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The atypical Labour politician

Labour MP Adrian Vassallo tells RAMONA DEPARES how he combines a political career with the medical profession and a passion for hunting

Adrian Vassallo is what one may describe an atypical politician, a quiet backbencher who does not often hit the political headlines, yet is very accessible to the public – especially his constituents. Which is probably the reason that he is so popular in his hometown area of Gzira, Msida and Ta’ Xbiex. He’s something of a newcomer to the political scene, getting his first seat in 1996 on the second try. When I ask him how his political career took off, he smiles and claims that it’s a very long story that can be translated into a shorter version, that he was basically approached by the Malta Labour Party to stand for elections. I press him for the long version.

"As everyone knows, my father (J.G. Vassallo) has been involved with the Labour party – or rather with Boffa – for a long time, since the late 40s in fact. When the split happened, he stayed on with Boffa and this naturally made an enemy out of Mintoff as far as the family was concerned. Believe it or not, for a while everything Mintoff did was wrong in our eyes," he replies.

Then the infamous doctors’ strike happened, leading to medical strife that lasted until 1987. Strife that, in this doctor’s opinion, should never have even started. Even today, Dr Vassallo believes that the issues involved were not so serious as to merit all the fuss and industrial action that accompanied them.

"The doctors allowed themselves to be used for political motives. When the Nationalist government got elected in the late eighties the issue suddenly resolved itself. But the Nationalists did not really change anything related to the fundamental issues, which just goes to show how right I am," he reiterates.

At the time Dr Vassallo was in his third year of medicine at university. He describes how students who had "connections" always seemed to get excellent postings in the United Kingdom. Few students wanted to stay on in Malta and the ones left were somehow encouraged to go abroad to finish their studies and then find a good posting. In spite of this trend, Dr Vassallo remained on the island.

"I did not like the fact that future doctors were being encouraged to finish their studies abroad when we had a perfectly good university here in Malta. So I stayed and the course started operating again. At the time the course had many professors from India and Pakistan lecturing, all well-known and respected people. And yet when we graduated we were the subjects of copious insults, I still remember people remarking that the doctors who graduated from Malta knew nothing. Yet many of us who finished the course here went on to further their studies, and even to work abroad. Their medical degree was always accepted without question and the jobs they found were excellent. So we couldn’t have been all that ignorant! We graduated about 13 in all, but only four remained here working as general practitioners. All the others were accepted by foreign universities and hospitals."

At one point Dr Vassallo and a colleague were offered a posting in Sheffield, which they both refused. I ask him about his aversion to going abroad to work. His reply is that the opportunity was indeed an excellent one but that he had good reasons for refusing.

"My real ambition was to go to Canada or the States, I had already sat for the exams in fact. But then my private practice as GP started growing, I met my wife Antoinette and my thoughts turned to more domestic matters. At the time I was working at the health centre and I must say that despite being my father’s son (at that point my dad was still active against the Labour party), I never suffered a single vindictive act against me. When the Nationalist party got elected it was another story altogether. I could not even take a day’s sick leave without having another doctor being sent to check up on me. I got so fed up that I thought of leaving government employment."

Most of the doctor’s patients at the time happened to be Labourites. Knowing that the GP disagreed with most Nationalist policies, they suggested that he stand for elections on Labour’s behalf. Eventually he was approached by Joe Debono Grech and he decided to give it a try. He made it to Parliament on his second attempt.

"I ended up in politics much like Pilate ended up in the Credo. I must say that I enjoy being a politician, although I have no particular ambition. You get to speak your own mind a lot, especially during question time. You’d be amazed how much information you can glean out of a well-timed question, you can really tell the direction the party is going in."

I ask him how his father took the news that he’d be standing for elections with Labour and how he feels about it today. Dr Vassallo’s answer is that his father is all encouragement and that he even tells him he should be asking more questions and tackling more issues.

"I did not want to worry my father just for the sake of standing for the elections. But he honestly was not against the idea. I guess that the good thing about politics is that you do get to help people at the end of the day."

This is something that he says is innate in him, although he does believe that people go too far when asking for help – or favours – from their representative MPs.

"Things get especially impossible just before and after election time, when most requests for ‘help’ are so outrageous that they are impossible to grant," he says. Something else on the negative side are the inevitable remarks and rumours that dog probably all politicians.

"I hate it when people tell me that so-and-so is spreading rumours about me, or is offended at something I may have or not have said. But it’s part of the game I guess. It’s the same the world over, not just here in Malta. You are bound to offend someone when you are active because there are some things that no one wants to touch."

Which brings me neatly to the issue of hunting laws. Yes, Dr Vassallo is a hunter and no, he doesn’t believe that the current hunting laws need updating – unless it is to remove the notion of the closed and open season that is. He claims to love birds but until very recently he used to get up at four in the morning to hunt them. The love of the hunt was so strong in him that he thought nothing of changing from hunting gear into a conservative suit in his car and racing to work after a hunting session. In his defence, he tells me that he’s saved many a wounded bird with broken wings and nursed them back to health in his aviary.

"The fact that I hunt does not mean I don’t love birds. It’s the thrill of the chase that lures all hunters, not the wish to hurt birds. If I didn’t love them, would I keep an aviary with dozens of the creatures? I love anything to do with birds, whether it’s reading about them, breeding them, rearing them, keeping them…"

I insist that his is a contradictory statement but he refuses to acknowledge this. He believes that the sport should be regulated and that there should be lists of which species can be hunted and which are to be protected. He is also a firm believer in self-control and moderation and tells me that he cannot understand why some hunters stay perched on their rooftop for the whole day and are only happy if they manage to kill every single bird that flies across.

"I never enjoyed killing too many birds, getting one or two should be enough. And protected species are obviously a no-no. But this whole business of closed and open season makes no sense. Nature itself can regulate the seasons, after all if there’s no migration there can be no hunting. The closed season in effect should be those months when the migratory pattern does not include our islands."

Having said all this, it has been quite a while since the GP was out with his rifle and today he breeds more birds than he kills. The reason, as with many other hobbies, is simply lack of time. His eight-year-old daughter Adriyana shares his passion for birds and always tags along when he’s busy with the aviary.

I go back to the subject of politics and ask him what his ambitions are for the future. Rather surprisingly for a politician, he replies that his only wish is to reach retirement age so that he can spend all his time with his family and his birds. He describes himself as "being a politician without really being a politician". MPs, he says, come in two kinds: on the one hand there are those who are fanatical about their party and who hunger for power, and on the other there are Dr Vassallo’s kind.

"I am very happy with my private practice. Though I do want to get re-elected, I don’t have other political ambitions other than helping my constituents. I love my hometown, I was born and bred here. God’s hand must have played a great part in my life, or else I have a particularly hardworking guardian angel. But I tend to believe more in the former, otherwise I’d be hard-put to explain all those instances in my life where everything turned out well."

I ask him for more details and he explains how he was on the point of leaving the area altogether and buying a house in Balzan before he got married. Then luck struck and the government plot they had applied for suddenly became available, after another couple refused it. The doctor believes that if he had not stayed on in the area, neither a career in politics nor building up his private practice would have been possible. The passing away of Dr Denaro, who had been the area general practitioner before Dr Vassallo’s time, led to his "inheriting" the former’s patients – and Toni Nicholl’s and Alex Sceberras Trigona’s decision not to stand for elections kickstarted his political career. Again, all thanks to the hand of God.

Just like Maradona’s historic goal against England, the doctor concludes with a smile.