So I was having my mid-morning tea at Just Jo, the tea place, in San Gwann, having a look at the newspapers there.
There was an amazing similarity with the story written by a certain Peregin and another written in In-Nazzjon, by a David Bonello.
‘Peregrina’ as he is affectionately known to the other press men had a header ‘Sandro Chetcuti organised ‘some meals’ for Labour.
In-Nazzjon read the same ‘Muscat jammetti li Sandro Chetcuti organizzalu l-ikliet.’
Quite a coincidence I thought. Copycats or spin.
I leave it to you to guess.
The stories of course referred to an interview Joseph Muscat had with Lou Bondi.
I watched a replay of this interview and I have to say that this time round Muscat had good delivery and convincing riposte.
Even on Sandro Chetcuti, the speculator who made it his mission to jump on anyone’s bandwagon, Muscat was as clear as he could get. He did not hit back and drag the fact that Sandro Chetcuti’s business partner in the purchase of XFM was a former Nationalist minister.
Good for him, for not using the same medicine being applied by Bondi.
But it is rich for Bondi to ask him what he would do if he were Prime Minister and had a friend (he mentioned a specific friend of his) tendering for a project.
Rather unbelievable for Bondi to ask such a question, namely after all the government tenders they have won over the years.
Muscat was fine, as good as Gonzi the other time the Prime Minister appeared on Dissett. But more importantly he was clear and focused and that is what floaters are looking for.
So it was slightly disheartening to see that once again, it is not what you say, but what gets spun.
Which is why Muscat must be asking himself is it worth talking to the media in the first place?
Well, I guess it is.
It has to be, even when you face hostile and diehard Nationalist individuals such as Bondi and Peppi, who let us face it, need not convince anyone of their real motives.
The truth is that Muscat has a far better chance of scoring points than any of his predecessors. In his argumentation on divorce, I have to admit that it was the first time that I found him convincing.
In the sense that he argued that he was taking personal responsibility for the divorce campaign – and that he was threading carefully because of the cultural bloc that existed over the issue. And that is why he was allowing for a free vote.
When egged on to reply why not a clear diktat over divorce as is the case on other issues, he said that he wanted this to be a bi-partisan debate and he was confident that there were many Nationalist MP’s who would support such an initiative.
More importantly he underlined the fact that he was committed to pushing the divorce issue and Gonzi would never consider this.
Even Bondi who portrays himself as some kind of liberal and surely has a rather libertarian way of dealing with life could not even find anything positive about this.
Which goes to show, that you can flog a horse to a drinking hole, but you cannot make it drink.
Just in case you have not noticed Bondi imagines himself to be a master media manipulator Unknown to most of us, the reality behind much of his media wisdom in the hands of the PN, has nothing to do with being astute but rather with dominating everything.
I love it when Bondi and his partner Joe (Peppi) Azzopardi talk about their impact in the media. The thing they never say is that they have no competition and they have no one to confront their bias.
Now Muscat is being criticised – including by this opinion writer – for being less of an idealist and of abdicating on his formalistic policies. And yet, it has to be said that if he had to be an idealist and a Socialist pipe dreamer he would be blown to smithereens.
The reality is that today’s political scenario is dominated not by a superior breed of political ideologues but one of political bigots who believe that what they do they can do better than anyone else.
And more importantly, to get this done, it is very important that they only make use of their own people.
Next Sunday I will be just showing that, who for example wins legal tenders from government agencies, and who gets government marketing tenders.
The problem with discussion programmes on TVM now surprisingly chaired by MIDSEA book publisher Joe Mizzi instead of Claire is that the mission to provoke debate and discussion is not on.
What is on though, is the monopoly of the same media houses, and the spin and control of the air waves before election time. That as we know is ideally championed by the same company that has a perpetual emphyteusis over public broadcasting.
The bile and personal remarks and commentary on the new blog www.tasteyourownmedicine.com about Daphne Caruana Galizia’s family and herself are unacceptable.
Mrs Caruana Galizia has asked the police to investigate, perhaps they could extend their investigation to all websites.
But then I am not the one to tell the police what to do.
The last time someone ordered the police commissioner to investigate, it involved Michael Falzon (Labour) who asked John Rizzo to call me in. He then proceeded to libel me for questioning his style.
That libel landed me with Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera - who for the malicious implications that we scratch each others back - found me guilty and fined me!
Yet all this, should serve as a useful pointer to all those who have made it their mission to drag third persons and invent stories about family and friends promoting a vortex of hatred that should be condemned outright by all, including the Prime Minister, the Leader of Opposition, Church leaders and newspaper editors. The fact that all have remained silent is significant. Though I would be too surprised if someone issues a statement of condemnation now! As Orwell succinctly put it, ‘all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’
I cannot be described as a cuddly pen pusher. But there is a major difference between calling someone like Richard Cachia Caruana the man who never shows his hidden hand as ‘The Cardinal’ and questioning whether someone is really the son of his father, or whether someone is shagging someone else and gets her pregnant, and whether someone is on cocaine, and on whether one looks like a bag or a cow or one who has no testicles or why someone’s children look like chipmunks, and the list never ends.
The reality is that those private individuals who are under constant attack, day after day, night after night find themselves in utter despair, the silly ones do the big mistake of doing a Sandro Chetcuti, others look the other way and hope for the best, while others resort to methods which are exemplified in a taste of ones’ own medicine.
We are all public figures and should expect to be grilled for what we stand and do not stand for.
We have to accept being questioned about our interests, our agendas and our conflicts of interests.
But this is not being grilled.
Over the last seven years I have come to realise that Prime Minister Gonzi does not have the pliability to take on criticism. He is undoubtedly a very sensitive man and that has some drawbacks. But none of the criticism lashed out at him has verged on the personal. Perhaps we need to define what personal is.
But what we have seen in Mrs Caruana Galizia’s blog is not criticism, it is downright abuse based on hatred and deceit.
So, no one should be surprised if this boomerang swerves right back and hits her in her face.
Nonetheless, just in the same way, I condemned without reservation the arson attack on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s home by right-wing fanatics in 2006. I have no problem doing the same today.
I have no fear in being called names by the same Caruana Galizia for stating I condemn attacks on her family and friends if there are any, as much as I have no fear pointing out that nothing will stop me from doing what I have always done and that is express my opinion and question the establishment as a journalist, a publisher and an opinion writer.
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