It was not my intention to drag this exchange of comments beyond boredom but your harping on Toni Abela’s ‘nasty’ attempt to stifle free speech forces me to submit my final comment in this thread.

Can you dive into your memory and count how many libel suits were filed by Nationalist ministers and/or politicians in the last 12 months? Where do you classify these Mr Vella.

In your infinite judgement you see many Labour sympathisers imposing their ‘fantasy’ on the rest of the country. Wake up Mr Vella. We are living in the age of democracy not in a fascist era that certain Nationalist sympathisers look back to with nostalgia and admiration.

[Daphne – The mistake you make, Ray Borg, is in failing to distinguish between libel suits filed because of lies and gross untruths – the ones filed by Nationalist politicians – and libel suits filed because somebody feels himself offended or insulted – the ones filed by the likes of Toni Abela. The first are legitimate in a free speech society; the second are not. I have been grossly insulted by the Labour Party for the last almost two decades. But I have only filed for libel twice: once against Joseph Muscat and the Labour Party for associating me, in a novella written by Muscat and published by the party, with the Mafia, the P2 and the bombing of the Bologna train station way back in the 1970s (yes, unbelievable – lovely leader you’ve got there), a case I won; and again now, against Kurt Farrugia and Labour’s Maltastar.com, for publishing a story describing in graphic detail the insults I shouted at them and how I rose to attack them in the university auditorium, when their very own film footage and several witnesses testify to the fact that I sat there, didn’t move, said nothing and ignored them. That’s the difference, Ray Borg. Now grow up. If I had to sue every time the Labour Party insults me, every time they describe me as ugly when I am obviously anything but, every time Toni Abela describes me as atheist, every time they speculate on every aspect of my private and public life and try to expose me to ridicule and the hatred of their redneck masses, I would be in court every day of the week. I salute their freedom to insult me. And they should do the same. Now grow up.]

You are incorrect in various ways. First of all, the current issues you mention have been and are still being amply discussed on this blog and elsewhere so it is not true that they are being avoided. The shameful record of the MLP is mentioned usually when issues of civil and human rights crop up, such as that ridiculous award to Mintoff.

By trying to stifle free speech Toni Abela takes us back several decades; his antics are almost like one of those historical re-enactments that are becoming popular. It is little wonder that Toni and his worthy colleague, the other deputy leader, remind us of the past. They are throwbacks, the retro politics of the MLP.

Incidentally you are also incorrect in saying that history cannot be whitewashed. Many Labour sympathisers are doing just that: living in a parallel world where Mintoff was never a neurotic despot and the marmalja never existed. Moreover, given half a chance, you would impose your fantasy on the rest of the country.

Why are we wasting our time discussing events that happened fifty, forty or thirty years back. History is history and facts are facts that cannot be withwashed or erased.
As the jingle goes “Life is Now” So why don’t we discuss Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando who is hanging round Gonzi’s neck like an albatross. We can also discuss Tonio Fenech’s budget miscalculations, the Nationalist government’s impotence on the immgration issue or which bullet Lawrence Gonzi wants us to bite.

I can understand that the present situation is not too pleasant for Nationalist apologists or for the whole nation for that matter; so if you want to give it a miss I can understand and commiserate with you.

[Daphne – Though I cannot speak for the others, the point you miss with me, Ray, is that I am like those people who lived through World War II, and for whom any meal was a feast afterwards. I reached adulthood, marriage and 1.5 children never having known anything other than public violence, economic stagnation, mass unemployment, widespread deprivation, low wages, wholesale corruption, oppression, and mad, depraved and very corrupt government politicians. So I am completely immune to the finer points of the Pullicino Orlando case. And after having grown up on Il-Bagit tal-Qawsalla and the annual pedantic recitation of the prices of corned beef (one variety) and tonn taz-zejt (two varieties), Tonio Fenech’s ‘budget miscalculations’ are like soothing balm. As for the immigration issue, nobody cares. Haven’t you noticed that it’s all about abortion now?]

As for the incident in May 1961, I find it incredible that someone can hold the PN party to account for state-sponsored violence carried out during a time when Malta was still a colony and governed directly by Westminster. Please do enlighten us.

[Daphne – Is that all? My god, and there I was thinking there were real problems of oppression. But then, I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, so my threshold for violence and intimidation is a little higher.]

Intimidation and loss of freedom are closely connected and that is why I mentioned the violence of the Mintoff regime in relation to freedom of speech.

In those days even Opposition MPs faced extreme hostility and needed all their courage to speak out. There were countless cases of MPs being manhandled, both by Government members and outsiders from the Strangers’ Gallery. On one memorable occasion the chief of the Task Force (Mintoff’s special army) ‘invaded’ the floor to heckle and threaten the Opposition.

The first time that Parliament was convened after Labour’s victory in 1971, Opposition MPs were attacked by a mob and many had their cars vandalised. From that day onwards, until 1987, PN members entered and left the Palace from a small door in Merchants’ Str – it became unofficially known among canvassers and parliamentary staff as “the Opposition door”. I think ours must have been the only Parliament in Europe where Government and Opposition members used different entrances. This was rectified after May 1987 and since then Opposition members (this time Labour MPs) enter and leave the building freely through the main door, as it should be.

If such was the situation faced by elected MPs in Parliament, one can imagine what it must have been like for the common people in workplaces and, indeed, in the streets. Labour sympathisers now trivialise the problems of those days by referring to the lack of chocolate and toothpaste but, in fact, those were the least of our worries. It was lack of civil and human rights not of Cadbury and Colgate that characterised the governments of Mintoff and KMB.

Violence had became such a way of life that even ex-Labour minister Lino Spiteri, in his interview on The Sunday Times (21/9), describes how he was physically threatened in the 1980s – by another minister.

As I said earlier, this is not about reopening old wounds but an attempt to understand what makes the Labour Party tick. There is a continuity of attitudes and tactics which have survived to the present; physical violence is less common but intimidation still accepted within New Labour. We all know how George Abela, for example, was treated in 1998 and again this year by the MLP and the GWU.

PS – For the record, in the expression “to carry a chip on one’s shoulder”, the chip is a wooden one so a very large chip might be better described as a plank or log rather than a boulder.

And yes, there is a nagging suspicion that the MLP refuses to admit any wrong-doing… precisely because the MLP has neither admitted nor apologised for its past and because it still counts as its supporters a number of people who would welcome the return of such savages as Mintoff, KMB and Toni Abela.

[Daphne – Another wound-up whacko with a hate-chip on his shoulder. Sigh. If you don’t read what I write, how do you know it’s drivel and nonsense? Or are you one of those men with on obsessive compulsion that hovers somewhere between hate and fascination? You know, the kind that turn into stalkers with a gun? I’m not saying you’re going to turn into one, of course: I’m just pointing out, because you seem to have the brain of a sparrow, that you’ve got a bit of a problem there.]

You’re at best promoting a local Red Scare and at worst sowing the seeds of a Gamsakhurdian mess.

[Daphne – I’m a columnist for Malta’s smaller Sunday newspaper, you couple of tossers, not the archbishop or the leader of a political party with 50% of the electorate behind it. I can only influence those who actually read me, and then it’s only a small percentage of those who take notice. But thanks for crediting me with such magical powers. Labour voters tend to be on the gullible side, that’s why the party’s in such an atrocious mess.]

[Daphne – Probably because I have a huge fan base? And what sort of person is called Saviour Sam, anyway?]