I totally agree as I have to read the news from Malta while I live elsewhere.

But increasingly I am getting the impression that foreigners who get their news from foreign media are making a more accurate assessment of the real situation. Only yesterday I was talking to a complete stranger, an Austrian visiting Romania.

When told that I come from Malta, he first said what a wonderful place it was when he visited the island twelve years ago. Then suddenly the tone changed as he said, “What a pity that all that has changed. Malta is now ruled by the Maltese Mafia whose only interest is to make money with complete disregard of European law. It is such a shame for an EU country.”

How could I argue with him?

Mr Sammut argues that “A government that doesn’t have to fear the people will become a government that the people fear.” I will not contest this argument. However I firmly believe that this government fears the people, otherwise why are all actions aimed at one objective: to control the people’s lives and events? And when the PL won the election with such a large majority?

Why postpone elections? Why appoint a Labour Party activist to the bench? Why conceal information on the Enemalta contract from parliament, even your own parliamentary group, and then use the party whip for a vote in favour?

Why select which journalists accompany you on visits abroad? Why go to bed with with totalitarian regimes? There are numerous more actions, all showing and underlying one symptom: insecurity.

The Prime Minister knows that the 18,000 or so voters who gave him that majority are loyal not to him or to the Labour Party, but to the promises he made, and they can and will switch sides again as swiftly as they did last time.

So he fears them, and he is doing what he thinks is necessary to take control over them and worse still over all other voters, present and future, besides. What he may not know, or at least accept, is that all this will come back to haunt him. Then he will truly fear the people.

Dejjem jekk ikun hemm elezzjonijiet ġenerali.

Queen’s English,

Kif qed tgħidlek tajjeb Daphne, dan ma kellu jsir QATT mħallef. Rigward dak li qed tgħid int, anke jekk ma jtuhx dawk il-kawżi li huma politiċi, xorta se jkollu konflitt ta’ interess meta jiġi mogħti xi kawża ċivili u jkun hemm xi Nazzjonalist.

Għidli int kif jista’ dan ikun imparzjali jekk qatt ma kien u dejjem wera kemm jobgħod lin-Nazzjonalisti. Taħseb li xi ħadd se javdah imexxi l-kawża tiegħu, ħlief xi bħaħen li għandhom jiġru ma’ saqajhom?

I am 28 and s university lecturer with a PhD myself. Mark Anthony Sammut writes sense here. The whole situation is undemocratic.

I think Persil is confusing Persil and panadol. I mean he is confusing Mark Anthony Sammut with columnist and university Professor Mark Anthony Falzon.

The media houses are not finding enough resources to cover and investigate a story properly before the next disastrous decision is announced. Mark Anthony Sammut mentioned three in the space of a week. I am certain that by the end of the silly season, all three stories will be dead and buried and will not be brought up again before the next general elections.

Muscat is suggesting more sanctions on Russia – now – while he is in the UK.

But where was he a few days ago, while he was still in Malta and the MH17 tragedy was unfolding? Did he join the other European and world leaders to call on Putin to open the way for the first aid and investigation teams and the recovery of the bodies of those who perished on board flight MH17?

Because quite frankly, sanctions are less of a priority than assisting any survivors (although there seem to be none in this case), recovering the bodies of passengers to be returned to their families, and establishing the facts of the accident which has all the elements of an international crime of war.

[Daphne – I know for a fact that Mark Anthony Sammut is exactly the same age as my eldest son. Therefore he is 28. It is perfectly possible to be a university lecturer at 28.]