I don’t think it would be right to assume that a large percentage of the voters are anti-Europe.

They are simply brainless and their vote has no bearing on the reason they are voting.

In this case they voted for the people they know. They all know Sant because he was the party leader. And they know Miriam Dalli from being a pretty-face on the Labour Party’s television station. In the former case, at least the man may have some idea of national issues, etc., but in the latter?

I’m gay and my parents are both devout Catholics and raised me to be the same.

Although my relationship with the Catholic Church is complicated, the same cannot be said for my relationship with my parents which has actually improved a great deal since I came out.

I don’t think one’s Catholic upbringing should be the reason for rejecting the church, because then you are only rejecting a part of you.

It is through the Catholic Church that I learned about acceptance and compassion. Yes, it has said and done things that are wrong, but if I expect the Catholic Church to accept me with all my faults (my sexuality not being one of them, I hasten to add) then I should live by example and do the same.

I suggest you follow suit, if you really want to see improvement in the church’s relationship with homosexuals.

i would love to see YOUR cv

hnizrijiet ghamlu austin gatt tonio fenech beppe tal pompi tal petrol kemm ghqandkom memorja qasira
il poplu ivvita kif ivvita ghax iddejaq bil hnizrijiet tal pnne

i posted several replies yesterday but none was posted
that says a lot about your understanding of others opinions and
beliefs
i hope you will continue your blog , because it does nothing but
aleniate people from the pn. you should rename it blog for the pn hardcore

[Daphne – I uploaded every single one of your comments. If a comment is deleted, you get a message saying so. If a comment is still awaiting moderation, ditto. If you receive no message and your comment is no longer hanging there, it means it’s been uploaded.]

The result leave no doubt about it. Bring a foreign analyst and he will arrive to the same conclusion. But some people are still living in denial. Look at the Times’ editorial. It almost cannot accept that PL can ‘govern’, and for them this result is almost all poor Simon’s fault.

The truth is, in some cases, there was little that Simon Busuttil could have done. Yesterday I came to pity him a bit. For people who struggle to make ends meet, receiving a refund handout and considerable decrease in utility bills, well, it left no room for choice. What else? Such a majority cannot be wrong.

So I also think that the PL did some bad things, but also good things. But what is good for some is insignificant for others, and vice versa. I also hear that the day care centres were well received, as also the automatic granting of refunds without the need for queueing.

It’s these things that won PN elections in the past, mainly under Fenech Adami administrations, rather than bragging about a ‘skola fis-sena’ (a good thing in itself, if only it is what education requires).

Whether this will continue for the next 4 years remains to be seen. It all depends on whether it remains sustainable or these were just pre-electoral stunts. Whether it will go up to their heads and continue to do the ‘bad things of the last 4 months’, or correct them.

The Greens are not all solely for the environment. They have other matters arising on their agenda of which they hardly speak.

You are so right in what you said, that the first action taken by this Prime Minister was to throw out all the permanent secretaries, despite their title, which confirms, or rather used to confirm, that a permanent secretary should remain in his place to assist the new prime minister or minister. What probably happened in this case was that Joe Muscat had no idea where to start and he took the advice of the man he appointed as head of the civil service, an ex G.W.U. top man.

Having said that, a large number of those who switched in 2013 still want to drive the message home to the PN that unless the party makes a complete and honest revamp it will keep it in Opposition.

I’m not too sure where Simon Busuttil features in this, but he still deserves his chance to prove himself as PN leader. For the moment at least.