In February 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and swiftly annexed the whole Crimean Peninsula. Vladimir Putin repeatedly insisted there were no Russian troops in Ukraine. The armed men who took over the region, he maintained, were “local forces of self-defence”.
Thousands of Russian soldiers were in Ukraine. When Putin was challenged by a Bloomberg reporter that the soldiers in Ukraine wore uniforms identical to Russian military uniforms, Putin shrugged and replied: “you can go to a store and buy any kind of uniform.”
Just a few months later, Putin casually reversed his position. “Of course, there were Russian troops in Ukraine,” he declared. In a testy interview, Austrian journalist Armin Wolf told Putin: “You had previously denied it.” Putin replied: “I did not deny anything. The Russian Army was always there.”
Putin knew what he was saying. He uses lies as power play. He asserts his right to say whatever he likes, to conceal whatever he wants. The message is: “and what are you going to do about it?”.
This is a bully tactic widely used by strongmen around the world, from Putin to Duterte, from Trump to Erdogan. They know they are lying; they know everybody knows they are lying but do it anyway. It’s an old school bully tactic – primitive but powerful.
Lying is not just about stating an untruth. It’s also about not stating the truth, about hiding the truth, about pretending you don’t know the truth. It’s also about stating a partial truth but not the whole truth. They are all lies. And when those lies are exposed for the lies that they are, the bully shrugs and keeps lying.
We’ve seen all of these to excess in the last few months, indeed, in the last few years.
Joseph Muscat couldn’t remember when he last saw Yorgen Fenech. He didn’t know about 17 Black. He saw no need to ask Keith Schembri about 17 Black.
Robert Abela has continued to use that same tactic. He knows he’s lying; he knows everybody knows he’s lying but he does it anyway because he can and we can do nothing about it. Nobody believes there is no termination agreement drawn up for Muscat. But that’s what Abela insists.
Everybody knows that Abela’s deal with Christian Borg was no “spin”. Nobody thinks the “small plot in Żabbar” is an overblown issue. No sane person believes the permits issued on that plot were a mere coincidence. Nobody believes that Borg’s quarter of a million contract with Transport Malta is the court’s fault, as Abela suggested.
No one believes Abela’s Żejtun property was only worth €600,000. Not a single citizen believes the sanctioning of the numerous illegalities on that property just coincidentally materialised a few days before Abela acquired the property. Nobody believes the tax commissioner just accidentally overlooked sending architects to carry out an independent valuation of that property.
Abela met Joseph Portelli for a special dinner organised with the help of the Office of the Prime Minister on the eve of an election and days before Portelli’s mega-development in Sannat was sanctioned against the recommendation of the case officer. Nobody seriously thinks the two are unrelated. Nobody is taken in by Abela’s explanation that he meets everybody. That was Muscat’s excuse when asked when he last met Fenech.
Labour has casually reversed its position on the truth repeatedly- Kevin Cassar
The truth doesn’t really matter. None of those lies mattered. Like Putin’s gratuitous U-turns, Labour has casually reversed its position on the truth repeatedly. Labour’s loyal supporters have been asked to embrace one version of events only to be told to simply discard it.
Vitals was an amazing deal for the country, it would boost the economy through medical tourism. Suddenly, Vitals was all wrong, it’s Steward that is the real deal. Hang on, we’ve got trouble with Steward too but we can’t just dump them because that will cost us a cool €100 million thanks to Konrad Mizzi’s secret side letters.
Pilatus was a superb bank being unfairly picked on by the negative Nationalists. Those FIAU reports were only written to be leaked. Suddenly Pilatus was shut down, its owner and Muscat’s friend prosecuted in the US.
There is nothing wrong with Panama companies, it’s all legal. Even President George Vella told us there was nothing illegal. Suddenly those Panama companies stink. And Evarist Bartolo had been telling Muscat “we can’t go on like this”. Bartolo even told Mizzi and Schembri how bad those companies were to their face.
Schembri was indispensable to the success of Labour and Malta. Those lies about Panama companies and money laundering with Adrian Hillman at Pilatus were just “media rumours”, according to Speaker Anġlu Farrugia. Hang on a minute. They may not have been lies after all. We’ll have to charge Schembri with money laundering. He’s no darling of the party any longer. Best not mention his name again.
And Mizzi, the star candidate, the most hard-working minister, the doer? He’s no star candidate anymore.
The American University of Malta, that huge Labour success, would lift the south of Malta. It would create thousands of jobs and recruit 4,000 students. We must give AUM the Cottonera campus and Żonqor Point. No sorry, we’ll need to take Żonqor back. And where are the students? Nobody in Cottonera has spotted any of them.
We’re the best in Europe. Our economy is booming. No, hang on, we’ve got the biggest deficit in the EU.
Remember the surplus? Well our deficit’s €1.2 billion now. That’s double the EU average. We risk being included in the Excessive Deficit Procedure. That won’t matter.
We’re greylisted too. That hasn’t affected us. And it won’t affect us. We’re firmly in power.
“During the past two years we haven’t had a single case of bad governance,” Abela smiled. And there are no Russian troops in Ukraine.