I understand perfectly what you say. Those where not nice years for anyone. I lived through them as well, and no offence meant, if I tell you that I was not as young as you were, and I went through some bad experiences as in those days I was struggling to bring up a family and that was worse than being a teenager.

We have now experienced what it feels like living in a democracy. We have tasted the good things that a stable government can do for the citizens and I am positive that we would not allow any government to make us relive those years.

[Daphne – Silvio, please. How would you prevent it? Alfred Sant perpetrated chaos in those 22 months and the only thing that stopped him was one of his own MPs – Mintoff – who brought down the government not because of principle but out of spite and long-standing animosity towards Sant. What do you imagine, that the same thing will happen wth Muscat and that you’ll get to vote him out after two years if you don’t like him?]

We now know how to fight for our rights, and this is mostly due to the fact that we now form part of the E.U.

Gone are the days when governments can survive without the backing of the people.

[Daphne – Silvio, you are wrong. Most governments in Europe are not one party elected with an absolute majority of votes. I’m struggling to think of even one that is right now, because even Malta’s is currently not. Governments do survive without the backing of the people. Look at Greece, look at Spain, look at Britain, with riot after riot, and look, for heaven’s sake, at Silvio Berlusconi, who is under investigation by the police, in the media for all the wrong reasons, and still there.]

If any government thinks it can rule us the way we were during the Mintoff or K.M.B days, it is wrong. The strength of any government depends on the support given by the people. Once that’s lost, the only way is to make way for others.

Just see what happened to Alfred Sant. Do you just for a minute think that his downfall was the work of Mintoff alone?

[Daphne – No, it wasn’t just Mintoff. It was Sant and Mintoff. Mintoff voted against his team, Sant lost control and called an election. He could have ridden it out, just as Gonzi has been riding out Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s behaviour, and he didn’t.]

We should compare him with Gonzi, as after all we shall soon be asked to choose between them.

I think that we are in the happy position of having two persons whose first and foremost interest is the well-being of our country. So whoever wins, we are assured that he will do his best for us.

After all, it won’t be the end of the world if either one wins or loses. It will only take a few years to correct a mistake, if one is made.

That is what it means living in a democratic country.

[Daphne – Sorry to be so direct, Silvio, but your reasoning is catrastrophic. It “only took a few years” to correct the disaster left behind by the Labour government of 1971 to 1987, but nobody is going to give me my years aged six to 23 to live all over again in a sane and civilised country with decent opportunities. And if Mintoff hadn’t brought down Sant’s government, we would not have been able to join the European Union in 2004, and the prospects and, ultimately, lives of another generation would have been f**ked over. You are making the classic, terrible error that Labour politicians have made ever since I can remember: that of looking at Malta as an experimental laboratory and the people in it as guinea-pigs, totally oblivious to the fact that individuals who lose out in one generation cannot pick up again in the next.]

‘Blair did a good job for the Labour party’.

Yes, he got them into power after 18 years in the wilderness. He made many mistakes but also did very well in other things, his role in the Northern Ireland negotiations being a high point.

The point of my article was that Joseph Muscat is not even in the same league as these other statesman.

Just ask Muscat about policies and you’re up for a “polixiex?” as an answer.

I loved a video link posted on this blog (I think it was in a comment) comparing Muscat to Obama. Even his behaviour isn’t original. Ah well.

Oh dear. Another who thinks prime ministers are there to serve their party.

No wonder Labour is a mess.

‘Blair did a good job for the Labour party’.

Prime Ministers are not elected to serve their party, whatever Joseph Muscat might believe.

Pull the other one.