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One need not be an aspiring mathematician to work out the real amount of money collected from incoming telephone calls at the political party headquarters during the recent pre-Christmas telethons.
Indeed, I hope no one for a minute is gullible enough to believe that the amount that was declared had been collected from Joe Citizen by the two political parties on the 13 December is a reflection of the truth.
Take for example the collection at the PN premises, and for a wee second please turn to your calculator. At the Stamperija as we always used to call it, I noted eight phones. With eight phones and an average 15 phone calls an hour over a 12-hour period and pledges of Lm10 a call, the maximum amount one would collect works out to be Lm14,400.
The PN insists it collected over Lm300,000. If that is the case, then only a miniscule amount originated from the general public by way of pledges on the phone. If the PN wanted to collect Lm100,000 alone from phone pledges in 12 hours it would have to have at least two phone calls a minute on every phone for 12 hours with pledges of Lm10 every time.
Now, no one is that generous. Only the fanatical voters donate cash on their phones, the ones whom the parties have brainwashed. I know of somebody who actually conjured up the belief that her donation to the PN would go to the community chest fund, such is the confusion between party and state during these telethons. An extra Lm20 to the PN for nothing.
On the day the Maltese nation were supposed to be glued to their television box, many moderate blues and reds had better things to do than watch a group of sycophants salute their party and wiggle their ass to unworthy pop songs. Most moderates could not give a hoot about their party and pray they could get on with their lives without this constant intrusion.
Party secretaries declare that their party membership is growing and that their coffers are being injected with donations from Joe Citizen. It is simply untrue. The real donors are the usual fat cats, the ones that would be regulated and subjected to media scrutiny if party financing regulations existed in this little republic.
The fact that party financing regulations do not exist is entirely Eddie Fenech Adami’s and Lawrence Gonzi’s fault. They have procrastinated and decided to do nothing over the years.
The fact remains that political parties have nose-diving memberships and to boost their numbers, all the political parties, the three of them, keep the registered members of yesteryear on their membership list. Unless, that is, they receive a nasty letter asking them to have the names erased.
Stop believing what politicians and the political parties have been saying; it is all a bag of lies.
Eddie Fenech Adami is a remarkable politician.
After having essentially appointed himself President of the Republic of Malta, he then awards his most loyal and devoted servant Richard Cachia Caruana the most bizarrely titled medal known as ‘il-Kumpann Ordni tal-Mertu’ (Companion of the Order of Merit).
The list of those who have been awarded this medal reads like the PN’s lonely hearts’ club band. Peter Serracino Inglott (the half-priest, half-politician who wrote the PN electoral manifestos and always stood by Louis Galea when he should not have), Guido Demarco (deputy leader of the PN), George Hyzler (former PN minister) and John Rizzo Naudi (former PN minister) are all, amongst others, recipients of this highly unrecognised medal.
You will probably remember that Richard still refuses to be interviewed by MaltaToday. It can be explained by the fact that he is scared stiff of facing the real questions. Ritchie is usually interviewed by toadies, people who do not ask questions but read out the questions given out to them. He is the non-elected cabinet minister who flies first-class from Brussels to Malta, insisting on a fat-free meal in time to attend Monday cabinet meetings, costing the Maltese taxpayer thousands of liri in first-class flights.
Richard deserves to be committed to memory. If he had been a Brit in the very class conscious United Kingdom, where people are appointed Lords if they either donate large sums to or support the Labour party, he would surely or rather undoubtedly be in the House of Lords and be called Lord Richard.
But at least in Britain, the people who do become Lords, appreciate the existence of the largely ceremonial House of Lords, even though it is basically a circus of geriatrics exploiting patronage to continue serving a purpose when they should be either pottering about or writing their biographies.
In the case of Richard I cannot for one minute believe that he embraces the meaning of the Republic. The Republic is not the most loved event for any true Nationalist. His idea of Jum ir-Repubblika is just very much what we, I mean most of us, think of Republic day – another bloody national holiday. I mean can you just imagine Richard being a Republican? Even so, Eddie continues to surprise us with his obstinacy and hard-headed approach, awarding his former personal assistant a medal of the Republic goes to prove that in this world of ours, patronage is still very much at the centre of Maltese politics.
Now that Christmas is at last knocking at our door, I for one should avoid being mean to RCC. But it has to be said that Lino Farrugia, the hunter who would love to be loved, is pointing fingers at me and others and blaming us for all their present and future deprivation. In the sense that we are blocking their habitual addiction to put their forefinger on the trigger and release some 30 grams of hot lead on a bundle of live feathers.
If he had any sense, Lino would point his guns (metaphorically that is) at RCC, who I am informed effectively produced the new bird regulations from his Brussels office with the help of his legal aide.
Now, do not get me wrong. RCC should be congratulated and hugged for such a wonderful piece of legislation. But the fact is that I had nothing to do with it. Lino, I am out of it. I am a pariah to the politicians. I am the plague. I am persona non grata.
I am only a journalist who pens an opinion once a week, a right given to me by the Maltese Constitution and encouraged by this great sense of freedom we are supposed to experience in the Western World and more importantly by the need to earn a living.
