This is the same Martin Schultz MEP who made as if he hadn’t known that Silvio Berlusconi was referring to the character on Hogan’s Heroes in his comment a few years back, and created a big, big storm in a tea-cup.

Listen to what he’s saying now, and what JM is toying with as if it were age-old wisdom: it’s IMMORAL for financial advisors to advise their clients on where best to put their money (even though they’re being paid for exactly that reason) because – catch this – in a market where there’s shortage of supply and high prices, it makes sense for food producers NOT to sell food. In other words, it’s not objective conditions like bad harvests, crop disease etc. that are resulting in price hikes, it’s evil entrepreneurs’ wickedness. And the answer according to our socialist friends?

More state regulation.

This type of thinking in a possible future PM, during a pretty leftist government’s tenure, chills my blood infinitely faster than eyes or goatees do.

[Moderator – I wonder if he even knows that, a few weeks ago, the UK made it illegal for petrol stations to dispense petrol that does not contain a percentage of crop-sourced fuel. Government regulation has more of a role in driving up food prices than he cares to consider.]

Seems to me that people like Anna, Amanda, maybe Mark, definitely Daphne and so forth are in a generation of people that have been mentally scarred by events that they witnessed in their formative years. The accounts of violence that these people recount on this blog were witnessed in their teenage years and must have had an effect on them so much so that like many victims of injustice or crime they continue to relive these episodes over and over and these experiences give them a world view that remains with them throughout life. In this case they will never ever trust Labour, however much it reforms itself and diassociates itself from the past.

They are not unlike the generation of Labour Party supporters known as the “suldati tal-azzar” who were the victims of Arch. Gonzi’s interdett in the 1960s. These people witnessed and felt this injustice in their youth and were forever scarred by it – Lino Spiteri, Micallef Stafrace, Lorry Sant and so many others. It forever tainted their view of the church and the allies of the Church in public office – the P.N. Whatever was said by way of regret was never enough and could never right the wrongs they experienced.

And by the way, I believe the MLP through Sant had already apologized for the excesses of the 1980s. Am I wrong about that? Sant also routed out the violent elements in Labour and the party has never looked back. What else should Labour do to make amends?

Remember the church, i.e. that institution set up to give an example of repentance and forgiveness, took for ever to apologize to the victims of its interdett. And that’s from an institution that doesn’t have to worry about running for election.

Any thoughts on this?

[Moderator – You are confusing citizenship with religious following. The Roman Catholic church is probably the most undemocratic organisation in the world, and when intelligent people disagree with its dogmas, they leave it because it is not a social service that we are all entitled to. How on earth is the Nationalist Party responsible for people who didn’t have the courage to leave the church when they were asked to?]

What is actually amazing is how such a bored, disengaged floating voter can take so much time out of his day to write on a political blog that apparently makes him yawn. And all this for want of anything better to do. Are you really that sad?

I would really like to believe that it is age and not the lack of a moral compass that is responsible for your failure to understand that someone who is NOT A PUBLIC FIGURE should not become the subject of public commentary simply to gratify your curiosity, in this case, or to harass and intimidate as in the case of Daphne’s sons and others that I know of. How many times do you have to hear it – relatives of public figures (whether spouses, offspring, members of the extended family) do not lose their right to privacy simply because they are related to the public figure.

I am, however, starting to find you rather tiresome. The topic’s closed. Daphne says so and it’s her blog. Perhaps, as Amanda suggested elsewhere, you should retire to your grotto for a while and take stock.