Monday, 25th February 2008
Shooting for votes
FIRST UP
Please note: I don't edit the comments to this blog, I merely write the thing - which comments get posted (and for that matter the way it's done) is not up to me. So the sanctimonious whiners who think I'm censoring them had better think again: their ineffectual spluttering can be published raw, for all I care.
MUG SHOOTING
I'm writing this on the day MaltaToday gave us an insight into why AzzNazz are so allergic to cameras. It is alleged in MT that a substantial number of AzzNazz candidates have some sort of issue with the criminal law. When you have this sort of issue, subconsciously you don't like having your photo taken. One of the offences allegedly committed by an AzzNazz candidate was incitement to racial hatred, while another was found guilty of theft and is also on probation for (soft)drug-related offences. Yet another is being done on money-laundering charges.
They're innocent until proven guilty, of course, except for the one who was, actually, proven guilty, but this crew is, indeed, motley in the extreme.
SHOOTING FOR VOTES
I'm told that on Sunday, AzzNazz had a love-in with the hunters. I've no idea what was said or done during this auspicious event, though I'm morally certain (isn't that a convenient phrase?) that overtures were made by AzzNazz to the bird-killers, albeit wrapped up in high sounding phrases like "traditional pastimes" or "part of our cultural heritage". To hear this balderdash, you'd think that hunters go out clad in the trappings of folklore and do their hunting with muzzle-loading black powder arquebuses, rather than wearing camo-gear and using repeaters.
During the EU Referendum and the following elections, the hunting lobby turned out to be just so much hot air. This time around, the hunters' leaders are threatening to "guide" their faithful to vote for whoever pledges to let them carry on killing birds. Whether this will have the slightest effect or not is not certain, and whether it will upset the balance between the parties is even less clear, but somehow I don't imagine this will discourage AzzNazz from snuggling up to them and trying to suck up a few votes. After all, appealing to baser instincts is an activity that AzzNazz has turned into something of a fine art.
You can imagine their strategy meetings. There's votes to be had in pandering to racism, let's say we're closing down those open centres. People are materialistic? Let me at it. MEPA-bashing? Try to keep me off it. And so on and so depressingly forth.
The sad thing about the so-called shot-gun vote, though, isn't that AzzNazz might go for it. Frankly, nothing this lot do surprises me anymore. What does concern me is that a rather more relevant political grouping (though you can hardly be less relevant than AzzNazz) might fall for the temptation, and it's not AD I'm talking about here.
No prizes for working out who might be telling the hunters that their noble aspirations will be catered for if they vote the right way. It's the same bunch who led by that guy who, flying in the face of the facts, is going around saying that the Treaty of Acquisition will be renegotiated. Never mind that you can't do this, Sant says you can, so there. Just as he says you can ignore the price of oil, and not tax overtime, without bothering to tell us how he's going to make up the deficit. He's said it will be so, and that's all there is to it. Just as he dares call people corrupt and then fail to provide a shred of evidence: "they are corrupt because I say they are corrupt and there's an end to it" is the sum total of his position on this, for all the world as if we are supposed to stagger back in awe at his omniscience. And if you think I'm making this up, read his interview in the Sunday Times.
And then we used to call Mintoff paternalistic. When you think about it, we've had a straight line of succession in paternalistic socialism right from the old buffer through KMB to Sant: they all knew best and our only choice was to ask "how high" on the way up.
So you probably would forgive me for wondering aloud whether the MLP isn't going to grab the opportunity to seduce the shot-gun vote with both hands. And if that happens, what are the rest of us, the silent majority that objects to rampant law-breaking and overt bullying, going to do?
Vote intelligently, one trusts. For my part, intelligent voting means voting for the Prime Minister I want in place, without having pipe-dreams about a coalition or third voices or such like wooly thinking.
Incidentally, can you imagine a coalition between AD (for the sake of argument, let's make the leap and say they get a seat) and the MLP, if by some quirk the latter were actually helped into power by the bird-killers? It would be such a delicious irony, though one I'd prefer we won't have to witness.
Please note: I don't edit the comments to this blog, I merely write the thing - which comments get posted (and for that matter the way it's done) is not up to me. So the sanctimonious whiners who think I'm censoring them had better think again: their ineffectual spluttering can be published raw, for all I care.
