Had Mintoff not been fully aware that Gauci Borda had actually discovered the source of his quotation from a Hitler speech, undoubtedly he would have taken steps against his accuser.

To me that is conclusive proof that Mintoff knew that his plagiarism had been well and truly discovered. I do not have the spare time or the inclination to plough through all Hitler’s voluminous speeches to rediscover the wheel.

Mintoff did not deny it and I draw my reasonable conclusion.

The onus is on the person making the accusation to prove his or her case beyond reasonable doubt. I have the book from which the excerpt is scanned and had tried to find the reference. The closest I got were two famous speeches, one in January and the other in September, none of which have any of these words. Of course, I look at translations rather than the original language. Second, the “message” is similar to past and present Labour rhetoric. The accusation is plausible but on the basis of what I found on the Internet it is improbable.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120913/local/Mintoff-Foundation-creator-in-jail.436685

He almost admitted he got it from somewhere. It might have also featured in some other speech and not the one mentioned of 1939. However Daphne should get it right and get the original on this website.

It’s quite simple, Mr/Ms Chronicle. Adolf Hitler must be just about the most researched and written about figure in human history.

You have all the resources of the world-wide web at your disposal.

See if you can find a reference – just one – to this speech.

Every Labourite I speak to accepts they are National Socialists.

When I try to explain that true socialists are International Socialists they laugh at me.

The only so-called socialists in Europe that are against being in the EU.

The PN are more socialist than the PL are ever likely to be.

“How could Hitler have said that the German people fought battles for other people? That’s a purely Maltese obsession. And of course it’s erroneous.”

Hitler would have put it in other words. He would have said “Mitna ta’ xejn, mitna ghal barrani, imnejn sa fejn?”

“Malta l-ewwel u qabel kollox’ is also reminiscent of the ‘Britain First’ slogan of Oswald Mosley, leader of British fascists in the 1930s when Mintoff was studying in the UK.

For that matter, Joseph ‘mini-Mintoff’ Muscat plagiarised Mussolini when he titled an article “Better one day as a lion than a hundred days as a sheep” in which he urged Alfred Sant to call Mintoff’s bluff in 1997. This was one of the usual bombastic slogans of the Duce.