The journalist

The Malta Independent on Sunday The Journalist

Unless they want to force labour to resort to the threat or use of violence with which Mintoff used to control the power network, the network must dismantle and give Labour a fair chance to govern in accordance with the electoral mandate.

I`m sure you remember the uproar raised by this simple statement I published last August. Many puritan journalists were shocked and interpreted this as my advocating the use of violence. In doing so they had an agenda to besmirch` me and dilute the following I command among the all important middle ground of Maltese society.

I suggest you read it again.` Read it slowly.` Read it carefully.` Not once, but twice, three times,` ten times. Then remember that the title of the article was Blairing the gap.

And remember that the whole trust of the article was an appeal for Labour not to compromise the middle ground whilst nursing its hard line fringes. An appeal for a new social pact where the organisations of society with power outside the political sphere strike a modus operandi with a new labour government to execute its mandate without undemocratic obstacles.

My parting shot in the said articles read something like this and I believe it says it all:

Labour on its part needs to do what Tony Blair did in making the UK Labour Party acceptable in the former hard core conservative precincts, including the financial City. Labour needs to regain the hard core without losing the middle ground. Labour needs to be perceived as a sustainable alternative to a stale nationalist administration. Malta `s labour needs to fill the power gap by Blairing it.

Now read the offensive sentence above and confirm to yourself that it says exactly the opposite to what I have been charged with by biased critics. If you read it carefully you will see that not only I am not advocating Labour`s return to violence but I am effectively scandalising myself at the possibility` that the power network of organisations would prefer to continue obstructing Labour from executing its democratic electoral mandate in the hope that Labour would be forced to defend itself through use of force.

Compare this now to Daphne`s gaffe in writing the following:

What a pity he chose to punch Mr Grech instead of il-gurnalista Joe Mifsud. There would have been a roar of approval all round had he chosen the latter option.

Read it as many times as you want. I` must have read it a hundred times.` I just cannot see any irony in it. `Not even between the lines. It is simple straight forward English.

The assailant of the ex-Commissioner of Police should have reserved his wares for Joe Mifsud. He should have assaulted Joe Mifsud instead of the former Police Commissioner .` And had he done so not only he would not have been condemned but many` would have applauded in approval. This is absolutely uncomplicated.

But the chorus that went out of its` way to turn my argument of last August on` its head and give it a meaning diametrically opposed to that intended, were scandalised that the Press Club condemned the Daphne for wishing violence on a fellow journalist. The puritans who interpreted my promotion of a new social` pact as` an instigation of violence were quick in defending Daphne by squeezing every gram of imagination in their brain corridors to` expose the non-existing irony in her straight and simple instigation of violence on my namesake journalist.

Calling Joe Mifsud as the journalist is quite appropriate. For some time Hilton`s corporate motto was `The Hilton`the Hotel`. So it is quite appropriate for Joe Mifsud to be referred to as the journalist.

Because Joe was the main, and one of the few , journalists who defended the public`s right to know that the Police Commissioner was being investigated for alleged serious criminal offences whilst being allowed in full command of both the Police as well as the Secret Service with full facility to use the wide powers of such positions to confound the investigation in process.

Whether the ex-Commissioner is guilty or innocent is not the issue. The issue is that were it not for the likes of Joe Mifsud we would never have known that people in such powerful positions were conducting private lives which could expose them to blackmail with possible serious consequences to the security of the state and to the enforcement of law and order.

And whoever thought that the ex-Police Commissioner`s case` has now been buried by his resignation is wrong. It is closed in so far as Mr Grech is concerned who as a private citizen has every right to conduct a private life and to walk the streets without being assaulted. The cowardly act of his assault is totally condemnable as is totally condemnable the risible Lm75 fine given to the assailant (though it still looks hard compared to the Lm25 fine awarded to those who assaulted my brother in his private home to celebrate euphorically the PN`s 1998 election victory). But the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister still has to answer why Mr Grech was allowed to stay in position whilst the investigation was going on.

And our puritan journalists have every right to continue using double standards. But they have no right to pretend they can be considered as the journalists.