Screams from various quarters rent the air this week following the announcement that Lou Bondi had been chosen to sit on a committee that will oversee some coming national celebrations.

One particular scream of outrage came, naturally enough, from the Labour Party grass roots, which has long looked on Lou Bondi as anything but a friend.

They remember it all and have not forgotten anything: his monopolizing the Alfred Sant press conferences in February 2003, always sitting in the first row; right down to his appearance at Daphne’s house on the eve of the March 2013 election to confront the police officers sent to her house.

From the articles he used to write here, to his relentless questioning on his programme, including the way he (and Peppi Azzopardi) seem to interrupt anybody who is speaking.

He was always the butt of PL jokes, from wordplays on his name (easy) to the notorious Nanna Olga revelry, which was as bad as it sounds.

He never shirked on controversy and his questions had very little diplomacy about them.

But then there was a second strand of screaming to high heavens going on and this was not from the PL grass roots with its historic memory. This came from those who aspired to a post with this Labour government, which is handing out freebies to all those with the slightest connection, and who so far have got nothing.

I venture to say that the screams from this cohort far outstripped those from the Labour grass roots.

Here were those who had worked hard over the past months to undermine the Gonzi government and who have not been rewarded for their efforts. And now they see Lou, their antithesis, skip gaily up the Castille steps and hobnob with Joseph Muscat, as if he was used to do so all his life. Which he did, but with a different incumbent.

I remember Lou on the plane that took us to Athens just two days after the PN election victory in April 2003, and as the plane’s tyres touched ground at Athens airport he was telling us who the new ministers were and what were their posts.

And the not very Maundy Thursday-ish meal we enjoyed at a Plaka restaurant.

So however he squared this new post with his own political opinion and convictions, this was sweet revenge both for him, and, I suspect, for Joseph Muscat too.

Here’s raising two fingers to all those envious would-be hacks who are still awaiting their just results for all their hard work of the past months. I read with glee their venom-filled articles and posts. Hell hath no fury like a hack crossed in his dreams of glory. And so on and so forth.

Seriously, however, this is just a seat on a committee, very different from the almost monopoly Lou enjoyed with Roger Waters in April-May 2004 and Malta’s accession to the EU. That was Lou’s highest point, I think, even if afterwards it was besmirched with reports of screaming obscenities in the control room as midnight approached.

I also remember a rather rare meal paid for us by Alfred Sant in one of his approaches to a media-pack out to get him when all of a sudden Jason Micallef plucked Lou out and sat him next to Dr Sant to the amazement and envy-tinged anger of most.

This time, of course, it’s worse. This time Labour has won and it is giving out appointments and promotions like confetti to its supporters, making the diplomatic corps almost a Super One restroom. But as much as many have been invited in (or gatecrashed their way in) so too many have remained outside and they have now had the shock of their lives seeing Lou waltz his way in.

It’s not just as bad as seeing JPO invited in Castille in the post-election celebrations. It’s even worse.

I just cannot fathom Joseph Muscat’s reasons for doing so. OK, so he may have done it just to show who’s boss. It is clear this was something done by him and not by somebody else and dumped on him, as people said of Jason Micallef’s appointment to the V18 board.

Dr Muscat has told his supporters he knows what he’s doing and he has been proved right, isn’t he? And there was Lou, as docile as a lamb, interviewing him on Tuesday, so that was one immediate gain.

Let’s face it, if all those who hacked and spun their anti-Gonzi spiel over the past months all get their deserts now, who will do the spiel and spin in the coming months when the going gets tough?

This political patronage thing is addictive and maybe there will not be any new recruits for the task as much as there are now or have been in the past months. So the media, especially that which can be influenced by CNL, has to be kept on a tight leash and not on a rich diet either as it could lose its effectiveness.

So far, Lou has remained silent, and even on Facebook all he seems to think about is music and his favourite singers and players.

His denigrators always mention his Marxist past when he was in Canada before he came to Malta and converted to Christian democracy. Maybe, if this appointment came from him, it was reverting to the religion of his youth.

But I doubt that, I seriously doubt that. I suspect the initial move did not come from him but from a far more devious schemer who works in Castille.

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