We lived through those times, and we know that several ministers had their mascalzoni running with them wherever they went and acting on their master’s advice. They beat people for just looking at them in their ugly faces. Even Mintoff knew about these atrocities and HE DIDN’T LIFT A FINGER TO STOP THEM. So he was complicit. Mintoff and KMB, together with all their colleagues in their hated cabinets, were fully responsible for the atrocities which occurred in Malta in those horrible years (1971-1987). And no Joe Grima or Godfrey Grima or whoever will ever change that. And Labour is still paying the price.

And I presume Nationalist cabinet members carry out cataract operations during their house visits? Do you realise the absurdity of your logic? If this is a source of disaffection then we are really stuck in a 1970s provincial mindest.

My 80-year-old frail mother has been waiting more than three years for a simple 20-minute cataract operation. This is really nasty from the side of the Nationalist administration. We feel badly let down.

What hurts is that during these events no thugs were arrested for their actions by Mintoff as implied, and the worst is that even after the Nationalists came to power in 1987, I believe justice did not take its course . Not only that but some and even top police officers befriended the newly elected PN government and justice minister, in order to do away with their actions.

That letter must have been prepared well in advance.

I happened to be near Castille that night as I owned a pizzeria on the corner. When the mob arrived, I walked out and stood on the corner watching these ‘loose cannons’ throwing furniture out of the window and flames coming out some metres from the balcony. The shocking thing was that there were at least one hundred policemen next to Castille and not one tried to stop them.

Another shocking event was when the fire engines arrived about 20 minutes later (from Floriana). It took them about 15 minutes to reverse into St. Paul Street and the firemen were obviously given instructions to go slow. What I am getting at is that the destruction was allowed to happen in the presence of a strong contingent of the police force, who obviously were given orders from above, to let the fire rage for maximum destruction.

So, Mr. Grima, trying to convince us that Mintoff never sent anyone to do anything untoward, is not very convincing to my generation who lived those years.

Nowadays, we are so saturated with democracy that the bleeding heart liberals and champagne socialists under 40 years old – unless heavily into pot – cannot even dream of the mess we were in 30 short years ago.

“Mintoff was not the despot Nationalists have portrayed him to be” Yeah, right, Joe! I was in Valletta 30 years ago – Mintoff came out onto the balcony and waved from the ‘Palazz’ while Valletta was engulfed in smoke from the Times’ building . . . an exact replica of Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned. If he wasn’t a despot, he was a nutter.

And nor is the despotic streak in Labour a thing of the past, I assure you. Why do you think they are (not ‘were’) so against EU entry? Because dictatorships are not accepted, that’s why.

Believe me – or believe Daphne if not me – we’re only a gnat’s ass away from the “good old days” people like the Grimas hark back to.

Maybe that should be “Nat’s ass” rather than “gnat’s ass”

Any further comments are superfluous.

[Daphne – Sic transit gloria mundi. KMB was in a Valletta cafe this morning (we go to the same one), just another old man stopping by for a coffee. Nobody so much as noticed him. The only reason I did is because I happened to be looking in that direction. The photographer I was with – not Maltese – didn’t believe me when I said he is a former prime minister who for five and a half years (because he hung on to the last legally permissible day before calling an election) made life in Malta absolute hell. Shouldn’t a former prime minister, and such a hellish one at that, create a bit of a frisson when he walks into a cafe? Apparently not.]