarian.
In this battle of words, politicians such as Michael Falzon who never get down to details and continue to superficially egg their supporters to vote for them without giving a reason why, could land themselves in a ministerial job. Yes. A ministerial job with the authority and power to take decisions that could influence our lives and the way we operate.
Today Michael Falzon, the man whom the Nationalists are afraid to criticise and who treat like a butter figurine, has sued for libel along with militant hunting activists and FKNK official Richard Cilia. What lies in store for the free press only God knows.
And I am not taking any chances!

Finally, I did say last week that I returned to write only because of Michael Falzon’s unjust libel suits against MaltaToday. I might be taking it a little easier for the time being with more pressing and personal issues at stake.
MaltaToday will still be around, thank God. This newspaper has a reputation of bringing the best news and analysis and this will not change. Stay with us.

sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt