You are riding the Eurosceptic bandwagon which, as you yourself boasted, “pays well”. You went to Brussels after the elections (AND the referendum) and after your efforts to keep us out of the EU had been so spectacularly unsuccessful.

It’s your right of course – nobody is going to keep you away from the honeypot. My only word of advice is to drive carefully. Remember, you’re no longer a police officer.

1. The European Parliament is an important institution: it seats the direct representatives of the peoples of the Union. They should represent the people’s views in every Member State.

2. Do you think, having lost the referendum (and accepting the result as the democratic choice of the people) we would leave Malta’s representation to be void of any critical representation? In other words, do you not think that those who are critical of the EU should be represented in the EP?

3. Being critical of the EU currently means being against a centralised EU – which has the necessary ingredients today, already, to develop into a modern hybrid of the Soviet Union and the today’s tyrannical USA. The people want the ‘four freedoms of movement’ – open internal borders – not a centralised state governed by unelected civil servants at the Commission and the Council (proxies?). Being critical also means being against the militarisation of the EU: the Lisbon Treaty (constitution) renders another lying “federation” that wastes taxpayers’ money to ‘police the world’ and destroy lives across the globe.

5. The Nice Treaty was not about enlargement, but about centralising more powers. The focus on enlargement was part of the media spin which you swallowed. The enlargement protocol annexed to the Nice Treaty was itself changed by the Accession Act. Those who fought against the Nice Treaty were not fighting against enlargement but against further infringements on democracy. The Nice Treaty referendum in Ireland was in 2000 (when the No won) and the replay was in 2001 when the Yes won.

6. I came to Brussels in April 2003, a year before Malta’s membership (just after the elections). We did not need membership to move to Brussels, but it entailed membership for us to carry on the fight against centralised EU power at the European Parliament instead of from the streets of Malta.

As to my wife, she had been offered a job in the EP since 1999, which she only took up in 2004, after membership.

The easiest route for us is to ride the bandwagon. But we didn’t, to our detriment. That is principle.

Your wife (with you so obviously on her leash) tried desperately to screw up Malta’s future! You tried to deny my children the future they deserve. Are those your principles?

Once you did that and failed miserably (Thank God, yes I prayed for that too) you decided to earn your living off the very institution you tried to keep us out. If I recall well your wife had the sheer gall (biex ma nghidx wicc imcappas bil-h..a) to still try and keep us out by trying to butt in the Irish referendum on the Nice treaty to keep us out even though the Maltese voted overwhelmingly in favour of membership.

If you did have principles you would have bowed out of the game and accepted the people’s choice. What other reason would your wife have had for campaigning against the Nice treaty in Ireland?

And you say you have principles … Ha!

But you wouldn’t know about such nuances. You are too busy reliving the 1980s over and over again because that is the only world perspective you held on to.

History will not judge you dearly Daphne, sorry to say that.

[Daphne – Oooooooh, nasty!]

It’s true that people have been asking a superior being to grant them their wishes. It is a behavioural “pattern” seen across a wide spectrum of species … BUT … such argument smacks too much of “manure must be good to eat because a zillion flies can’t be wrong”
Everybody used to thik the world was flat … but is it?

And, for the record, talab means to pray AND to ask for something (without implying prayer). “Pray, tell me the time” is so Jane Eyre, don’t you think?

[Daphne – I’ll just take a deep breath here. The verb ‘to pray’ means/meant ‘to ask’. Latterly, it has taken on the specific meaning of ‘to ask God’. Its essential meaning, however, remains rooted in entreaty. My point is that there is absolutely no difference in meaning between ‘talab’ and ‘he prayed’ – the latter is now archaic in terms of a request made of another person, as you pointed out, as its modern meaning is restricted almost solely to God. But I imagine that the word is no older than ‘talab’. It has merely developed a more specific meaning which the Maltese word has not, because the vocabulary of our language is considerably more limited than that of the English language and so there is no scope for such caprice.]

” Deus ex machina” exists only in greek theater.

“Your bellief that anyone who does not share your religious ideas is a ‘devil’ is pre-Enlightenment.]”
Your unfounded name calling and pigeonholing of people has no limits.
Should I put LOL?

[Daphne – 44, actually.]

When we pray to God (if we’re of that persuasion) we tend to ask for things “Please give me this” or “Please make me that” …

Prayer is our means of communing with a Supreme Being (again, given that we believe such a Being exists). We don’t ask for favours we should be asking for strength to accept whatever life throws at us. If we believe that Jesus is the son of God AND that the Gospels are true, Jesus himself told us that when we pray we should pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom and that His will be done. Asking Him to give us our daily bread comes later…

This comment could easily lead to a discussion on free will etc etc … Please let’s not go there. Great philosophers and theologians have failed to find a satisfactory answer, so I don’t think we can find it in the comments section of a blog post.

[Daphne – Just one minor point: ‘itlob’ and ‘pray’ have exactly the same meaning, and it’s not a dual meaning. To pray means to request: pray, pass me the salt. Pray, stop that. The noun ‘prayer’ comes from the verb to pray (obviously) and it is a request made of God. So yes, prayer is asking. Long before people thought in terms of communing with God, prayer was nothing more or less than an entreaty to a higher power or being to give them what they wanted. Asking things of a higher power is not uniquely Maltese, but uniquely human and universal.]

[Daphne – Terrific, thanks.]