Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1385129
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 JUNE 2021 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA IF politics can be war, then Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando is a battle-scarred survivor who emerged from the nadir of his political life with guns blazing, taking down all his adversaries. Here he is once again, years after his last political foray, with some literary gunpowder: a memoir of his political career, and it packs quite the punch. There is no doubt that JPO's excessive sense of personality, perhaps a lack of regret, will hit readers in the face. His candour, at times ruthless, reveals a man comfortable in his own skin, but all to ready to take apart those who slighted him. And while he is forthcoming in setting the re- cord straight on more than one aspect of his personal life, he is unrepentant about 'Mistragate', the scandal that butchered his environmental credentials. It's quite the chipper read, nev- er bogged down in excessive de- tail (Mistra's wrongdoing per se gets skimmed over...) but rich enough to wrap up the chapters that define his life so far. His trials and tribulations are nar- rated through accounts about the people that marked his life, because each chapter is actual- ly named after a person: Eddie (Fenech Adami), Marlene (Far- rugia), Lawrence (Gonzi), Alfred Sant, Richard Cachia Caruana and Daphne Caruana Galizia. It makes for a remorseless kiss- and-tell, and quite an insight in- to the extroverted MP. Gonzi's shrill voice on the phone telling him off over his private mem- ber's bill on the Polidano cement factory... Daphne shopping RCC as the man who orchestrated a press onslaught against him after 2008... all these JPO an- ecdotes have the timbre of gre- gariousness that would befit a live narration, with a couple of drams to boot. But – as his memories of that fateful 2008 election scandal re- veal – Pullicino Orlando recalls a few sordid histories as well. It was then the election forever remembered as the one Labour lost, by just 1,500 votes. Their secret weapon had been that JPO, Nationalist MP of promise, had tried to influence the Malta Tourism Authority's opinion on a management plan for the Mis- tra Bay, but also on a prospective planning permit for an open-air disco by the tenant on JPO's own land there. It was a sensational take-down of JPO, now revealed to have been on the cusp of a lucrative contract for a disco in an ecolog- ically sensitive area. But the PN – specifically its strategy guru (and "megalomaniac", "intolerable bully") Richard Cachia Caruana – along with JPO's acquiescence, managed to defuse the offensive. Revenge of JPO: former MP takes no prisoners in memoirs A book that goes well with the suntan lotion: some skin is going to get scorched in Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando's fiery memoirs LOCAL councillors and residents of Marsaskala, together with Mov- iment Graffitti, have called on the Malta Tourism Authority to shut down a so-called design con- test aimed at making Marsaskala more attractive to visitors, claim- ing secret meetings and ulterior motives on the part of developers and Infrastructure Malta. Recently, architects, engineers, urban and town planners were invited to take part in an "urban design contest" to propose ways in which the seaside town could be made more attractive to tour- ists. The Marsaskala Regenera- tion Design Contest, launched on Tuesday by the MTA, is open to submissions until 9 September. But this has angered residents and regular visitors to the town, which so far has been relatively unscathed by Malta's construc- tion boom. Movment Graffitti activist An- dre Callus called on the MTA to immediately shut down this "pre- tend design contest," saying it was a cover up of plans which were already made behind the backs of residents. Lifetime Marsaskala resident and local councillor of long stand- ing, John Baptist Camilleri, told a press conference this morning that a proposed waterpolo pitch in the area – which would be the third such pitch in Marsaka- la – had been approved in secret without consultation with the res- idents. He asked why a subcommittee for the regeneration of the area had no terms of reference. He alleged that there were 'manoeu- vres' between this subcommittee and Infrastructure Malta behind the council's back to allow sub- stantial changes to Pjazza Sant Anna, changes of berthing sites and similar actions without con- sultation. The council would be informed after the projects were finalised, Camilleri said, "but that's not the way things should happen." Sociologist Prof. Godfrey Bal- dacchino pointed out that the Prime Minister himself is a resi- dent of Marsaskala, but that this had not protected the locality from "death by a thousand cuts." "Piece by piece, not by a single mortal blow, they are destroying the quality of our life..." Marsaskala residents up in arms over MTA design contest