Joe Grima yesterday resigned his presenter’s slot of Inkontri on the Labour Party’s television station One, in the wake of a strongly-worded, vulgar reaction he wrote on Facebook to a piece by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith in which the priest did not mince his words about Dom Mintoff, even as the latter’s body was in his coffin awaiting a state funeral.
Mr Grima, a former Labour minister, resigned by writing to Labour leader Joseph Muscat, saying that though his Facebook reaction was not part of his make-up, it was certainly inappropriate.
The resignation letter was written and sent by email on the day Mr Grima had a piece in The Times saying of his comments about Fr Lucie-Smith, that “Canossa is not on my route” – Wikipedia describes Canossa as a castle town in Emilia Romagna, famous as the site where Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV did penance in 1077.
The letter followed the expected reaction by the Nationalist Party to Mr Grima’s piece on Facebook, with the PN accusing Dr Muscat of being supine in the face of Labour Party figures who transgress.
Mr Grima wrote that he felt that neither Dr Muscat nor the PL “should in any way pay a price for what was, in every way, a slip-up which is being turned into one attack after another on you and on the party”. He wrote that his departure from Inkontri is the honourable thing to do under the circumstances.
Dr Muscat, accepting the resignation, wrote back that he believed that the decision Mr Grima was taking was the gentlemanly thing to do and in the context of what had happened, it was the best decision.
Earlier in the day, during a press conference to launch the Labour Party congress, there had been no sign of such an eventuality – Mr Grima’s resignation – during an exchange Dr Muscat had with one of the journalists who raised the subject.
Dr Muscat, while distancing himself from Mr Grima’s remarks, invited the journalist to have a look at other websites “known for using disparaging remarks”. He said that as long as the former Labour minister does not use this kind of language on his weekly discussion programme on the party media, he sees no issue at all.
He added that he was surprised that no journalist had asked him for his views regarding the cohabitation bill which was published two days before.
In reality, the Labour Party had said that it did not want to comment at that stage, and would pronounce itself on the bill later. In fact, in yesterday’s press conference, the Labour leader did not divulge much more, stating that they would unveil their proposals once the bill starts being debated in parliament.
However, he took a dig at the government accusing it of “institutionalising homophobia” following the remark by Justice Minister Chris Said who stated that gay couples “are not a family” (see separate story).