[Daphne – Not at all. He’s a very able, capable and highly organised person who is nothing like his sister.]

[Daphne – I’m not going into the details of what her problem is, because it would be unseemly and uncharitable. Marie Benoit considers herself to be in a privileged position because her brother is a director of the company that owns the newspaper, and so she apparently believes that she can’t be sacked no matter how badly she behaves internally, publicly, or how much she alienates the newspaper’s pro-PN, socio-economic group AB readers with her idiotic remarks, her attempts at causing trouble with others who work for the newspaper, and her relentless fawning over the politicians the newspaper’s readers don’t vote for. In what we think is a privileged position at work, or more so a protected position, most of us would be careful to be behave better than normally required, not worse, so as not to cause embarrassment to those who have put us there and who keep us there and to remove the perception that the only reason we are there is because we cannot be removed. She is aware that I help contribute to the bottom-line of the company that pays her salary, but this doesn’t matter to her because her personal bitterness and envy overcome her, and her loyalty to the Labour Party she knows nothing about, because her ignorance of politics is supreme, is greater than her sense of duty towards the company we both work for, or in my case, with.]

This negative attitude is reflected in their policies. Look at the state of the left wing parties in Europe, they’re almost nowhere to be seen, except for a few countries.

[Daphne – Well, they are to be seen. Whether it’s in government is another matter.]

Noel Grima should pay more attention to the quality of the columnists for his Sunday paper. It would be interesting to read a good opinion piece criticizing the Government of the day, but obviously it has to be of good quality and flowing. At this rate, Noel Grima might as well fill that space with an opinion piece from Rita Law or Lorna Vassallo.

[Daphne – The clue to the Marie Benoit tribe of champagne socialists (old ‘girls’ being ‘democratic’ by mixing with those they secretly think of as…well, never mind) is that they are all of a piece: the same size and shape, and with the same chips. And that’s not a cheap shot, but a pertinent observation. They really are all roughly 4’9″ and shaped like a basketball. I’m sure that has loads to do with it. And quite frankly, I’m fed up of Mrs Benoit, who is causing untold damage to the newspaper for which we both work. But obviously, it’s more of a priority for her to rave on about the latest addition to the Labour leadership while attacking her newspaper’s main columnist, because her primary loyalty is to the Labour Party and not to her employer. I’ve ignored her until now, operating on the principle that it’s not fair play to retaliate against women my mother’s age, but then again, women my mother’s age shouldn’t be running around attacking women their daughter’s age – or rather, of the age their daughter would have been hadn’t she had her at 40.]

[Daphne – Still doesn’t apply. A couple of the most awful men I know are sexless.]

[Daphne – No, because that would make her a lesbian. She probably doesn’t have a soft spot for sexless men who see her as a mother or sister, either, but she seems a sheltered sort who hasn’t worked that one out yet.]