David, you describe Times of Malta as balanced.

Yet that newspaper was an accomplice in the vicious campaign against Arriva before and after the general 2013 elections.

The result was that when the PL government took the very wrong and misguided decision of banning bendy buses from our roads, nobody said anything because Times of Malta (and others) had conditioned people to think that bendy buses were a bad thing.

The truth is that on the more popular routes, there is more crowding and waiting time are longer. Why? Because there are no bendy buses.

The same happened when Arriva was forced out. Nobody protested.

We are now suffering the result of that bad decision including higher subsidies (23 million euros instead of 10 million), higher fares and exceptionally bad traffic congestion.

Poorer quality in public transport induces more traffic. The deterioration of traffic congestion AFTER the departure of Arriva has been extraordinary.

David, forgive me therefore if I am angry at Times of Malta and at the PL government for creating such a mess.

actually I meant “diskorsijiet tieghu”

Iva rajtha l-intervista. Simon Busuttil wiegeb tajjeb hafna l-mistoqsijiet dwar Daphne. Hasra li id-diskorsijiet tieghi mhux dejjem ta’ l-istess livell.

Ms La Redoute is right; and I’ve tried pitlor, kerosene, ethanol, methyl alcohol, nail polisher remover, even an incantation to Baxxter the Ultimate Fool, but nothing seems to works. Pettiness can be hugely entertaining.

They might then understand how they need to tread very carefully around people like Karmenu Vella, Leo Brincat and Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca.

It’s being attacked from within, it’s going to rot, like good old furniture that is riddled with wood-worm.

David, a sustained attack on Times of Malta is setting it alight.

And does it show, the Wednesday centrefold; betting on absolutely everything.

Do they even realise what they’re doing, and where they’ve aligned themselves?

People in Malta know the consequences of speaking out. It is the same when people in small country towns anywhere in the world calling in to their local radio station demand anonymity before speaking. It is a request DJ’s are very used to and grant without question. This applies whether they are discussing how they made their most recent apple pie or whether it is a complaint or opinion about/on something more serious.

Why are The Economist’s writers anonymous?

I quote:

‘The main reason for anonymity…is a belief that what is written is more important than who writes it. In the words of Geoffrey Crowther, our editor from 1938 to 1956, anonymity keeps the editor “not the master but the servant of something far greater than himself…it gives to the paper an astonishing momentum of thought and principle”.’

http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/09/economist-explains-itself-1