Well, ha ha ha to that, madam
Published:
March 30, 2012 at 9:29am
In The Times today:
Yana Mintoff Bland, the former prime minister’s daughter, said this morning that her family was speaking to lawyers about the film Dear Dom, currently being screened in cinemas.
Interviewed by Pierre Portelli on TVAM, Dr Mintoff Bland hit out at the production, saying it lacked respect for the former leader and painted him as violent and vindictive, when he was neither.
———–
He is your father, Mrs Bland. Of course you can’t bear to be faced with the truth. Well, lots of us had to live with it, while you were off elsewhere.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120330/local/yana-mintoff-hits-out-at-film-about-her-father.413383
/agree with you 100% – she was not here – like the majority of us were – during those times.
Looks like she is going to claim compensation – another million euros, perhaps.
Violent and vindictive? Who? Mintoff? Tridx tmur.
I watched her on the telly and was fascinated by Pierre Portelli’s skill in giving her just enough rope to hang herself with.
The thing is that she’s passing on the rope to the Labour Party, and its top officials are too dumb to work it out.
This was bound to happen.
They will squeeze every cent they can from the producer. John Attard Montaldo has some work going his way probably. Or will they hire Franco?
The producer interviewed Mintoff’s brother Father Dionysius (Paul) for a whole six hours. Fr Mintoff surely knew what was happening.
Now the producer will know why few went forward to be interviewed about “Dear Dom”.
I watched a clip in which Mintoff brags (in English) about the workers’ paradise he founded and how successful he was in having a public sector larger than the private one, and how he controlled the banks and everything else.
And that long-forgotten sweaty feeling of being suffocated by this pocket dictator came rushing back, as did the daily sense of violence and the brazen corruption.
I spoke to Mintoff a couple of years ago and for a few moments I warmed to this old man and I forgave.
The clips in this film are stark reminders of a man who lost his way and dragged his countrymen into misery and isolation.
Mintoff’s worst violence was psychological. He instituted a culture of fear and oppression.
And that’s on top of his total fiascos in education, infrastructure, work and the economy. If he really was the visionary his daughter says he was, then that vision was apocalyptic.
If the case ever comes to Court I invite – no, beg – Pierre Ellul to call me as a witness so I can testify that, yes, Mintoff was exceedingly violent and vindictive. To say the least.
One comment beneath the timesofmalta.com report about this matter states:
“I had no doubt that since this film was done under a PN administration and with EU funds, there will be twisted facts, same as anything else that has been ever created during these last 25 years. Right now Malta only hopes to get another Dom Mintoff because that’s what is needed to bring this island back on track.”
It is not the criticism of the present administration that is upsetting, because that is natural and healthy. Rather, it is the nostalgia for the former years of Mintoffian “glory” that is depressing, and the firm belief that some people show in expressing these thoughts.
While admittedly Mintoff did bring about certain positive changes, do his followers honestly think that overall we were better off under his rule?
I for one remember a number of rather wicked things and the general pattern of those times may be plausibly described as vindictive and violent (e.g. the arson attack on The Times, the attack on the leader of the Opposition’s home and family, the murder of Raymond Caruana and so on).
While two swallows don’t make a summer, logically (and dare I say intuitively), the appearance of a swallow does herald the likelihood of a change in season. If these beliefs are very much alive in popular memory, what choice does Joseph Muscat have but not to man part of his party with the old stalwarts?
What influence will these old foxes have on Muscat? Are we in for a return to the old ways?
Is the average voter that stupid not to see the ensemble?
While I can take all the new elements as a promising symbol of new ways, the old guys scare the living daylights out of me.
I have a nasty feeling that in Joseph Muscat we have a man worse than Dom Mintoff … perhaps not violent but more calculating and his present manner contrived …
Surely that comment isn’t the result of some Nationalist strategy to spoil Labour’s progression.
