There’s a silver lining to the rotten deal Joseph Muscat struck over the Premier. We won’t have to hear him tell us to wake up and smell the coffee ever again. If he does, we can all shout back, panto style, “Kafé tal-Premier?”
Even the most shameless Prime Minister in recent memory was not his usual self when faced with some serious questions from the press about the latest scandal of cronies feeding at the trough. He did make an effort to hide his discomfort. Fortunately, a section of our press refuses to be merely part of a media plan to ensure damage control.
During last Monday’s encounter with the press, Muscat’s body language strongly indicated who his preferred journalists were. He kept trying to turn away from the real questioners to friendlier faces. The frowns he fought so hard to erase clearly indicated which journalists really rubbed him the wrong way.
The Prime Minister looked huffed and puffed at times, constantly faking a smile. His expression shifted back and forth from uncomfortable laughs to eyes darting all over the place. But the biggest giveaway of his real state of mind was his sad attempt to quote Aesop.
He boasted that he played the rabbit (actually, Prime Minister, it was a hare) and not the tortoise.
In Aesop’s fable, of course, the hare ridicules the slow-moving tortoise and ends up the loser. The hare is over-confident and boastful. He loves to see his competitor crawling and assumes to be ahead of his opponent.
Maybe the truth sometimes manages to get the better of Muscat. If he was calling the PN a tortoise, he was paying it an unwitting compliment.
Muscat must have kicked himself hard while being escorted back to his office. What a stupid mistake. He tried to be over-confident and said too much.
What a change from the way he and his men behaved towards the National Audit Office. Muscat keeps repeating that he shouldered political responsibility by cooperating with the NAO. Actually, he had no choice. He’s obliged to answer the NAO, which, however, complained about not finding all the necessary official documentation that such a deal ought to have.
It was not just about the Premier fix that Muscat revealed too much. When asked about the Swiss bank accounts, he laughed. He seems to find the most serious things funny, at least when in the hot seat.
What did Muscat say about the Swiss bank accounts affair that is so revealing?
This newspaper reported: “PM will remove Labour exponents from position if they are found to have Swiss bank accounts.” That does not give the full picture. What actually happened was that Muscat first hesitated, then started saying something about wanting proof, and finally he changed his line to “they will have to be removed.”
This is a far cry from the determined, assertive and unequivocal position taken by Simon Busuttil on this matter. Muscat is almost saying that IF and only IF anybody manages to present him with full proof then “somebody” or the Labour Party will have to do what he really doesn’t want to do himself.
Flu Vaccine
We all know €4.2 million is a lot of money. But we can get a better sense of its value, and how it has been wasted, when we think about what it could have been spent on. What opportunities have been lost because Joseph Muscat decided to give it all toaffluent businessmen? Who else could he have given it to?
How about those people whose money it was to begin with – us? For our better health and fewer hours of work lost to flu.
In Parliament, while replying to my questions, Chris Fearne stated that 25% of vaccines administered locally were less effective than they should be. He admitted to knowing about the ineffectiveness of the vaccine in December 2014. He also claimed that there was an increase in public awareness through media campaigns.
This Government has spent a fortune on campaigns to tell us what a good government we have. Thousands were spent on advertising related to the budget, public service, poverty, etc. However, there was no apparent investment by this government to warn people that this year’s seasonal flu might be more dangerous than usual and could sometimes lead to fatal complications.
Muscat could have saved that €4.2 million he gave away so capriciously and spent it on health. Instead he spent it to get something he could have got for free. And he has the nerve to tell us it was all for the greater good.