Grima shrugs off PL disapproval, ‘I’m only answerable to Joseph Muscat’

A former Labour minister whose abusive comments against a highly critical opinion piece on Dom Mintoff made headlines last week, has seemingly ignored a party statement that Labour did not approve of his disparaging comment

Joe Grima, who presents political chat-show Inkontri on Labour television station One, made headlines last week when his expletive-laden tirade against the author of an obituary on former Prime Minister raised a few eyebrows.

His online rant was a reaction to an obituary published by the Catholic Herald, penned by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith, in which he told the priest to 'fuck off' in his online comment.

Since then, the Nationalist party media has sought to exploit Grima's comments, asking Labour to explain its position over Grima's comments.

But in a Facebook post, Grima has shrugged off the Labour party's and Joseph Muscat's spokesperson's comments to the PN media that the party did not approve of his commentary.

"Kurt Farrugia told [Net TV] that the party does not approve this type of language. He has every right. What he forget to tell them was that I am only answerable to Joseph Muscat and certainly to no employee of the Labour Party."

Asked for his comment, Farrugia said he had nothing to add to what he told Net TV.

Grima also said he would not apologise for his reaction to Fr Lucie-Smith. "When the priests apologies for the hurt he caused to thousands of Maltese mourning the death of a great leader they loved, I will apologise for what I said."

In his obituary, Lucie-Smith said Mintoff caused great harm to Malta, describing him as a "a friend to Mao, Gaddafi and the Khmer Rouge, he was no harmless eccentric, and knew when to send in his thugs."

Joe Grima was Mintoff's special envoy for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Following the 1981 perverted electoral result, in which Labour remained in power despite winning less votes than the PN, he vehemently defended Labour's right to hang on to power. Grima was appointed industry and commerce ministry in 1981. He then became tourism minister in 1983.

Grima will be remembered for his militant views and controversial stands in the 1970s and 1980s: calling Fenech Adami a 'puff' in public meetings... only to later make a public apology.

In the years following Alfred Sant's election as Labour leader in 1992, Grima re-emerged from the political wilderness and anchored a discussion programme on the Nationalist Party's television station for seven years, openly supporting his former nemesis Eddie Fenech Adami.

This defection was borne out of Grima's sour relationship with Sant. However, following Sant's resignation and Joseph Muscat's election in 2008, Grima was once again welcomed back to the Labour Party, hosting a television show on One Television and being a vociferous critic of the Nationalist Party. Grima returned to the fold on the invitation of Labour leader Joseph Muscat.

Grima was not the only one to find Lucie-Smith's obituary objectionable. Hundreds of messages, some littered with abusive languange, have been posted on the Catholic Herald's webpage with people debating Lucie-Smith's sharp-worded and at times puerile obituary.