So Malta ‘only hopes’, as opposed to ‘needs’, to get another Dom Mintoff. Is this an appeal to the one who wouldn’t mind stepping into his shoes to adopt the style? After all, he started it.
What happens if Malta refuses?
Hello? Are we living in the same Malta?
Certainly not the same Malta she was living in back then.
Horse manure anyone?
‘He had a good breakfast this morning and went out into the garden.’
One hopes there’s a shady spot, toys and plenty of water.
I hope they keep a good eye on him just in case he starts eating the daisies and slugs.
Dr Mintoff bland seems to be resorting to bullying tactics to silence anyone who would look at the Mintoff era from a critical and objective standpoint. If she does succeed, she would probably manage to silence many academics and potential biographers who do not have the time, nor the money, nor the will to face long drawn out battles in court.
As a student, and as a researcher, this worries me.
There is no attempt at critical analysis. The material we have from that era includes first hand accounts (which are themselves meant to be subjective), hagiography or character assassination (which make very little attempt to look at things objectively). Malta is much poorer for not having a good tradition of objective and balanced biography..
In addition, I think Dr Bland’s remarks seem to be a remnant of the anti-intellectual, anti-academic and anti-cultural stance of the 1970s Labour Party. I doubt such trends have died out and I am sure some people, fueled by hdura and lanzit, are waiting in the wings to resurrect such a movement.
This is how it all begins; first individual authors/film directors/writers are targeted. Then they will start attacking University academics. Then students will be their target. Slowly but surely, the intellectual and academic life of the country will be stifled.
The mere mention of his name gives me nightmares.
Mint…Mint…ok, ok, I back OFF.
The blatant cheek of the woman. She thinks that by foisting herself on an unsuspecting electorate and riding on her family name she’ll be re-writing history.
What is Labour at, blindly introducing ‘names’ into the ranks with absolutely no regard to their electability?
Those who experienced Mintoff’s violence will always remain a raw testament to the lack of democracy and the oppression of the Mintoffian regime. What does this johnny-come-lately think the Maltese electorate is ?
I got the chills listening to him. Throughout his reign he was always vindictive, undiplomatic and full of envy. He never respected different opinions.
Regrettably, half of Malta stills looks at him as their god but history will be unkind to him. MLP are suffering to this day precisely because of the 16 years he and his creature Karmenu spent in government.
Mhux biex tara kif ha ddawar lira minn fuq il-film? Din it-tifla ta’ Mintoff, wara kollox.
M’ ghandiex aptit tistenna lil dak l imqammel ta’ missierha jiffonda biex tiret mid-dehra.
i have decided. I can no longer stress myself with the thought of those scumbags being elected to power.
So what, we’ll be getting the government we deserve. I’ll just lie back and enjoy seeing the ones (including some misguided friends) who have voted them in cringing with regret and embarrassment at what they have lumbered us, and themselves, with.
I hope she does take legal action against the production company.
I will volunteer as a defence witness because, unlike Mintoff Bland, I was in Malta during the Mintoff’s regime and I was in Zejtun of all places.
I was arrested twice on trumped-up charges (they failed), I was burned out – literally, by arsonists – of my surgery three times. I was violently attacked, physically, by the Labour creme de la creme.
The list is much longer but I will limit myself to saying that for the past 34 years I have been disabled and use a walking-stick, because when I needed medical treatment that was not available in Malta, the wife of one of Mintoff’s cabinet ministers decided that I was rich and did not vote Labour so my case did not warrant an excursion to a specialised UK hospital.
The doctors’ strike was on at that time.
Tony, I have always admired your great stoicism in the face of a hubristic regime.
Malta could do with more people of your ilk.
Please allow me to quote Kipling once again :
“Lest we forget”.
Thanks.
Yana Bland knows all right what her father was like. He treated their mother abusively and kept her short of everything she needed, for a start. He treated the country exactly the same way.
Now we see all these croc tears seaping down her weathered cheeks, when there is an inheritance at stake. Is Yana Bland in Malta, after being absent since the late 1960s, because she wants to be part of Joseph Muscat’s New Malta, or because she’s standing guard over her daddy’s millions?
