What’s so noble about forcing sick people and their desperate relatives to go with their begging-bowl knocking on Merrilweez`s (another Evita, but without the glamour) door, to be able to obtain vital medicines while millions of euros of our taxes are diverted to offshore companies and trusts on the other side of the globe, and millions more used to buy the silence and support of their lesser cronies. So many lives could be saved if just a fraction of this money was used to improve our health services.

No, I don’t think it is a noble gesture at all. It is self-serving (because they didn’t do it to help the needy but to publicise themselves and curry favour) and extremely stingy (because these are people who spend millions building skyscrapers and blocks of flats).

The Community Chest Fund shouldn’t be collecting money from anyone – let alone a bunch of builders – for “the sick and needy”. Malta is supposed to be a welfare state. This is the 21st century. The government is supposed to fund the requirements of the sick and needy. Begging belongs to the third world and Victorian times.

Kif ma tisthix, Bundy?