Minister for Civil Liberties and Equality does it the Victorian way and has her husband defend her honour

You couldn’t make these things up. Helena Dalli, who has set herself up as the champion of civil liberties and trailblazer for equality, has taken the Victorian route or, let’s say, the 20th-century Maltese backwoods track, with her husband publicly challenging the political candidate who called her a bitch.

As a grown woman and a cabinet minister with that particular portfolio, shouldn’t she be fighting her own battles, if she thinks they need to be fought at all?

This is so embarrassing. Patrick Dalli needs to understand that his wife is no longer ‘his wife’, and that he is not defending her honour in a bar or amongst family or neighbours or against private insult.

Let’s put it this way – what would we think if a cabinet minister’s wife openly challenged a candidate of the rival party who had insulted her husband? Well, exactly. Equality and all that, Mrs Dalli.

And Salvu Mallia should not meet Patrick Dalli at all, because he would be colluding in this treatment of wives as though they are their husband’s chattels. If he is to meet anybody at all, it should be the Minister herself. And I wouldn’t do that either because there is no justification she can give for putting both her sons and her son’s fiancée on the state payroll.

Stay away, Salvu. You should never meet a man to discuss his wife. It’s so southern-Mediterranean primitive. Wives do not belong to husbands. If you don’t believe me, check with the Minister for Equality. Also, your issue is with how the Minister put her sons and the fiancée on the public payroll – so exactly how do you think her husband is qualified to speak to you about that? It was her decision and not his – or is Patrick Dalli now coopted to the cabinet alongside his wife?

It is from Helena Dalli that you need your answers, not her husband.