The Learned Doctorrrrr is jostling for a position of favour since being a Santjan like The Poodle, he knows where the juicy bones are at. Besides, the learned Doctor was one of JM’s endorsers for MEP elections.

By making the ageist jibe that “I think that the new MLP leader should be young (a Methuselah of about 60 and leading till 75 is much too old)” doesn’t realise that Dr Licari is not only insulting The Gonz but also another good friend of his, Varist, who’s not exactly a spring chicken himself.

Incidentally, speaking of Varist, here’s a lovely nugget of information…Apparently it’s not just the Poodle who is a great admirer of other people’s work.

http://confessionsofanatheist.blogspot.com/2007/09/gordon-brown-evarist-bartolo-remix.html

Without going into the merits of the Labour leader selection, I think this argument on the so-called working and middle classes is going nowhere. In my experience, mentalities and attitudes are more the result of the quality of formal education and personal culture acquired by individuals plus the experience acquired through interpersonal relations than a matter of class of origin. Some of the ideas being expressed here are reminiscent of the immutable caste system existing in India whereby people are born in a social class and can never get out of it because that’s what was ordained by the gods. According to some ideas expressed previously, achievers from the “lower orders” (to use an obnoxious phrase used in earlier posts) have to resign themselves to retaining all the badges of their original class no matter what they achieve in terms of education, financial assets and experience. This is a biased approach which seems quite shallow to me and it serves no purpose other than that of fostering class rivalry, not to say hatred. This is not what our country needs. I will not be surprised if I’m told that I’ve misunderstood the arguments. Some appear to think that the claim of infallibilty is not a prerogative of the pope alone.

I now know a number of people who come from a different background to myself, and yet are extremely capable. Although we probably wouldn’t become best friends, I do feel comfortable with them.

They might not be of middle-class parents or grandparents, but in Daphne’s words they are nonetheless ’normal, rational, reasonable and intelligent’. These are the middle, middle-class people -they have a middle-class mindset but are not of middle-class background.

I think it is unlikely that the MLP will ever elect a middle-class person per se as their leader (in fact, I think it is pretty unlikely that the PN would do so any time soon).

However, I think most people are comfortable with a middle, middle-class person who is ’normal, rational, reasonable and intelligent’ – and who doesn’t have the ‘zghir kontra l-kbir’ mentality (or the ‘int injorant ghax titkellem bl-ingliz u ahna maltin’ attitude).

At this point in time, I think that is the sort of person Malta is ready to accept as leader of their country.

The pressure for the Labour Party to start leaning more heavily towards the middle classes is not coming from outside, but from within. People who were raised in Labour families, but who have acquired the trappings of the middle classes, want to stay Labour but don’t want to be associated with that kind of working class mentality. They are in a quandary.

The Labour Party can’t shake off the mental shackles of ‘iz-zghir kontra l-kbir’. While it has been fighting losing battles in the name of The Worker, the Nationalist Party has gone off and spent the last 20 years bettering the worker’s lot. It’s thanks to the Nationalist government that the children of Mintoff’s haddiema are now solidly middle class, with nice jobs, nice houses, nice clothes and nice holidays. Labour’s Robin Hood approach to taxation and punishing is-sinjuri never quite swung it.

I am a strong believer in achievement through merit. That’s why I support the Nationalist Party, which builds its policies on precisely this. I am just pointing out that the Labour Party is not the same way. Its message is consistently defeatist and negative and rife with paranoia. Examine its policies, its stances and the words of its most prominent exponents, and you will see what I mean.

White socks and table manners: this is where I don’t agree with you. These details are extremely telling to me – not about social background but about intelligence. They’re actually a pretty good way of sorting out the intelligent wheat from the far less intelligent chaff. The sharpest people (and I don’t meant ‘batty professor intelligent’) are acute observers. They will immediately pick up the clues of acceptable dress and proper table manners, and change their own unacceptable ones accordingly. A less intelligent person, on the other hand, will fail to realise that he or she is doing anything wrong, and worse still, might even think that all forms of behaviour at table are acceptable, and likewise brown shoes with a dark suit.

I never fail to be astonished, when at one of the many lunches/dinners etc that I have to go to, how many people don’t know how to use a knife and fork. My immediate judgement about them is that they aren’t sharp enough to realise that they are doing anything wrong, or why it might be in their interest to learn how to use cutlery properly. It’s a good indicator of a person’s IQ. As they say, the devil is all in the detail.

Ditto ;-)

Please don’t! I don’t take any umbrage at all – you keep me entertained! Please note that all my replies to you are sent with a big grin on my face!