Lino continues to babble and insist his organisation is a member of a European Union association of hunting groups (FACE), but he does not tell his blind acolytes that FACE do not applaud what happens in Malta when it comes to barbaric hunting practices. Mr Farrugia is of course on a collision course and to make matters worse, he has landed himself in the same corner most union leaders usually find themselves in.
Lino, who has been secretary general of the hunter’s lobby for donkey’s years, would not like to lose his post as the top man in the association. So he sucks up to his members, many of whom, given half a chance would throw away any basic conservation law and shoot to smithereens every bird that comes their way.
We all know that deep in his heart, Mr Farrugia remains a staunch Nationalist from Birkirkara who would prefer not to harm his party. We know that the Labour party do not trust him. Yet in his sermons at the Rabat protest he accuses me of being the reason for the government’s decision to see hunting curbed. I am flattered.
Blame yourself Lino, for the present situation, primarily for being unable to control your members from re-enacting Rambo every time they hit the countryside.
Lino may have the strength to muster a few hundreds in a Rabat square, but he cannot control what the individual hunters do when they are all alone in their hunting hide waiting for a bird, any bird, to flap their way by. Needless to say, the government is in no mood to listen to what I have to say but nonetheless, Mr Farrugia conveniently goes on rousing dangerous emotions amongst his followers, anger that could lead to unpleasant repercussions.
Hunters, with all their macho looks, are so in love with their bundle of feathers that some of them could sell their wives and daughters at a flea market if it suited their hunting fancy. So expect the most irrational reactions from some of them.
In the event, the best thing Lino could do is to continue with his talent of acting as a rabble-rouser and hope that a miracle will change destiny. The one thing that will change is that before the next election, the government will stop enforcing the law and more ominously, treat the hunters with soft gloves.
It has to be recalled how many journalists have been terrorised and do not continue writing about hunting. For example Natalino Fenech, who for years campaigned against hunting, no longer puts his name to stories on hunting in The Times because of the threats he and his family have experienced from hunters. Many others have decided to simply just stop writing. Many activists in BirdLife have called it a day, unable to take the abuse they face at home and when out in the countryside.
Lino Farrugia does not manage a posse of Coco Chanel brunettes but a regiment of gorillas with the intellectual propensity of Pitcairn islanders. In the official website of Lino Farrugia’s organisation, Lino’s supporters are constantly posting veiled threats. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know what this will lead to.
People will continue to be terrorised by the antics of Maltese hunters, political parties will lose elections with or without hunters, migratory birds will continue to be killed, MaltaToday and Illum readers will increase as hunting and trapping will decline until finally it disappears.
Most probably when that moment does arrive, both myself and Lino will be seven feet under, but there will come a time when the hunters gathering at Rabat will be a thing of the past.
The Barn Owls will return to breed at the Mdina bastions, the Jackdaws once common in Maltese towns will return to Mellieha, the Peregrine Falcon will hover over its young at the Ta’ Cenc cliffs and Turtle doves will nest at Mizieb as migrating Flamingos wade in the saltpans at Salina.
Knowing my luck, I will be posthumously awarded ‘il-Kumpann Ordni tal-Mertu’ – I’d be so thankful, it would be such a privilege to be at par with the likes of Richard.
I notice that Mr Bondì has given up on his idea of having a TV programme on the John Dalli case. He had advertised the programme for next Tuesday only to suddenly start advertising a programme on the Archbishop. What was behind this change of heart?
For once I was looking forward to seeing his programme. I was so curious to see how Mr Bondì would tackle such a delicate subject. His intention of having a programme on the subject could be described as the perfect example of conflict of interest, or a fine example of incredulous cheek.
For you have to be someone special to come up with such an idea. How the hell can anyone have a programme which involves one of your ex-mates who has been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on fabricating a fairy tale?
What was Mr Bondì going to ask Mr Joe Zahra? Allow me to deduce the line of questioning; with Mr Bondì’s programme paid from taxpayers’ money, I am sure some nail-biting research must be at the back of each and every programme. Okay, here we go:
“Joe, tell us what was your relationship with… myself?”
“Joe, when the Satanic masses were filmed in November 2003, were they fake or were they true?”
“Joe remind me, when you told me about your ugly past, what I did tell you?”
“Joe, when you carried out research for our programmes, what part of your research was fact and what percentage was made-up?”
“Joe, really and truly, what makes us glue together?”
“Joe, when you worked with me or for me or for WE, did it remind you of the time you spent with Lorry Sant?”
“Joe tell me, will you have a chance to share a ftira with me or WE at the cafeteria you run just under our offices?”
“And finally, why didn’t you tell me about your fabricated report on the Mater Dei tender? I feel so offended to have been left in the dark and to have learnt about it from the newspapers!”
For Mr Bondì, to even have thought of such a programme involving directly his very own former TV consultant Joe Zahra, is incredible.
What he should have done is my guess. What PBS should be doing is everybody’s guess. But then do not for a moment believe that anything will change at the state TV. It is after all not their money – just ours and guess what, WE have no say in it!
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