[Daphne – We’ve been through this already, last year, the year before that, and the year before that. The Leader of the Opposition has no role to play at the ceremonies. It’s just the leader of the government and the head of state.]

Don’t waste your time, Lomax!

Kieku Malta ma kienetx Indipendenti il-gvern tal-MLP ma kienx jaghmel il-hnizrijiet li ghamel kemm dam imexxi sakemm dabbarnijlu rasu 25 sena ilu.

And the government housing units which today face the Chinese Garden in Santa Lucia were ready and handed to the Labour administration for distribution to their party supporters.

In those days the MLP battle cry was “9 million pounds government debt”; “Gvern fallut poplu batut”.

Some of the projects which Mintoff shelved were the Msida bridge instead of which we now have Lorry’s “accident black spot”, the Malta-Gozo causeway, the coast road (part of which was ready), the Gozo Hospital and the Zebbug-Siggiewi bridge.

Mintoff preferred paying the consultants a golden handshake rather than using the same money to build a road which had to pass through Santa Venera, for which the houses were already requisitioned by the PN and one of the houses was converted into the Santa Venera MLP club and has been the subject of a legal dispute with the owners ever since.

The water desalinators at Hondoq ir-Rummien and the Marsa power station were shut down and left to rust because according to Mintoff water was costing us more than whisky.

Peter, you pressed the right button for me to go down to this memory lane.

Mintoff introduced the children’s allowance in 1976, just before the election.

He had the Ombudsman also in the electoral programme but he never introduced it.

The Ombudsman would have been overworked during Labour’s tenure.

Re-writing history, Brian, or are you just repeating what you hear?

At the Zebbug MLP demonstration, which purposedly passed in front of the PN club, there were no Molotov cocktails.

Free education?

Before long we shall be told that it was the MLP which introduced the stipends system.

“If we were Malta, we would have joined the European Union, we would have a different backdrop. But we are Asian. And you’ve got to live with your neighbors, neighbors at a different level of societal development. What they think and do has to be factored into consideration to decide what we can do.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/world/asia/29iht-lee-excerpts.html?pagewanted=6
Lee Kwan Yew observed Malta closely to learn from our mistakes. He made sure not to repeat those (Mintoff’s) mistakes.

We Nationalists did celebrate Independence between 1971 and 1987 but at great risk of being attacked by thugs, police, lembubi, tear gas, followed by at least one night in the depot lock up.

So now we should vote for Joseph.

This is partisan crap, Black. You missed the whole point because you’re one of the brainwashed… er… educated idiots.

The fact remains that Dom Mintoff was not a great statesman.