What follows is surely not going to be screened on Net TV, and neither will it be screened on One News or PBS. So please, do read on.
Silvio Debono, a former Xandir Malta reporter, is on One TV every Sunday morning. He tries his very best to give a fair analysis of what appears on the Sunday newspapers. But last Sunday, something must have happened.
He was, to put it very mildly, flipping furious. So hysterical was he, that most of the Labourites who listened to him thought the whole party was under siege. Silvio Debono is not someone you’d really want to have in the middle of a battle. In the Great Siege he’d have probably been down in the wine cellars wrapped in a blanket with the women.
Debono first attacked Sunday newspaper Illum and then went ballistic over a survey published in MaltaToday, of which he claimed to have known the contents before they even got published. Instead of trying to understand that the media can help the Labour party, this party sees everyone as a threat. Much more so with Illum, which has eaten extensively into the pale red readership. No one knew about the survey, let alone Mr Debono. Still, he claimed on the radio that he knew about its contents.
Silvio Debono, not be confused with the entrepreneurial namesake from Mellieha, is someone I have absolutely mixed feelings about. The last time I met him he was holding MaltaToday in his hands as if it were his marriage certificate. He said he loved it. I found it so embarrassing I had to look the other way like some teenager in love.
Today he thinks MaltaToday is the next best thing to used sanitary towels, which is one way of seeing how people change their opinion if they think their political masters are God.
Yet last Sunday he tried his very best to tear MaltaToday to shreds. He will need to eat tonnes of spinach before tearing off an ear off the classifieds.
He said this is one of those newspapers that wants to destroy Labour, most especially Alfred Sant. It was clearly a panic attack. The fact that the PN had surpassed Labour by a mere 0.4 per cent sent him into a tantrum. It was clearly an overreaction.
He then attempted to decimate the survey and give the impression that everything had been cooked up for the occasion and to please the boys at Pietà, most especially (my words) Mr Joe Saliba.
But I have to say I was very bemused by the insinuation. Mr Debono is somehow a consultant to the Labour party on reform and restructuring and at present he seems to have got himself involved in seeing how one can improve the image of the Labour party.
Good for him. Everyone gets a kick out of doing a good deed.
In the aftermath of a so-called pact between this newspaper and Joe Saliba, I would like to remind our readers that Silvio Debono, who probably believes that we are in cahoots with Joe Saliba, had in fact been offered himself an assignment by Joe Saliba way back when Saliba had just been appointed secretary-general of the Nationalist party.
Now this, I am sure, is not known to most of the good guys at Mile End. Silvio Debono, who serves as a trumpet for the Labour party on Sunday morning, was contracted by good old Joe Saliba some years ago to see how the Nationalist party administration was to be restructured. Restructuring is of course a very polite word to signify how the people at Stamperija would have to be asked to leave, or made to leave, or made so uncomfortable that they would have no choice but to leave.
And Debono is one of those guys who seems to have participated in a Darwinian crash course in how to be a chameleon. Can you imagine how the deep blue Nationalist diehards felt when they were faced with this unimpressive former reporter, when he was better known for reading the news when Xandir Malta was no better than a transmission TV station for Mintoffian propaganda?
No sooner had he left Saliba’s domain, Mr Debono gravitated slowly but surely towards Labour, dancing to the tune of his new masters. He first reappeared when changes took place at Super One some two years ago, and I only wish I had more time to repeat some of the stories I have heard about his management skills.
But back to Sunday mornings and Labour. Mr Debono thinks these newspapers do not like Dr Sant et al and will do everything within their powers to demolish the man. Apart from the fact that most of the time the man is capable of demolishing his own good self, that premise is completely incorrect.
Labour has to get out of its siege mentality and understand that there are people around who do not give a flying hoot about who is elected to government next time round. What they care and wish for is that they live a normal life. They know that no one should be at Castile until death do us part and they know that democracy is all about electing new faces.
But surveys at MaltaToday are not cooked and Debono knows that. When Silvio Debono sat down next to Alfred Sant at the top table at The Carriage restaurant some weeks ago during the launch of Labour’s Pjan Ghal-Bidu Gdid, we all thought this was one way of saying, “hey guys… this is brand new Labour.”
Somehow we thought that there was something very wrong.

Three cheers to Michael Falzon, Labour’s deputy leader, for having had the gall to tell a grouping of 500-plus hunters that a Labour government will not open Spring hunting and that it will have to respect the spirit of the EU’s Birds Directive. Well done, Michael. That is what we want to hear: some commitment to the future.

If anyone wants to respond to the savage who shot at BirdLife activist Ray Vella and to the others who blasted protected birds out of the skies, there can only be one answer. Write to your local MP telling them they will surely lose your vote if they do not take a stand over hunting.

The Notte Bianca weekend has a rock concert scheduled in Castile’s courtyard. Not to sound too much the un-hip gentleman, but surely a classical or jazz evening would have been more appropriate for such a place…

sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt