@ Gahan:

I’ll answer the question you addressed to Daphne with another question. I’m sure she won’t mind.

How about everyone having the right to accept work from anyone they like, be they professional foreigners, unprofessional foreigners, professional Maltese or unprofessional Maltese?

Please don’t tell me you call yourself a Liberal.

@ Gahan:

Since no rules are being broken, you hardly can complain, can you?

And if you believe the foreign office issues work permits to “these non-Europeans” like pastizzi (because this government believes that apart from protecting refugees and asylum seekers is the decent thing to do, we’d rather have people working than stealing for a living), then vote for a far-right party.

Regarding your question as to why a great percentage of those injured or killed at work foreigners, I would assume that the most plausible answer would be that there is a high percentage of foreigners doing dangerous work that the most Maltese refuse to do.

As for your concluding paragraph, perhaps you could enlighten us on whether Joseph’s new Labour will enact laws that will prohibit employment of refugees and asylum seekers. If not, then what are you complaining about?

And may I remind you that if there really are hotels that would employ only Maltese, they are breaking the law? As for foreigners being unprofessional, well, you sure have exposed your prejudices.

Oh, dear Francis, for once my question was truly rhetorical. So I wasn’t expecting a reply. But weren’t you supposed to be ignoring me until I “improved on my manners”?

Dear Francis, Bubu already knows that I often reply to your posts. In fact he mentioned it himself.

It is obvious we seldom agree, and you have already stated, years ago in The Times, that you’d never concede a point if that gives “ammunition” to your enemies. This much is evident in your failure to reply to a simple question, and once again sidetracking the issue to an irrelevancy such as the fact that I often reply to your posts.

@ Daphne

How about accepting work at your home from a foreign “technician” who only got his knowledge of his work the first time he set foot on Maltese soil.

Yes Maltese room attendants may be loud and their English may not be queen’s English, but it is far better than the English most of the foreigners speak, be they Russian, Ukranian or Tunisians.

@Kenneth Cassar

No rules are being broken, because the foreign office issues work permits to these non-Europeans like pastizzi.

May I remind you that Malta, like all other countries, issues work permits to non-Europeans when there should be a dire need of special skilled persons, if there are no Maltese persons willing to work in a hotel, or in the construction business (for example) than there is something which is definitely wrong in the employment sector.

Why, for example, is a great percentage of those injured or killed at work foreigners? Doesn’t this fact ring a bell for the authorities?

I am more than convinced that, come next election, Joseph’s renovated New Labour Party will ride on the disgruntlment of the unemployed people who are more than willing to accept such jobs protected with the established conditions (safety and good working conditions/pay) of our labour laws.

There are hotels which would only employ Maltese employees and there are others which are run by unprofessional foreigners.

@ Bubu. 2 Aug at 8:55 AM

Mr Kenneth Cassar is prone to a knee jerk response as soon as he sees my name on any comment on any topic under the sun dating very far back in connection with my defense of Christianity against virulent atheist attacks mainly from abroad.

@ Bubu:

You’re being too simplistic. A slur, to be racist, has to both imply racial inferiority, and be understood to imply racial inferiority. Otherwise, it might be an insult, but not a racist insult.

It’s That Man Again who assured me that he is not my son!

More silly questions that won’t get a reply.

@ Bubu:

You may also wish to note that when I challenged Francis countless times to explain how calling a Maltese person a kangaroo could be racist, he first said my question was rhetorical, then said that I don’t deserve a reply, and then said he has already answered it.

And you expect me to believe him and his informers?

@ Bubu:

Yes, Francis says that he has witnesses that contradict or expand on what was written in that letter. I am only adamant in rejecting their claims because the claims are not credible. You may wish to read my reply to Chris explaining why.

You ask me whether I do not believe him just because we are “verbal rivals in the Times comments board”. It is definitely not so in my case, but I suspect it might be in his. I can see no other explanation for not admitting, for instance, that calling a Maltese person a kangaroo is not a racist slur, albeit offensive just the same.

And yes, you really “I don’t know about that” when you say you get the impression that in my eyes “an immigrant cannot ever be guilty of anything while a Maltese must, by definition always take the blame”. I never made such an absurd claim, nor have I ever implied it. You’re making Chris’s same error in confusing my claim that it is very probable that a bus load of Maltese people would automatically take sides with a “compatriot” with saying that an immigrant is always right. That’s a non sequitur if there ever was one.

So yes, like I always say, every case must be considered on its own merits and every side considered as objectively as possible. But where no evidence is presented, I believe the most credible version until evidence shows otherwise.

As for provocation, I find the hypothesis that the Maltese person refused to budge despite occupying a reserved space far more credible that the other hypothesis that a mother with two children would board a bus and without being provoked ram her pushchair into another passenger. Like I said, until I’m presented with contrary evidence, I believe the credible version of events.

As for people calling names and hurling insults when provoked, yes, that’s true, and everyone who called another names did wrong, irrespective of who started it. I don’t believe I said that the black mother did right in calling the Maltese person a kangaroo (if she actually did). All I am disputing here is that calling a Maltese person a kangaroo is a racist slur. Insulting as much as it might be (I would actually laugh if someone called me a kangaroo) it isn’t racist.

I too don’t understand the context of the kangaroo epithet (if the word kangaroo was actually used, and she was not simply misunderstood). Perhaps it is because the Maltese person was fidgety and kangaroos hop? I don’t know.

But since you too are now claiming that calling a Maltese person a kangaroo might be racist depending on the context, would you kindly give me one hypothetical scenario where it could be perceived as such. Feel free to be imaginative as you like. I doubt you will succeed unless the person called kangaroo is Australian.