Please try to be credible by NOT saying UNTRUTHS.
eg: Two persons were accused and found guilty of trying to bribe the MLP MP’s in question.

Your cherry on that cake is a half truth … the British were to leave when it suited them without any economic help to switch our economy. By his notorious guile Mintoof managed to squeeze from the English tax payers millions.
There was never any sort of gaurantee that the British bases were to be closed by 1974. So much so that British sympatisers did their utmost to prevent such an written agreement.Such manifestations and demonstrations followed and re actions too. I referred to these in other post.

Again your misinformation: The acute housing problems was solved be creating ‘ housing estates’ all over Malta and Gozo. Of course land speculatotrs always existed. they existed then and exist now.JPO’s saga ..Supermarkets, etc etc lol.

Indeed to solve the deadly situation of employement, corps were created. Later on many members of thse corps were integrated iether in the civil service or private sectors.Many of them today enjoy high positions too in different sectors.Further more employement was abundant and after 1975 to 1985 thousands of emigrants returned back home.

You are wrong too in saying that Dorman wasn’t imposed on us. So much so, that on Mintoff’s insistence and ‘no deal’ policy of his, the British Government was ‘forced’ to replace him by a Maltese, Sir Anthony Mamo.

Min Cole you referred has nothing to do with the 70s and 80s.

Finally, you said facts are sacred. Indeed they are and I agree.Why you did not mention the ’emigration scheme’ created by the PN Admistration through which hundreds of Maltese kids ( supposodly coming from large families)were sent to Western Australia promising such kids heaven on earth.But of course this did not happen after 1971. It happened before. What these kids went through makes us all cry with shame.

Re the education system you chose to respond in a silly way simply because deep inside you knows am more thenm correct.

Yes facts are sacred and it is evident that to persons like you and I , it hurts a lot to narrate and make public.

Well Well here goes:

Point 1: The Borg Olivier governement got Malta independent and immediately embarked on transforming the Maltese economy from one based on the British military spending into one based on industry spending (investing) alot of money in building factories and the infrastructure from scratch.
Computers were already introduced in Malta making us amongst the first to embark on IT. Singapore took Malta as a model,it being in the same predicament as ours having just acheived Independence. They carried on and see where they got to today over the years. Not Malta though come in Labour in 1971: Infracstucture went to the dogs. Desalinisation plants dismantled, the computerisation process stopped, water and electricity and telephone bills issued handwritten, I still have them, keeping them as a memento of the progress these island’s acheived in the good old days under is-salvatur ta’Malta. If investing in progress is banruptcy then yes Malta was bankrupt!
Pont 2; Yes there were beggars running around the streets at the time but not all were genuinly poor I remember one who used to beg by Stella Maris church in Sliema who when he died left quite a sum of money stashed away in his abode.
Point 3: this is what two Gozitan labour MPs had claimed at the time yet no one was ever brought to justice. It was Alfred Baldacchino from the PN side who actually crossed over to the MLP under mysterious circumstances. Maybe he saw the light!
Point 4: It was a labour administration who introduced assisted passage scheme to would be migrants. Not a bad idea after all as most of those who emigrated did very well for themselves some today, and quite a few of them, have become millionaires. The minister of emigration himself Johnnie Cole ended up emigrating together with his family.
Pont 5: See comments to point one above. The investment created which you referred to as bankruptcy would have created employment and also done away with the abuse of exploitation of the workforce. How did is-Salvatur solve the unemployment problem? Creating labour corps the likes of Pijuniri/Dirghajn il Maltin/ Izra u rabbi. And were these paid decent wages? Of course not not even the minimum wage!!
Point 6: The acute housing problem was solved by having to pay kickbacks to acquire a plot tal-Gvern and a few Johnny come lately entering the construction industry and building wherever they wanted to ruining the environment in a number of places around the island since obtaining building permits for them was like drinking a cup of tea.
Point 7: This was a process which had to happen anyway one day or another. You see the church too like you did in your comments tried to justify its past misdoings by stating that one had to consider the environment and circumstances existing at the time. To mention a couple, the Inquisition and Galileao’s condemnation. The ‘interdett’ in the sixties too was wrong. I’m honestly sick of hearing this phrase repeated ad nauseam by whoever wants to justify misdoings.. What’s bad today was always bad and will remain so.
Point 8: Rubbish. The Maltese government chose on its own free will to retain Maurice Dorman aas Governor of Malta. Malta at the time having retained the status of a monarchy. Dorman was not imposed on us when Malta became independent .
Point 9: Yes it was difficult for working class families to give a good education to their children. However most many working class families did not even want to give their children an education they were more interested in getting them to work. Those who really wanted to however did give their children a good education, admittedly at a great sacrifice. Some grew up to occupy very high positions in both the professional field and the Civil Service. Some even were knighted by the British monarch and today addressed as Sir. These families deserve our greatest admiration. And by the way is-Salvatur came from a wealthy background? He and his brothers and sisters all got a good education (academically speaking for Dom at least).
Point 10: This is the cherry on the cake. Yes the Borg Olivier administration did agrre that the British and their allies were to be allowed to use their military facilities here in Malta for ten years after Independence. This in order for the local government to switch the local economy as explained in point 1 above. So the term of the use of these facilities would have ended in 1974 but come is-salvatur in 1971 and hey presto the term is extended by a further five years.
Yes Mr Muscat facts are sacred and no one is to twist them to accomodate himself.
Moderator excuse me for posting such a long comment.