Hallina Dr. Bland. And for the record, it was your people who turned on Dear Dom and called him a traitor, not the PN.
Dear Yana,
I too would like to speak to lawyers about the film Dear Dom, now being shown in cinemas. From what I hear, the film fails to adequately portray the harmful impact on successive generations of Maltese citizens of Duminku’s mania for the nationalization of privately owned businesses and the outright theft of private property that was practised by his regime.
There are so many stories that have yet to be told. There are many others that are still making their way through the Byzantine maze that passes for a judicial system in Malta.
However, I will not be consulting lawyers and bringing action against the filmmaker, as I respect that it is his prerogative to tell the story as he sees fit. You know, marketplace of ideas, and all of that.
By the way, how do Joey’s handlers really feel about your efforts to bring the good old MLP vibe back into the PL mix?
Yana kienet l-Amerka dak iz-zmien, kienet tiekol li trid mhux li kien igibilha Mintoff. U kienet tixtri dak li trid, mhux dak biss li kien jiddettalha Mintoff.
Hallina, tridx, Ms Mintoff? Mhux ahjar terga tmur minn fejn gejt u toqghod tpappi il-flus li forsi tiehu minghand missierek wara li jitlaq minn din il-hajja?
One day soon all the facts about her dear father will be written and recorded for posterity.
They will form an integral, unequivocal and incontrovertible part of Maltese history. There are still many thousand survivors of that tragic epoch who will ensure that this will be done.
Ms Bland, as I am sure you know, money is very important in life.
Apart from money, there is this little something known as the dignity of the human person which, believe it or not, is far more important.
Rather then wasting your precious time consultitng lawyers I strongly suggest you go through John Paul II ‘s :
Redemptor Hominis, Centesimus Annus and Veritatis Splendor
In doing so you might learn that which your father, in a hundred years, never did.
Anthony, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother that she is wasting precious time consulting lawyers. Let them make some money off the Mintoff family. I hope they are charging her VAT at the full rate, like that the government benefits too.
If you think the Mintoffs pay anyone for anything, then think again.
” But didn’t everyone benefit from the social benefits which he had introduced? Hadn’t he eradicated poverty for everyone? Hadn’t everyone benefited from the freedom he achieved for the country?”
I remember when I was at junior school we would often have a discussion about Malta being a third world country. It was a common topic in Social Studies, and even an exam paper question at one point.
I clearly remember the class agreeing that it is a third world country but it s improving quickly: this was in the 90s.
It was in the 90s that Malta actually started to improve.
Mintoff eradicated poverty, my foot. More like made poverty the norm while others got away with having a yacht. Everyone was forced to live a very low standard of living.
Social benefits? Weren’t they paid for by Gaddafi?
Yes, with blood money as we now all know, and as a lot of us knew even then.
The more they try to defend their idol, the more they stir up the memories of the most violent, vindictive, oppressive and corrupt period in Malta’s history.
Maybe another movie should be produced showing any available footage of police station burnings, the Courts looting, the Times burning, the Tal-Barrani attack on Nationalist supporters, the Rabat shootings, the Raymond Caruana murder, the Pietru Pawl Busuttil frame-up, the empty store shelves, the bribes to LP clubs ‘to jump the list’ in order to acquire a colour TV, the decimation of the U of M, the closing of MCAST, the famous 20 points plus a parrinu plus ministerial approval just to get in university…and the list is endless.
Wiċċha u sormha xorta. She wants to make some good money by suing the production company.
She should have stayed in Malta when her dear daddy was prime minister. She left Malta when we were still a third world country under a Socialist regime and returned to a developed EU country.
What a hypocrite.
Many know exactly what kind of sentiments Dom’s daughters nurtured towards their father during a lifetime of watching his ill-treatment of their sainted mother, as he left her penniless and dependent on the charity of friends while he ran around with other women and shouted and bullied.
