Friday, 15th February 2008
Rossignaud, Mintoff and that billboard
Good Morning
I don't know if it's old age or what, but I'm awake at 5am, fiddling around on my laptop. I suppose more precisely, it's a duvet-top. I've had a look at my son's photo-blog of the campaign (he works for the competition so enough of the advertising) and at the comments generated by this blog. It's gratifying to see that some people are reading this, anyway.
What's interesting enough to write about at this time of the morning, then? Well, frankly, nothing that isn't as interesting as it would have been at a less un-godly hour, but I've always kept weird hours.
An interesting story rumbling on is the Rossignaud resignation from the Alternattiva. Predictably, it was greeted from AD quarters with the usual guff that comes out of every party spin-machine when something not so agreeable happens. Out was trotted the "He was pressured by PN" crack and some other stuff, all so familiar that my reaction was that which familiarity breeds. The bottom-line is that the AD was shown to be just another party, in the game for what it can get.
Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it sort of jars with the lily-white hue that used to tinge their image.
The old buffer is still attracting cameras and column inches, I see. Exactly what Mintoff hoped to achieve by traipsing down to the Electoral Commission and traipsing all the way back home wasn't exactly clear, though his little adventure provided some amusement. It's sad to see someone who used to inspire such strong emotions (the laws of libel being what they are, I can't go into details about those emotions) now being treated like one of those dancing bears. I suspect, however, that so tenuous is Sant's hold over his voters that if the old bear had got his act together long enough actually to file his nomination, it would have dented the MLP's ambitions for power even more.
In my Saturday column tomorrow I mention that obscene piece of vote-grabbing to which Anglu Xuereb thought it appropriate to lend his face. The AzzNazz (and the resonances are deliberate - so sue me) had been making racist-sounding noises for a long time and their electoral promise to "close the Balzan open centre" (for refugees) has now brought them squarely out into the bright light.
It would have been nice if all the other parties had made a joint statement condemning such bare-faced pandering to the lowest of low common denominators. The problem with this pious hope on my part is that the MLP can't do that, because they thought that putting up a poster accusing the whole Cabinet of corruption would appeal to voters. It's one thing bleating about corruption, a concept with which the MLP can't pretend to be unfamiliar, and it's another thing altogether to point fingers so squarely at a whole group of people.
But then, when you're gasping for every vote you can get, ideas about common decency go right out of the window. Perhaps a coalition between AzzNazz and the MLP isn't a totally ludicrous idea after all, if it wasn't for the mere detail that AzzNazz have as much of a chance of getting a seat as there is of me endorsing Norman Lowell. Or the Federation of Bird-Killing Conservationists.
I don't know if it's old age or what, but I'm awake at 5am, fiddling around on my laptop. I suppose more precisely, it's a duvet-top. I've had a look at my son's photo-blog of the campaign (he works for the competition so enough of the advertising) and at the comments generated by this blog. It's gratifying to see that some people are reading this, anyway.
What's interesting enough to write about at this time of the morning, then? Well, frankly, nothing that isn't as interesting as it would have been at a less un-godly hour, but I've always kept weird hours.
An interesting story rumbling on is the Rossignaud resignation from the Alternattiva. Predictably, it was greeted from AD quarters with the usual guff that comes out of every party spin-machine when something not so agreeable happens. Out was trotted the "He was pressured by PN" crack and some other stuff, all so familiar that my reaction was that which familiarity breeds. The bottom-line is that the AD was shown to be just another party, in the game for what it can get.
Nothing wrong with that, I suppose, but it sort of jars with the lily-white hue that used to tinge their image.
The old buffer is still attracting cameras and column inches, I see. Exactly what Mintoff hoped to achieve by traipsing down to the Electoral Commission and traipsing all the way back home wasn't exactly clear, though his little adventure provided some amusement. It's sad to see someone who used to inspire such strong emotions (the laws of libel being what they are, I can't go into details about those emotions) now being treated like one of those dancing bears. I suspect, however, that so tenuous is Sant's hold over his voters that if the old bear had got his act together long enough actually to file his nomination, it would have dented the MLP's ambitions for power even more.
In my Saturday column tomorrow I mention that obscene piece of vote-grabbing to which Anglu Xuereb thought it appropriate to lend his face. The AzzNazz (and the resonances are deliberate - so sue me) had been making racist-sounding noises for a long time and their electoral promise to "close the Balzan open centre" (for refugees) has now brought them squarely out into the bright light.
It would have been nice if all the other parties had made a joint statement condemning such bare-faced pandering to the lowest of low common denominators. The problem with this pious hope on my part is that the MLP can't do that, because they thought that putting up a poster accusing the whole Cabinet of corruption would appeal to voters. It's one thing bleating about corruption, a concept with which the MLP can't pretend to be unfamiliar, and it's another thing altogether to point fingers so squarely at a whole group of people.
But then, when you're gasping for every vote you can get, ideas about common decency go right out of the window. Perhaps a coalition between AzzNazz and the MLP isn't a totally ludicrous idea after all, if it wasn't for the mere detail that AzzNazz have as much of a chance of getting a seat as there is of me endorsing Norman Lowell. Or the Federation of Bird-Killing Conservationists.
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