MARY, MARY QUITE CONTRARY – the enigma that is Adrian Delia
I sat in numb silence yesterday afternoon listening to TV reports of the speech given on the day by Opposition Leader Adrian Delia – numb because it is the absolute OPPOSITE of reality. Numb because I simply cannot understand how a person who speaks the very opposite of reality can expect to do so and actually get away with it.
I am sympathetic that last week was not a good week for him, a week in which he had to eat his very words when firmly swept into a corner by the Simon Busuttil faction within his own ranks, an internal revolution that was in fact a volcanic eruption within the PN.
Yesterday, Sunday, did not dawn as a good day for him by the emphatic pronouncements of the “Malta Today” survey which showed the PN to be over the hills and very far away.
One would have thought that his Sunday sermon would attempt to try and retrench his position as PN Leader – and he did the exact opposite, continuing to dig his own grave with a deeper trench. Fancy saying the country has been swept into poverty by the Labour Government when all the facts show the opposite!
The essence of his sermon was (a) the Government is keeping silent on “the increase of fuel prices”; (b) the negative result of Standard & Poor’s estimation of the banking sector; (c) the increase in poverty; (b) the Government ignores and insults those who criticise it.
Let us take the “increase in poverty” and Delia’s claims that while the Government is making economically merry, the country is receding into poverty; families are being forced to send children to work and stop them studying further to create more income; increasing numbers are losing their rented residence and are sleeping out; more people have slipped below the poverty line.
All lies of course; assertions not worth wasting time analysing because they are obviously and visibly untrue. The statistics speak for themselves. Visibility speaks for itself, bars and restaurants are always packed to the brim, breaks in Gozo of record proportions, tourist arrivals and Maltese travel abroad booming, vehicles on roads at record levels, employment at a virtual maximum – all reflected not only in National Statistics but in EU statistics.
Increase in fuel prices? These are still LOWER than when his Government left them in 2013 following a time when they regularly shot up overnight. This followed Delia’s earlier assertions during the week that the Government is “cheating” 80% of the population on electricity prices. I must be in the privileged remaining 20% because my energy bills have been HALVED since 2013. Maybe others are not so fortunate.
Statistics also show that contrary to his assertions, many more people are nowadays better off and the numbers at poverty levels and below have declined sharply.
Struggling to survive? I have been working for over 50 years and yes, it has always been a struggle to survive dependent on one’s expectancy and one’s standards. The well-off have to struggle to serve to maintain their standard; millionaires have to struggle to survive to retain their status. So, what else is new?
Consequently, so much for the assertion that “the Government is creating poverty”.
Standard and Poor’s assertions about the banking sector where demolished overnight by Fitch Ratings which reported a booming economy, a healthy banking sector, a more than healthy national economy and placing Malta in the best EU economic bracket.
When Delia asserted that those who criticise Government end up being ignored and insulted, who did he have in mind? Maybe Jason Azzopardi, or Simon Busuttil, or David Casa or perhaps Robert Metsola? These have been doing their utmost to heap damage and ignominy on the country and Delia has done nothing to stop them and is too weak to do anything.
Maybe these should be lauded and presented with flowers? Maybe the country should be grateful there are those among us who create “frame-ups” and try to destroy individuals and their families?
The further Delia goes, the deeper the trench he digs and sadly he does not seem able to realise it.
The last word must go to former PN MP Franco Debono who rightly said yesterday that the people have become “highly fearful” of the Nationalist Party and the Party’s standing today is down to former Nationalist PM Lawrence Gonzi and the legacy he left behind.
Delia is still stuck in the mud and sludge of that horrendous legacy.
ALBERT JEROME FENECH
