We need a daily count down to the next election because time stops for no one.

When their ratings plummet they will understand.

Public party financing will lead to newspapers being subsidised as well. Muscat’s desperate to create a ‘consociatovismo’, rule by consensus at all costs.

He’ll bring everything to a halt, anything achieved compromised and ineffective. This talk of the second republic, overkill in regulated democracy will see to it.

Grillo was just the natural consequence of that state of affairs. The PN’s the only way to stop getting there.

The papacy is a quasi monarchy.

A new pope is elected only when the previous one dies or retires due to extreme old age. In the meantime, all the other cardinals get much older ensuring that a truly young pope is never elected.

It is doing the church a lot of harm. People are ready to believe or join a church because prayer and belief is ingrained in the human psyche but they don’t want to join the Roman Catholic church because it seems so irrelevant.

If the church really wanted to attract new fans, it would elect a leader in his 30s or 40s to draw amazing new crowds of young people.

The less democratic a state is, the older its leaders. Saudi Arabia is almost an absolute monarchy. Its leaders are some of the oldest in the world.

In Europe, the least democratic country, Italy, almost always has the oldest leaders. The most vibrant democracy, Britain, has the youngest parliament (the queen has no real powers).

Might the terror of sin have encouraged the parents to react in this way perhaps? It might benefit one if one looks at the Magdalene sisters, the Roman Catholic institutions in Western Australia and Queensland etc., as well as church successes. This way it might be easier to call a spade a spade.

I do not recall the Vatican saying anything about a young leader and new faces and then choosing a 76 yr old Pope, but then they probably did not use The Prince as their road map.

He could have been the 200th, no superstition

I would prefer Lawrence Gonzi for President actually.

In my opinion Dr Muscat is really tired, don’t you think. The weight of government is all on him now…