Dom Mintoff, the ultimate narcissist, respected only himself. All those around him were simply props.
Suffice it to say that when Dom Mintoff’s water and electricity supply was suspended because he refused to pay his bills, it wasn’t his lovely daughters who settled them, but that poor sucker Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.
Meanwhile, socialist Yana was in the evil, wicked capital imperialist United States of America.
Ah but he was kindhearted too. When a number of us were illegally sacked for taking a day off from work on Mnarja, he very kindly reinstated us on his birthday.
As if it weren’t his wish to give us the boot in the first place. U hallina Yana. You have some nerve coming back here and treating us all like imbeciles.
Workers got beaten up, shop owners lost their licence and everybody from manager level down got the sack. Their grave offence was taking the day off on a traditional holiday which had been struck off the calendar of public holidays.
That film did LITTLE JUSTICE to DOM’s victims.
Did you really not expect to be sacked for trying to bring the country to a standstill, just to go and have a swim?
The mistake was Mintof’s because he reinstated you.
What are your feelings now, when you see hundreds of workers lose their jobs in Air Malta, Malta drydocks, Go, etc. At least you were reinstated, but what about them?
Malta was to say the least lucky to have Mintof in those days. Those times needed a strong man to get us out of the difficult situations that Malta was passing through, and then we didn’t have the E.U.to blame for making us take austerity measures to cover up our incompetence.
I think Yana deserves some appreciation. When you and your kind were protesting because you wanted a day off to go for a swim, she was protesting in the House of Commons.
[Daphne – Silvio, you cannot be serious.]
You know I am just being provocative.
The sacking was illegal as it was later proved in court. The fact that our reinstatement was done on Mintoff’s birthday only goes to show what a Stalinist State we were living in. To have your bread and butter dependent on a dictator’s whim is a terrifying thought, not easily washed away by a swim.
And as for the Air Malta, Malta Drydocks etc, ilhom ipappuha s-snin! And we’ve all been paying for their keep for over thirty years. So I’m not too fussed. We weren’t dismissed because we were redundant but because we chose to follow a political directive. A day’s pay deduction would have been ample punishment.
Also, only a small percentage of those who did not show up for work were suspended and later fired. They obviously did not want to disclose how many people had actually followed the directive. It would have been odd if the following day, over 80% of the staff had disappeared.
So he tried to bribe you too? I bet you voted for him because of his ‘kindness’?
Mugabe too granted some amnesties when it suited him. Nonetheless he was also a notorious ruthless despot
Oh daddy dearest, look what they’ve done to you now. They have portrayed you as an evil lowlife and ruthless bastard.
If only they knew how kind and honest you are, how sweet you can be, and how much money you’ve saved up for us in Swiss accounts,should ever the Maltese people get to the stage when there is ‘hafna faqar u nstabilita’ so that you’ll dish it all out to the needy people you love so much.
This film will be stopped and edited the way you would like it daddy dearest, and then off to next year’s Grammy Awards and maybe you’ll get a statue of Uncle Oscar so that you can put it next to the one of Uncle Muammar.
‘
This is the woman, then known as Joan Mintoff Bland, who threw horse manure at MPs in the Houses of Parliament in London.
And she now wants to stand for parliament in Malta?
Tridx tmur jekk ma kienx vendikattiv Dom Mintoff!
Saqsu lil mexxejja tal-MAM ta’ zmien 1977 meta Mintoff sab kull skuza biex ikisser lil prefessjoni Medika Maltija, joqtol bil-guh lil kull tabib li obda iddirettivi legittmi tal union tieghu, ghalaq li sptarijiet privati, u lil-istudenti tal-medicina tefahhom jahslu il-pazjenti u l art tal-wards tal Mount Carmel hospital u jillustraw il patelli bhala parti mittraining taghhom fil-medicina.
U aqta ghal fejn?