MUG SHOOTING
I'm writing this on the day MaltaToday gave us an insight into why AzzNazz are so allergic to cameras. It is alleged in MT that a substantial number of AzzNazz candidates have some sort of issue with the criminal law. When you have this sort of issue, subconsciously you don't like having your photo taken. One of the offences allegedly committed by an AzzNazz candidate was incitement to racial hatred, while another was found guilty of theft and is also on probation for (soft)drug-related offences. Yet another is being done on money-laundering charges.
They're innocent until proven guilty, of course, except for the one who was, actually, proven guilty, but this crew is, indeed, motley in the extreme.
SHOOTING FOR VOTES
I'm told that on Sunday, AzzNazz had a love-in with the hunters. I've no idea what was said or done during this auspicious event, though I'm morally certain (isn't that a convenient phrase?) that overtures were made by AzzNazz to the bird-killers, albeit wrapped up in high sounding phrases like "traditional pastimes" or "part of our cultural heritage". To hear this balderdash, you'd think that hunters go out clad in the trappings of folklore and do their hunting with muzzle-loading black powder arquebuses, rather than wearing camo-gear and using repeaters.
During the EU Referendum and the following elections, the hunting lobby turned out to be just so much hot air. This time around, the hunters' leaders are threatening to "guide" their faithful to vote for whoever pledges to let them carry on killing birds. Whether this will have the slightest effect or not is not certain, and whether it will upset the balance between the parties is even less clear, but somehow I don't imagine this will discourage AzzNazz from snuggling up to them and trying to suck up a few votes. After all, appealing to baser instincts is an activity that AzzNazz has turned into something of a fine art.
You can imagine their strategy meetings. There's votes to be had in pandering to racism, let's say we're closing down those open centres. People are materialistic? Let me at it. MEPA-bashing? Try to keep me off it. And so on and so depressingly forth.
The sad thing about the so-called shot-gun vote, though, isn't that AzzNazz might go for it. Frankly, nothing this lot do surprises me anymore. What does concern me is that a rather more relevant political grouping (though you can hardly be less relevant than AzzNazz) might fall for the temptation, and it's not AD I'm talking about here.
No prizes for working out who might be telling the hunters that their noble aspirations will be catered for if they vote the right way. It's the same bunch who led by that guy who, flying in the face of the facts, is going around saying that the Treaty of Acquisition will be renegotiated. Never mind that you can't do this, Sant says you can, so there. Just as he says you can ignore the price of oil, and not tax overtime, without bothering to tell us how he's going to make up the deficit. He's said it will be so, and that's all there is to it. Just as he dares call people corrupt and then fail to provide a shred of evidence: "they are corrupt because I say they are corrupt and there's an end to it" is the sum total of his position on this, for all the world as if we are supposed to stagger back in awe at his omniscience. And if you think I'm making this up, read his interview in the Sunday Times.
And then we used to call Mintoff paternalistic. When you think about it, we've had a straight line of succession in paternalistic socialism right from the old buffer through KMB to Sant: they all knew best and our only choice was to ask "how high" on the way up.
So you probably would forgive me for wondering aloud whether the MLP isn't going to grab the opportunity to seduce the shot-gun vote with both hands. And if that happens, what are the rest of us, the silent majority that objects to rampant law-breaking and overt bullying, going to do?
Vote intelligently, one trusts. For my part, intelligent voting means voting for the Prime Minister I want in place, without having pipe-dreams about a coalition or third voices or such like wooly thinking.
Incidentally, can you imagine a coalition between AD (for the sake of argument, let's make the leap and say they get a seat) and the MLP, if by some quirk the latter were actually helped into power by the bird-killers? It would be such a delicious irony, though one I'd prefer we won't have to witness.
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Comments
Just for the sake of argument, if (God forbid, as in anybody’s case) this PM is called over for heavenly tasks earlier, then are we to be lumped with some bloke (I hate to think who, and it’s not JD), and his thus unchecked antics, throughout the remaining term?!
Also for argument’s sake….would an MLP-AD Coalition be preferable than a sole MLP govt?
If so, would it not be sensible for “PN voters” to include AD also on their preference list? I’m not mentioning AzzN for reasons you rightly mentioned in the blog.
At least, till now, our dear altruistic MLPN have not (on paper), removed the single transferable vote option, and sensible voters really ought to use it to attest their preferences across party lines, and to candidates who are deemed to have valuable input to give.
This will also send a clear message that voters are aware and ready to factually acknowledge the merits/qualities of different parties/candidates – and will not likely bail out their traditional party, time and again.