Mintoffian Labour is spiteful, greedy and cowardly, traits which I see as embodying a large part of the collective Maltese psyche or at least a large section of it.

This explains how Labourites are so prone to acts of violence and bullying, from mob riots to senseless bird killing, yet at the same time abhor real bravery like that which inspired the struggle against Nazism in the Second World War.

The PN on the other hand tends to lean on the more gentlemanly side of things, not exactly the English type of warrior gentleman, rather on the Italian Catholic type. The one who would rather hush things up for the greater good.

They tend to draw a thick red line over the past, let bygones be bygones and try to improve things as if nothing ever happened, as long as the country attains a decent and comfortable way of life, much like Alcide de Gasperi did after the Mussolini dictatorship and WWII in contrast with West Germany’s own de-Nazification.

This explains the difference in style between Borg Olivier and Mintoff or Gonzi and Muscat, even Fenech Adami and Sant till 1998. The result is a silent PN who end up having to live with a PL that shouts its narratives, its Dimechs, Mintoffs and Lorry Sants.

And what has been the end result? Generations of youth who know nothing of the threats to democracy and the struggle for human rights we endured in the past, yet are convinced or better still indoctrinated, in spite of 25 years of PN good governance, that it was Mintoff who gave us our (fragile) European civilised and at the same time opulent lifestyle.