Ghax fil-fifties meta ghamel ftit zmien prim ministru ma kienx irnexxilu ikisser id Doctors’ Union ta’ dak iz-zmien, u meta snin wara kien waqa’ miz-ziemel u kellu jittiehed li sptar ghal punti, ma kienx sab lil kirurgu tal-fiducja tieghu St Luke’s ghax kien qed jopera il-Blues.
Saqsu lil certa membri tal-familja tieghu x’kien kapaci jaghmel Duminku biex tghaddi tieghu u jiehu dak li jrid b’rispett lejn hadd.
Fuq kollox, saqsu lil Fredu Sant jekk Duminku ma jasalx biex jaghmel kollox, ANKE JIPPROVA IKISSER IL PARTIT TAL HADDIEMA, b vendikazzjoni u biex juri lil kullhadd, ta’ bully li hu, li “l état, c ést moi” u li hu u il partit huma haga wahda u li kif bena il-partit seta ikissru ukoll.
Fl-ahhar saqsu lil dawk li jigu minn Sir Paul Boffa, fliema livelli baxxi kien nizel Duminku Mintoff biex akkost ta kollox jahtaflu il- leadership tal- Partit.
During the 1977 dispute with the medical profession Mintoff passed a law which no other monster in the world’s political history ever passed.
He legislated to prevent doctors, who were locked out of state hospitals for obeying legitimate union directives, from working anywhere else on the island.
They were left with three options. They could either cave in or flee Malta with their families.
The third option was to stay in Malta and die of hunger.
That the vast majority of those hit opted to leave Malta, will stand forever as a monument to their integrity and steadfastness in the face of unbridled oppression.
It was their finest hour and, alas, Malta’s darkest.
In this instance Mintoff outshone his friends Mugabe, Kim il Sung, Ceausescu and his blood brother Muammar.
This is just lest anyone forgets.
Aktar vedikazzjonijiet li Mintoff ghamel lit tobba MALTIN ;
Illegizla biex tobba MALTIN li jigu min barra biex jahdmu Malta kellom ta’ bil-fors jaghmlu sentejn jahdmu li sptar u bhala garanzija kellom JIPOTEKAW FAVUR IL-GVERN TA’ MALTA propjeta’ sa ghaxart elef lira Maltin.
Multi u penali horox lt- tobba MALTIN jahdmu l’ isptar jekk jinqabdu jahdmu privat wara il-hin, anke jekk dawn ikunu ilhom snin twal li iggradwaw .
Tobba MALTIN kienu imhallsa ferm anqas bit-tobba strike- breakers barranin.
TRIDX TMUR JEKK MINTOFF KIENX VENDIKATTIV JEW LE!
High time that this blog showed some graphic pictures of how Maltese doctors were dragged forcefully out of St Luke’s and manhandled by an assortment of Labour Ministers and their pet thugs in 1977.
It may help squash the Socialsit-Mintoffian myth that is still perpetuated today at regular intervals on ONE media that the wicked Maltese doctors ABANDONED their patients at St Luke’s during strike action for better pay.
Today’s young people have a right to know what REALLY went on during the reign of Yana Mintoff Bland’s dear daddy.
Wasal biex qala’ l-aktar xniegha mahmuga li tista’ taghmel fuq missier u bintu.
Jekk il-bniedem jasal s’hemm, hawn xi hadd li jiddubita fejn seta’ jasal? Il-Laburisti ma’ jistghux inizzlu kif hallewh johnoqhom, iz-zghar biss ghandhom cans jehilsu.
Bravu Spock, spot on. Nixtieq inzid kemm hu ironiku il-fatt li wiehed mill-ftit tal-ewwel li fetah klinika privata, wara li it-tobba tkeccew il-barra, kien il ministru tas-sahha Dr. Censu Moran. Fetah business minn fuq il-tbatija tal-poplu Malti.
So we’re back to fuming and stamping our foot because somebody dares step out of the line dear Dom imposes on us.
Is that the way in which you intend to protect our human rights, Yana, if you’re elected?
