In these matters, compared with us, the Sicilians are a beacon of light. They’ve had abortion legislation since the late seventies.

And if any good soul writes in to tell me that this is another step on the slippery slope, my reply would be, damn it yes, I strongly support the introduction of a decent euthanasia bill, a la Netherlands.

I need not bother suggesting it, though, I know, for inclusion in Vanni Bonello or Franky Debono’s reforms.

Well there you go. I’m not the only one who frets about these things, and I suppose it’s something of a consolation.

It’s as if the PN fought for EU membership simply because its leader at the time, Eddie Fenech Adami, was for EU membership but there the trail becomes hazy. Was it a deuced “Latinità” thing, or a yearning for Enlightenment?

Our intellectuals, on whom I cast my scorn, seem to follow in the Oliver Friggieri tradition of completely missing the wood for the trees, harping on about how “we were always European”. Meaning what?

More pointedly, what does it mean to us in 2013? How do we translate this fabled sempiternal European identity into concrete action?

I, for one, am disgusted by those who put on the mantle of Latin Europe and refuse to acknowledge basic European rights.

I did not vote for Europe to turn Malta into a theme park of Sicilian provincialism within Europe. I voted to open wide the windows and tear down the walls of the mind, to let Europe impregnate Malta.

Malta may be the whore of the Med, but boy is she frigid in her relations with Europe.

One must read and anayses a constitution as a whole and not just bits and pieces of it. The view from Hungary’s government http://www.politics.hu/20130314/orban-says-constitutional-court-has-lost-none-of-its-powers-to-assess-laws/

[Daphne – Yes, David. They would say that, wouldn’t they? They were the ones who did it.]

It is clear that the Second Republic is Aquilina’s baby and why his animosity towards the PN? In 2008 he was the BA chairperson.

Constitution Day will just be an invented national holiday to try and please everyone.

Constitutional amendments should be done by sane people.

Which reminds me. Mintoff’s intention was to change the Constitution in a way that would give Parliament supremacy over the Constitution – which is exactly what we are seeing in Hungary now.

Mintoff’s objective was only thwarted by the strongresistance put up by the PN under the leadership of Eddie Fenech Adami, visibly and publicly backed by all right-thinking people. Mintoff for all his bluff and bluster ultimately had to toe the line, settling for amendments about which there was cross-party consensus.

Mintoff’s disciple, Joseph Muscat, is set to implement all that Mintoff failed to achieve – dragging Malta into a one party state, with curbs on individual freedoms and all the ugly implications resultant therefrom.

The PN Opposition in Parliament is now Malta’s final line of defence. If the Opposition is outmanoevoured by government, or is rendered powerless by internal strife, that would be the end of democracy as we know it.

The situation rapidly developing today is worse than that in place in 1981, when Labour had jerrymandered itself back into power.

The PN must be given full support to enable it to stand up in the defence of the freedoms that were only attained 25 years ago, when the Malta Labour Party was ousted from power after 16 long years of escalating abuse.

Henry Frendo has already been given far too much lee-way with his rewriting of history.

Baxxter, surely you’re used to me by now. Of course the opposite.

If Kevin Aquilina thinks that he’s going to obtain a REAL consensus on Constitution Day, he’s either naive or living in cuckoo-land.

I will never celebrate Constitution Day even if all Malta celebrates it. Our national day is Independence Day. Full stop. If Mintoff had accepted this simple fact we would not be discussing our national day after fifty years.

So, what is well-respected ex Sunday Times of Malta, page 13, former ECHR Judge Vanni Bonello doing there, heading a commission where he is outvoted? Lending credibility to Joseph Muscat’s dangerous game?