Glenn Bedingfield’s maiden speech in the House: ‘PL government is anti-establishment’

Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield used his maiden speech in Parliament to insist that the PL government is “anti-establishment” and to lambast the “hypocrisy” of critics of his online blog.

“The more we go against the establishment, the more we can feel its sting,” he said. “The Labour Party gains its strength from the people and not from the structures of the establishment, those structures of society dominated by old money, the courts, the media and the constituted bodies, with the Nationalist Party as its political hand.”

Bedingfield, a communications aide to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, claimed that the PN’s enmity towards the Labour government stems from its desire to maintain the status quo.

“The PN defends the establishment whenever it is in government, which is why it is a conservative party and why it can never, ever be an agent of change,” he said. “On the other hand, the Labour government makes the establishment feel uneasy at the changes we are implementing.”

He praised the current government as “the best government in Malta since 1976” and accused the Opposition of negativity, of employing mudslinging tactics, and of smearing Malta’s name overseas in an attempt to hinder foreign investment.

In his speech, Bedingfield also accused critics of his online blog as hypocrisy, arguing that they never uttered a word when “only one blog was operating” – clear reference to Daphne Caruana Galizia.

“I apologize to everyone I might have hurt in my blog, but nobody used to utter a word when just one blog was operating,” he said. “As soon as I opened my blog, it was as though the doors of heaven opened up and I was met with a torrent of criticism.”

He drew parallels with how L-Orizzont editor Josef Caruana was criticised for calling critical journalists traitors, and for how former GWU secretary general Toni Zarb was criticised for using the same language against PN MEPs Roberta Metsola and David Casa.

“Far worse things have been written than what [Caruana and Zarb] had said, and yet those words weren’t criticised…”