Nonetheless, thank you for reminding us once again (not that I needed any reminding) that the words ‘Mintoff’ and ‘oppression’ go together.
Your father and all his acolytes deserve to rot in hell for what they did to us. Pierre Ellul’s film portrays but a drop of the ocean of misery so many thousands of us had to live in day after day.
I couldn’t stop crying during the second part of the film and many of the people watching it were crying too. I could see people hiding red eyes on their way out and so many people just sat in their seats waiting for the credits to come to an end, possibly trying to dust themselves off and pick themselves up.
So many of us are still trying to come to terms with what we had to live through. It’s a pity I’m not amenable to using foul language because the expletives at the tip of my fingers as I write this would attract the wrath of the most lax of censorship boards.
You all deserve to be banished from Malta for ruining our lives. And yet, that Skip King continues to woo you.
Yana, we see through you and your father. And, above all, we have the tools and the freedom to set you aside and to defend ourselves against your deeply offensive behaviour.
You should hang your head in shame not defy the pain of so many of us.
Go to hell, and leave us in peace. What are you up to now? Throwing manure at us as you did at British MPs?
Actually I felt disappointed watching the movie for totally the opposite reason.
– It was too short in length.
– Did not mention Alfred Sant at all and his tumultuous relationship with Dom Mintoff.
– The narrative did not mention his falling out of favour with the Labour Party and his abrasive dismissal as ‘traitor’.
– Eddie Fenech Adami was mentioned only for say 2 seconds.
– Could have easily spent another 2 hours describing his main role in inciting violence and his brutish trampling on the human rights of many people.
– His de facto Socialist Dictatorship (Kim il-Sung style) of Malta between 1981 and 1987.
What a bloody cheek!
Mrs. Bland, just live and let live, thank you very much.
How about this for a news headline:
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Police-shoot-caveman-in-self-defence-20120330
Seems that caveman was pretty sophisticated. Surely, history needs to be re-written.
Here is caveman during his attack on the police. MaltaToday did not publish this picture because of data protection.
http://jmdemma.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/caveman.jpg
x’ghandu x’jaqsam Joe Debono Grech?
They changed the title – but the internet address is still showing caveman. Check for yourselves.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Police-shoot-caveman-in-self-defence-20120330
There is light at the end of the tunnel:
http://markanthonysammut.blogspot.com/2012/03/dear-yana.html
Mintoff’s daughter returned to Malta after Joseph Muscat made peace, for his own personal ends, with all the rubbish that Alfred Sant had so tactfully got rid off.
Now the rubbish is back and so is Mintoff’s daughter.
She has been fooled into believing that she will be good for the party = but actually Joseph thinks that now that peace has been made, she will be able to rope in a few thousand votes in the district she will be asked to represent, to the detriment of the other Labour candidates who have been struggling hard.
Interesting future – and I hope the “STAY AT HOME” Nationalists will for heaven’s sake wake up.
Taf x’insejt tghid sur Spock? Li it-tobba tal-MAM kienu dejjem hemm lesti biex jatu servizz ta’emergenza li kieku Mintoff, Danny Cremona u shabhom ippermettew li t-tobba jatu dak is-sevizz. Dik kienet azzjoni ndustrjali parzjali min-naha tat-tobba li Mintoff ikkonvertiha f’lock out tat-tobba minghajr ebda rispett lejn il-htigijiet tal-morda,
Hag’ ohra li tikkonferma li sfond ta’vendikazzjoni minn Mintoff kontra l-mexxejja tal-Medical Officers Union li snin qabel kienu waqfulu b’success. Il-lock out tat-tobba, hafna snin wara, kien jintemm hafna qabel li kieku l-amministrazzjoni ta’Mintoff accettat il-proposta li it-tobba tal-MAM jergghu jidhlu KOLLHA ghax-xoghol u mhux dawk biss li kienu graditi ghal Mintoff. Kollha konna nafu min kienu t-tobba mill-aktar rispettabli li Mintoff ma riedx li jithallew jidhlu lura ghax-xoghol minhabba l-vendikazzjonjiet ta’mohhu.
