MaltaLabourBondiPlus

The announcement that the greatest and most independent journalist North of Khartoum and South of Narvik the one and only Lou Bondi was appointed on the foundation for national festivities by Joseph Muscat, was welcomed by my pet hamster and no one else.  

Hang on, perhaps Franco Debono welcomed it too... but then again, I'm sure you'll agree that Franco Debono's opinion is now worth jack shit.

It proved beyond any doubt that if previously Mr Bondi was not liked, today he's considered to be a clown by absolutely everyone (apart from Joseph Muscat, that is).

If he was booed when he appeared for a short fleeting moment on the big screen during a Carlos Santana concert, today the crowd would break into unstoppable laughter and die from severe stomach pains.

Since his first days at PBS, Bondi has characterised his journalism into a personal campaign against all those who have been critical of GonziPN and moreover, anyone who has criticised him and his style and prejudice.

If he takes umbrage at this description - citing my style to justify his verbal terrorism - he would do good to remember that unlike him, I do not make my living from people's taxes.

Needless to say, he has been the recipient of thousands of Maltese liri and euros a week, together with Joe (now called 'Peppi') Azzopardi, while at the same time taking up marketing campaigns from government departments.

His programmes have been shameless one-sided propaganda shows and have been backed by the respective PBS chairman and all PBS boards and Gonzi himself.

It is no secret that programmes' selection were blessed by the Office of the Prime Minister. I know this for a fact.

His programme has been described by the tagline: 'Ġurnaliżmu fuq kollox' ('Journalism above all'), and a solemn hypocritical declaration that he is an independent journalist, when in fact he was nothing more than an apologist for the Gonzi administration.

His thinking coincided with the scribbles of Andrew Borg Cardona and the Queen of Bile, and the three often joined forces to underline their verbal terrorism.

In all these years, his style was indirectly abetted by the Nationalist administration and the people surrounding Gonzi.

Bondi - a former Marx aficionado who studied in Canada before 1987 - says that he was not in cahoots with the PN administration, but his choice of programmes and his decision to ignore other issues made him a derided figure for Labourites.

He had his pet hates. MaltaToday, John Dalli and myself were three subjects that made him see red. And all throughout the editorial board - headed by Father Joe Borg and Joe Pirotta - did nothing to stop him.

But perhaps people forget what really made him turn red - perhaps literally, though even that is possible.

The reasons are documented in many of my writings. These are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

The first was the revelation of his decision to base many of his programmes on the fraudulent workings of his sidekick, the former police sergeant and Lorry Sant crony Joe Zahra.

The very fact that the PN tolerated Bondi with Zahra at his side gave me pause.

Zahra not only portrayed himself as a freemason and a private investigator, he also concocted a fabricated report which he presented (through the late Joseph Fenech's legal office) to Lawrence Gonzi.
Joe Zahra was found guilty of fabricating the report and sentenced to two years imprisonment. The Where's Everybody? team stated that he was no longer connected with them after this, but on several occasions I saw him ferrying WE staff in a car or entering the WE offices in G'Mangia.

During that period, PBS served Bondi's fixation against Dalli well. Bondi went into overdrive as he flogged the idea of a possible kick back in the Mater Dei contract.

The Zahra-fabricated report was believed by Lawrence Gonzi, and this led to the John Dalli resignation in 2004. Bondi would return to haunt Dalli in 2012 and 2013 with the OLAF report.

When once again, employing the sterling services of Zahra, Bondi shocked the nation with a programme on Satanism on PBS, it coincided with a survey by the Broadcasting Authority on viewership.
What then followed was a story in MaltaToday which revealed that the whole Satanic undercover operation was a sham. The 'Satanists' chanting and growling in the poorly filmed feature were all amateur actors... some of whom later spoke up with MaltaToday, indicating that they had not been paid for their shoddy acting.

That story was not picked up by the PBS board. When I raised the matter with Father Joe Borg, nothing happened.

Quite the contrary, in fact: I was asked to withdraw my allegations, or be forced to give up my programme. Eventually, I lost my programme on TVM.

Mr Bondi always denies being close to the PN, yet he was held in very high regard by Lawrence Gonzi, Richard Cachia Caruana and Edgar Galea Curmi.

And his access to information was definitely not linked to his investigative competence but rather to his fortunate proximity to the powers that be.

When one fine day a certain editorial board chairman by the name of John Camilleri (a former personal assistant to Eddie Fenech Adami) decided not to shortlist Bondi for his discussion and instead shortlisted my programme. Bondi proceeded to launch a vicious tirade against John Camilleri and other board members such as Dominic Fenech, suggesting that I was in bed with them.

John Camilleri departed as head of editorial board and Bondi's programme re-entered the short list.

The last 15 odd years of Bondi's presence on PBS did not help him to reinvent himself as an independent journalist. Instead he remained a shadow of his original role in the Nationalist Party (an information officer).

In the last eight years Bondi remained a stalwart supporter of the Gonzi administration. He lambasted all those who dared raise a finger against Gonzi, using desultory language against those who opposed the former Prime Minister and Nationalist leader.

He went even further than that. He used his programme to promote private musical events, and his closeness to former Nationalist militant Anton Attard - whom Muscat refuses to remove from the post of PBS Chief Executive - is known to all.

Lou Bondi's conflict of interest had no limits. He involved himself in new companies such as WE events - which received big contracts such as Malta's EU accession ceremony - and Bondi, along with his company, had direct links to ministries were he acted as marketing guru.

Before he fell out with his cousin Austin Gatt over some familial issue, he kept a healthy line of communication to the Minister who now spearheads the Hili Group and the Smart meters. This link was rekindled thanks to the oil scandal revealed by MaltaToday.

From January to March, Lou Bondi would be seen before press conferences ushering out from the administrative offices of the PN before taking a seat with the other journalists.

During the press conferences he would intentionally or coincidentally take the hard line espoused by Joe Saliba and Austin Gatt.

The aim was to shoot the messenger, rather than the message.
When, on election day, the police visited the Queen of Bile for ignoring the obligatory day of silence, Bondi descended on her Bidnija home like a knight in shining armour to film and record her pathetic quibbles.

His visceral hatred for MaltaToday led him to repeatedly refer to MaltaToday on PBS and press conferences as the 'MaltaLabourPartyToday'. That led me to protest with the Broadcasting Authority, who asked PBS to explain. PBS were represented by the PBS lawyer Mark Vassallo, who also happens to be a WE shareholder and director. Like Bondi, Vassallo has no shame.

Mr Bondi would not stop at TV to express his convoluted opinion, he would use Facebook and his personal blog to lash out.

Joseph Muscat's decision has infuriated Labourites and likewise all those Nationalists who cannot quite understand what is happening.

I am very pleased that Bondi has finally embraced Dr Muscat. I am pleased that he has left the Queen of Bile reeling in a confused state of mind, so much so that she does know whether to throw another tantrum and kick her Royal Doulton around or collapse into the arms of Andrew Borg Cardona and cry.

I suggest she does both: fling her Royal Doulton at an image of Lou Bondi and rush to the comfort of Borg Cardona's cuddly belly and wail like a baby.

And with regards to Muscat, I would say: stop trying to be smart.

And always remember what my great aunt said: everybody has a price.

The Queen of Bile, Andrew Borg Cardona, Lou Bondi... and most especially Franco Debono, know this.