In the 70s we had a social, political revolution. I am not so naive to ever accept that a Labour Administration was solely responsible for any crude episodes or terrible ones.
It takes two for tango.

Before Mintoff was in power Valleta where you live was pestered by daily beggars.First thing Mintoff did was to clean our Capital City from such beggars by introducing a social welfare system we still enjoy.The main opposition to Mintoff’s plan to close all British Military bases on the island came from Valleta business owners and prositutes that used to make their fortunes from their military and naval clients.Further more, one should also know that the onus of the oppostion in ousting our colonial masters used certain Valletta commercial outlets as their base and quarters.If you digg deeper on ther situation then, you be surprised of your own findings.

In short when Mintoff left office, he left Valleta once again the ‘city for gentleman’. My dear friend have a look around our Capital City, you live in , and keep in mind that whatever you see and enjoy, there is always a large contribution if not all, of the MLP Administrations.

You have a right to your opinion but you have no right to change facts.

Those of us who are not challenging your interpretation of the situation in Malta prior to Mintoff ‘winning’ the 1971 election are also not challenging the idea that Shrek is a true story.

If I had to nominate one event as the single biggest disaster to hit this country in the 20th Century I would be hard pressed to choose between Mintoff and WWII, although I would finally settle on WWII, although we are still suffering the consequences of Mintoff in the way we do politics today, over 60 years since he took over the MLP.

Oh, and by the way, I’m from Valletta and what I remember as the first thing you saw was Labour demonstrators smashing the shop windows on a regular basis….

I think your idea of ‘liberalism’ is the one that has roots in stirner or the so called americans ‘libertarian’ -(but again these are tags and are easily mixed up) basically the free market; Ironically even Berlusconi calls himself a liberal – but does not shun away from censoring and imposing his will on the press

A Liberal socialist (but it can have different names, such as classical liberal – that comes out from the enlightnment concept …) will go against centralization to give more power for creativity and thought. So I do not see it as half-baked at all.

Socialism is divided into two main branches: the authorative and the liberal wings. unfortunetely, the authorative socialism (communism: the centralization of the State) took over and gave a bad reputation to the whole socialism. Indeed, Marx was already being criticized by the liberal wing and no liberal would have accepted communism or fascism or any form of centralization.

I’m pretty sure that you’ll find liberal socialism an interesting line of thought. In fact when people speak of social laws that should reflect the needs of the people regardless of sex, ethnic, age or religion it has its roots in liberal socialism.

of course, it is a line of thought and not a belief, it is open to criticsm. But I think you’ll find some validity to it when people like Marlene Pullicino say that she is going to vote ‘no’to divorce because you are either a catholic or not! when in reality it is the State limiting the freedom of choice that the indivduals should have. The same applies to abortion – even though you might not like; who are you to interfere with the woman’s choice? co-habitations, gay-unions… etc, etc… issues that are usually opposed on ‘moral’ grounds.

Basically, de-centralize so to let the individual expand. Invest in education, the education that questions, challenges and doubts and not the indoctrination that tell you to follow and never doubt.

(I apologize if it was too long – thanks)

[Moderator – Actually, liberalism tends to emphasise the importance of individual liberty while socialism emphasises the importance of duty, so I would expect a ‘liberal socialist’ to have a half-baked approach to ‘letting the individual expand’.]