It is the timing of such a controversial film that really worries me.
Why try and demonise the Labour Party on the eve of the next general election if not to try and distract the electorate on the economic and social problems that we are all experiencing today?
[Daphne – The film does not demonise the Labour Party. It isn’t even about the Labour Party. As for demonising Mintoff, I have not watched it myself, but a comment I’ve heard from many is that it’s far too soft on him and does not convey fully the true suffocating oppression and fear of the times we lived through. It’s difficult to capture that on film.]
Mintoff was what he was 25 years ago … Today is today. The electorate today is concerned with the way government is handling our economy and not what Mintoff said or did quarter of a century ago.
Evil as he is depicted, he left a healthy economy behind him and introduced break through social services that are still considered as being the pillars of the society that we live in today.
[Daphne – Kenneth, he did not leave a healthy economy. His legacy was a country with its back broken, and an economy in stagnation, with fearsome levels of unemployment and people living in fear. Don’t believe the lies you’re told. Find out for yourself. I don’t have to, because I lived through it.]
I honestly believe that we owe the man some gratitude for his avant garde politics and although there where some rough periods the foundations of our democracy today are primarily due to his timely interventions.
[Daphne – Kenneth, when you haven’t lived through something, the clever thing to do is to research it and not rely on what you are told by fellow-travellers. How do I know you didn’t live through it? Because if you had, you wouldn’t sound so naive and….innocent.]
Nahseb li dan huwa Spiteri minn tas-Sliema li gej minn familija Nazzjonalita u sej johrogg bhala kandidat Laborista fuq it-tielet distrett. Jekk m’ghandix zball dan huwa dentist.
Kenneth, the economic and social problems that we are all experiencing today pale into insignificance when compared to those under the Mintoff/KMB regime.
You say that Mintoff left a healthy economy behind him.
Mintoff left no economy behind him. It was all scorched earth.
Kenneth, you either were not around then or else you are an utter and complete imbecile.
You sound to me to be of average intelligemce.
Therefore I conclude that you did not live as a thinking adult in the seventies and eighties, certainly not in Malta.
I can’t believe this. Daphne pls note:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120401/local/labour-government-would-invite-lawrence-gonzi-to-inaugurate-city-gate-project.413686
Two things, Ms Bland:
1) Your father must be the only prime minister ever to have said “F * * * the Constitution” (interesting that he didn’t say that when that same constitution gave him the right to govern with an absolute minority of votes, on the contrary, he waved the same constitution in our faces).
2) As one who took part in broadcasts on ‘Studio Master’, your father declared me “an enemy of the people”, inciting his rabble to mete out vigilante “justice”. But hey, he wasn’t being vindictive or violent was he?
You should just thank your lucky stars that you have the freedom we never did, especially after your father virtually murdered it in cold blood and we slowly and painfully saved it and gave it back to Malta. You don’t deserve it.
following from wikipedia :
Yana Mintoff
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yana Mintoff (aka Joan Mintoff Bland) is a political activist, economist[1] and educator.[2] Joan Mintoff was born on 21 August 1951, the daughter of the former Prime Minister of Malta, Dom Mintoff and Moyra De Vere Bentinck, by whom she is descended from both Dutch and British nobility.[3]
In 1968, at the age of 17, Yana Mintoff, travelled to Czechoslovakia on her own, outraged by the Soviet occupation of that country and its harsh repression. She worked at Olomouc as a youth volunteer and opposed the Soviet military presence.
In 1973 to 1974, while working as a teacher in Greece, she was swept up in the student protests against the oppressive military Junta that had taken power in a CIA-backed coup. She was amongst the students who were attacked by the army outside the Athens Polytechnic. Many students were killed and she was shot at three times before managing to escape.
[Daphne – There goes Patty Hearst.]