Newsreport by Saviour Balzan

Why Alfred Mifsud is one of three things

There is no love lost for Alfred Mifsud, but that is beside the point. Mr Alfred Mifsud is not an instigator of violence, as some would like to believe, but one of three things: (1) pretending to be dumb, (2) trying to attract attention and (3) unaware of the connotations of the word violence in Malta.

His unsavoury comments in a newspaper article attracted the attention of all those who have this trigger in their system that turns them into a scorpion when you mention the word Labour.

There was Marisa Micallef Leyson, who took great pains to warn us that she had voted for Labour when living in the UK but then landed in Malta to stand as a candidate for the Nationalist Party, that is, before regurgitating all over Alfred Mifsud.

I cannot understand how someone who voted for Michael Foot or Neil Kinnock could return to Malta and not vote for the Malta Labour party. I mean UK Labour in opposition were not exactly guzzling for Europe, and their policies were not only bizarre but downright stupid.

So that is why I am so surprised at Marisa’s verbal bashing of Alfred Mifsud.

Which brings me to Mr Mifsud and his flair for writing.

An article printed in both The Sunday Times and The Malta Independent on Sunday proves that Mr Mifsud is the most prolific political writer in the press. Which explains why Mr Mifsud makes such remarkable comments – it happens when one has got nothing better to say or when one is dry on adjectives. It happens to me sometimes although it shouldn’t.

Indeed, I do not feel that Mr Mifsud’s comments on violence were way out if he means what he says. That is, if someone is denied a mandate by undemocratic measures, resorting to violence could be an option.

I would be the first one to take to the streets and beat the living hell out of those who denied my sacrosanct right. The 1981 cooked up election was one reason why I, a genetically bred Labourite by birth considered mutating into something else in the eighties. And if called upon, I would have probably taken to the streets to fight it out.

What was wrong with that? Nothing, I believe. But, and a big but, for a Labourite to fiddle with the word violence is akin to a paedophile hanging out near a kindergarten.

Mr Mifsud has to simply invest in some brake pads. It is true that income from writing articles rakes in some profit but then Mr Mifsud can surely make ends meet, can’t he?

And Mr Mifsud has to come to terms with the fact that if the Nationalist media aren’t good at anything – apart from leaking secret service information – they certainly have a nack at inflating a story and making it look like really serious stuff.

Unlike Marisa, I had a taste of Labour’s violence. Like Marisa, I do not feel comfortable with forgetting the past. But I am the first one to say that Labour is no longer what it used to be. I refuse to forget what happened in the past, but I refuse to be lectured on the wrongs of Alfred by someone who escaped to Queen’s country while we stuck it out in Mintoff land.
I have no idea why we bother about the Siamese twin parents. Now that we know what their bank account looks like I cannot understand why we should send photographers to prey for a picture of them.

Their treatment of the Maltese press and the public in general proved that, given the choice between being pragmatic and reasonably conscientious, they will choose the former.

Which also goes to prove that after all the hot air over ethics and the future of the Siamese twins, when it comes to brass tacks, the Maltese or Gozitans choose what is best for them – money!

Two big fish were sighted, one off Qawra, the other off Comino. We are led to believe that the big fish are sharks. Could they have been dolphins, tuna, swordfish or pieces of wood?

No other country in the Med announces such weird sightings. Sharks in my view are not a problem. If they are, it is only because they are being attracted to the tuna pens. It follows therefore that the pens are the problem! Indeed, the only Great White

Shark attack occurred in the late fifties when one gobbled an unfortunate English man at San Tumas.