THE NEW general-secretary of Pasydy, the public parasites union, Stratis Mattheou seems a much nicer guy than his obnoxiously arrogant predecessor, Glafcos Hadjiklamouris, who believed he owned our Kyproulla and had the right to bully everyone into submission.
Admittedly, everyone is nicer than Hadjimourmouris, but the softly-spoken Mattheou comes across as a gentle and polite man, not inclined to intimidate anyone that disagrees with him. Although his style is different, the mentality of entitlement is the same as is the disregard for all non-parasitic workers.
Speaking about CoLA on Trito on Thursday, Mattheou embraced these values, asserting that it was the only tool for safeguarding the purchasing power of the middle class. In Cyprus there was nothing else to protect the middle class he explained. Asked by the presenter who was the middle class in need of CoLA protection, he said, without hesitation, “the public employees.”
Was it not provocative for members of this middle class on big wages to get pay rises (only a third of private sector workers received CoLA), he was asked. “No,” he said, there were targeted measures for the vulnerable members of society which could be expanded.
As he explained, CoLA was not a tool for social policy. I have to agree with him there. It is a tool for making the privileged public parasites richer.
THIS ESTABLISHMENT has always maintained that on economic issues, 95 per cent of the population thinks like Akelites. Additional proof for our unscientific theory was offered by the Federation of Employers and Industrialists, Oev, which on Thursday decided to accept the labour minister’s mediation proposal on CoLA.
The Akelite employers agreed that CoLA should be increased from 50 to 67.7 per cent of the cost of living index, and be calculated on last year’s index, which is almost double this year’s, during which inflation has fallen. The reason – to safeguard industrial and social peace, which would be threatened if it did not protect the purchasing power of the wages of public parasites.
In the statement announcing its acceptance of minister’s proposal that would increase CoLA, Oev eloquently explained its thinking. “It is an outdated system which fuels inflation, widens the wages gap between the highly-paid and lowly-paid workers, affects disproportionately production costs, undermines the competitiveness of businesses, hits exports and damages the economy as a whole.”
Given all this harm caused to the economy by CoLA, the Akelites of Oev had no choice but to accept the minister’s proposal. Mattheou might still make them honorary members of Pasydy, even though a seat on the Akel central committee is unlikely.
NIK THE FIRST was again forced to publicly declare someone he had spoken to a liar, a habit of his that has become much too frequent.
This time it was the lawyer Andreas Papacharalambous, who claimed in an interview that, when he was serving as president of the committee for the protection and ethics of sport, Nik called him and asked him not to investigate match-fixing allegations relating to a friendly between Apollonas and Karmiotissa. The tie had been flagged for increased betting activity.
“I was appointed chairman of an independent body and he essentially wanted me to engage in corruption,” Papacharalambous said. Nik immediately responded with a written statement, dismissing the allegations as “false” and “obscene,” before engaging in the character assassination of his accuser.
Papacharalambous joins a stellar cast of men on whom Nik has bestowed the honorary title of ‘liar.’ These include, among others, former UN Special Representative, Espen Barth Eide, Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglou, the late Archbishop Chrysostomos II and Zeus group boss Costis Hadjicostis.
All of them liars, trying to harm a man who, by his own admission, never tells a lie.
THE LATEST denial was a case of “the lady doth protest too much,” even though Nik is no lady. Since Papacharalambous made his allegations on Thursday, Nik issued three statements, released letters in which members of the sports committee bad-mouth Pap, and labelled him an “incompetent” to hacks on Saturday.
This not being enough, Nik got his former government spokesman and minister, Kyriakos Koushos to have a public dig at Pap with whom he was a partner in a law firm. KK issued a statement, saying Pap’s allegations, were a “figment of his imagination.”
How did KK know this? Had he listened to the telephone conversation the lawyer had with Nik about match-fixing? No, he just believed what he was told about it by the man who never lied in his life.
I KNOW I will be accused of gross insensitivity, but I cringed when I read a tearjerker post on social media by Disy deputy Efthymios Diplaros, lamenting the recent passing of his father. It was a heartfelt outburst, but I find it a bit distasteful for people to share their personal grief on social media with the broader public.
Diplaros was standing in Saturday’s elections for the deputy leadership of Disy and could have benefited from his bereavement as Cypriots are suckers for a tragic story. One of his rivals, Sotiris Sampson must have feared this, and pumped up the self-pitying sentimentality during a radio interview on Friday.
After offering his condolences to his rival on air, he said: “I know what it means to lose a father. The Sunday that passed I had the 22nd memorial service for my father, Nicos Sampson and told him (Diplaros) that 22 years later the void left by the loss of a father still cannot be filled…”
Maybe he should try to fill the void by putting himself up for adoption.
PREZ NIK II’s visit to Paris was an unqualified success. I was surprised by the touchy-feely nature of the encounter in front of the cameras, President Macron and our man hugging, patting each other on the back, gripping hands, smiling and laughing like long-lost friends meeting up after years.
Yet it was not so long ago that they last met – about six weeks ago at the European Council. It is good that our Nik gets on so well with Macron. Both praised the excellent relations between the countries and Macron offered France’s support in efforts to get things moving on the Cyprob.
The Prez, showing some delusions of grandeur, said that France was the first EU country he visited after Greece, as if he was doing France a big favour. He omitted to mention that he visited Egypt long before he arrived in Paris.
MEANWHILE, back in Kyproulla his media henchmen directed their fire at Disy chief Annita Demetriou for daring to question the prez’s proposal for a more active role of the EU in Cyprob deadlock.
Demetriou had said a week ago that “it would not be acceptable for the EU to be used as an alibi for more inaction, as a pretext for making the occupation permanent.” Writing in Phil, Costas Venizelos, accused her of undermining Nik’s proposal, attempting to debunk his initiative by doubting his sincerity.
On the same day, Rik henchman Panikos Hadjipanayi, picked this up asking guests to comment on the Phil view that Demetriou was undermining the prez. Venizelos was entitled to his opinion, but since when is a columnist’s opinion cited as fact by the state broadcaster and comments sought from guests?
If a columnist wrote that the prez was taking us for a ride with his EU proposal, would Hadjipanayi have quoted this opinion and asked his radio guests to comment on it? I somehow doubt it.
DIKO deputy and leader in waiting Chrisis Pantelides’ has become the most hysterical cheerleader of Nik II on Twitter. A recent tweet suggested that Demetriou was not entirely unjustified in questioning the prez’s Cyprob initiative.
He tweeted: “In the space of 65 days of his term, President Christodoulides undertook initiatives which prove in a creative way the will of the Greek Cypriots in seeking a correct and workable solution. The skepticism of members of the opposition is undocumented and incomprehensible.”
We will carry on proving our will for a settlement with initiatives that lead nowhere while the Turks hold on to everything they have. And this guy is meant to be the brains of Diko who will replace Junior when his mother eventually lets the boy step down so he can do what he really enjoys – having a good time.
THOROUGHLY enjoyed an article in Phil by Chrystalla Hadjidemetriou, who tried in vain to find whether the word the government used to describe the 200 people hired to guard the Green Line from immigrants actually exists. They have been called ‘oriofylakes’ (limit guards) in Greek but no such word existed she wrote.
We cannot possibly call them border guards (synorofylakes in Greek), because that would be recognising the Green Line as our border (synora), when everyone knows our borders are in Kyrenia. In English, you could use bounds or boundaries, which is the outer limit of any space and is used for a sports field rather than for a state’s borders.
Maybe we should call them boundarofylakes, because it sounds much better and makes more sense than oriofylakes which could give the impression they were guarding biscuits.
