Joe Grima comes full circle and returns to Super One
Joe Grima is back in the fold. He will be hosting a show on One Television as of next January, after accepting an invitation from Joseph Muscat.
Contacted yesterday, Grima confirmed the invitation and added that he was asked to bring his programme to One TV “during the leadership contest” in June 2008.
The former Labour minister, who was a hate figure for the Fenech Adami administration, later allied himself with the same administration, and went as far as hosting a show on Net TV for almost seven years.
Joe Grima will be remembered for his militant views and controversial stands in the 1970s and 1980s: including calling Fenech Adami a “Buda” and a “pouf” in public meetings... only to later make a public apology.
He was one of the few ministers to oppose the 1987 Constitutional ‘solution’ proposed by Dom Mintoff in the turbulent run-up to the May election.
After 1987, he founded a private radio station known as Live FM which he graced with his incisive talk shows and his nostalgic and often bizarre narratives of the Mintoff years.
He fell out with former Labour leader Alfred Sant and constantly criticised him on his programmes.
“Sant always insisted with his party media chairmen that there was absolutely “no room” for me on the Labour media,” Grima told MaltaToday.
Grima strangely became a darling of the PN spin machine, who conveniently erased any reference to his time as Labour minister and Labour activist. His TV shows on Net were atypical thanks to their unique style. Grima says he was recently approached by PN Secretary General Paul Borg Olivier to return to Net TV in the forthcoming winter schedule.
“A similar offer was made by Favourite Channel,” he explained yesterday. “However, I couldn’t accept, given the short notice I was given to start.”
On Muscat’s election as leader, Grima was invited to attend a public Labour party function: an event that indicated that the young Labour leader was willing to consider welcoming the old lion back to the fold.
With his new programme ‘Inkontri’ on Super One, the septuagenarian will have to make amends for his previous derogatory comments on New Labour. An astute commentator, he is surely to attract new audiences to Super One, even though he is promising to keep to the same style of “balanced and liberal” approach to arguments.
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