Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/248536
21 Opinion maltatoday, SUNDAY, 26 JANUARY 2014 The PL must be very desperate indeed to salvage its IIP citizenship, if it treats any form of perceived outside 'aid' as if it were a lifeline lowered by an AFM helicopter in an encroaching sea of jellyfish actually put into such a critical master-plan, before unleashing it onto an unsuspecting public. Conversely, to quote a single local opinion columnist – me, in this case – is also to betray precisely how little in the way of 'support' the Labour Party really has. A leading article in the Financial Times I'd sort of understand. But an opinion column in a newspaper your own party exponents have sued on countless occasions? I mean, seriously: is that the best you've got? However you look at it, it just doesn't seem a very bright idea. But then again, neither does the concept of politically-owned stations in Malta in the 21st century. And at both levels, these two absurdities illustrate the same thing: how a political party – Labour in this case, but PN in another – simply cannot distinguish between its own narrow interests, and the much broader interests of many thousands of people who just don't feel represented by political parties anymore. In fact, they cannot even see those people at all. So blind have they become to all that lies outside the confines of their respective party headquarters, that neither station even paused to consider how their antics would be construed from any other perspective but their own. So Net went along and frightened a foreigner out of wits… and in so doing also exposed the extent of their own panic for all to see. And One thought it would be a good idea to draw attention to their own spectacular isolation, by quoting… me. Heck, it even sounds like a nursery rhyme. You'd almost expect Little Miss Muffet to sit on her tuffet, and Jill to come tumbling after. But there is a crucial difference. Nursery rhymes are kind of cute (I suppose)… but there is nothing cute, cuddly or even remotely endearing about an entire country that just refuses to ever grow up. Download the MaltaToday App now by the attention… but I'm not. I can't be, because it's just another symptom of the same syndrome. And besides: since when has the opinion of any one media contributor, of itself, ever been considered newsworthy? Since when is anyone's opinion even reported in a news bulletin at all, unless there are overarching factors which concern everybody else… e.g, the 'anyone' has his finger on the 'Big Red Button that goes Boom'? Since never, I would say to both. The PL must be very desperate indeed to salvage its IIP citizenship, if it treats any form of perceived outside 'aid' as if it were a lifeline lowered by an AFM helicopter in an encroaching sea of jellyfish. It is increasingly becoming clear that much, much more now depends on this scheme than a bunch of council projects unveiled by the prime minister this week… in which case, one can only seriously marvel at how little forethought the government