From Mr I. Waugh

I always look forward to reading Charles Flores’ contribution on the Opinion pages of The Malta Independent on Sunday and week was no exception. His piece: “A Moment in Time: The King and I” was, as usual, fascinating and frank reading.

Charles was referring to being in the wrong place at the wrong time – being immortalised in a split second then being consigned to history in a shutters flick of a photographer’s camera.

I maintain that my biggest personal regret was being politically misunderstood.

The political culture in Britain is in some ways on another planet in comparison to Malta. In Britain I get the feeling that the electorate care as much about politics as the brand of toothpaste they use. We normally don’t think twice about it – we use a brand probably because we always have and there are far more important things in life like West Ham one day winning the FA Cup.

If you ask someone which way they vote in Britain (because there is a very high probability you wouldn’t know), they might tell you to mind your own business, they could say they don’t care because “all politicians are the same” or they might just say they “don’t care”. One or two might reveal their little political secret.

To be absolutely honest, I never knew which way my family voted. My parent’s politics were a secret and the only way I might surmise which way my grandfather voted was by the fact that he used to read The Daily Express! But he never really seemed a Macmillan supporter somehow! As for my grandmother, she was more interested in the volume of greens her only grandson could consume! “Eat your greens, Ian, or you’ll never grow big and strong!” doesn’t have the same political ring as “Your grandfather and I went on a CND rally last weekend and had tea with Harold Wilson”!

Despite the vast millions spent persuading Joe Blogs to vote one way or the other, the general view of UK politicians is probably down there with estate agents who seem to get an equal poor career rating.

In Malta politics is a national obsession. Worryingly, it seems that everyone knows everyone else’s political leanings. Is it true you might possibly admire someone more because you know that person might lean your way, so to speak?

I’m proud to say I’ve been professionally and personally connected to Malta for exactly 20 years this month. It was in May 1988 when I was engaged as an adviser for Xandir Malta.

I have to say that many of the people I met (including Charles Flores) made an incredible impression on me. Looking back, the one single thing that struck me by some people at Xandir Malta was a sense of unswerving professionalism and commitment despite the political bullying and nastiness that often used to go on.

Most of these Xandir icons have now retired from public life – but they have left behind something very special, which, I have to say, is lacking in today’s local media jungle.

Despite my professional admiration for these people, I have never found it necessary to enquire about their politics. If politics, like any other subject, was discussed privately then fair enough – it’s a private discussion.

Reading Charles Flores last weekend reminded me of certain assumptions that were incorrectly and cruelly made about me years ago in Malta, which resulted in a certain newspaper alleging I supported a certain political party in Malta. This hilarious notion (which could not have been further from the truth) must have been cooked up by some bored hack who was having a slow news day.

The crazy, crazy assumption was that I was definitely a nasty supporter of a certain political party. Not only was I an interfering foreigner meddling in things I should leave alone, I was doing it with the backing of a certain party.

What complete rubbish!

This silliness carried on until I guess the hack found some other scrap of gossip to blow out of proportion.

Today, all this water under bridge – but it does leave a certain bitterness somehow.

Sadly though, this has gone down as an inaccurate speck of history archived somewhere, just sitting there like an annoying spot that you just can’t get rid of.

If the hack who brewed up this heap of untruths had the decency to actually ask me my politics – then fair enough. But nobody ever asked me about my politics so the naïve and the silly made an assumption.

Assumptions are dangerous and damaging – being a marked man for something you most certainly don’t support is painful.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good story!

Ian Waugh