“I don’t follow hate bloggers”: cabinet minister to elector who challenged him about his campaign use of his official email address

This exchange is being reproduced with the permission of the Justice Minister’s interlocutor, who sent it to me.

You will notice that the tone is entirely inappropriate for a cabinet minister responding to a member of the public. At one point, where he asks for her telephone number, it can be interpreted as suggestive (she is a woman).

Maybe he didn’t want to put his reply down on the record in writing, which is bad enough, but then he ran the far worse risk of being recorded, so that doesn’t wash.

When she points out that the proper course of action would be to issue an official explanation as to why he is using his official government address for personal campaign purposes, he responds: “I’m fraid I don’t follow hate bloggers.”

This such an inappropriate thing for a cabinet minister to say, let alone the sentiment and attitude itself, that I don’t know where to begin. Truly, these people are from a completely different world and a law unto themselves.

And this is quite apart from the fact that he’s the Minister of Culture and yet he does not know that in English, quite unlike Maltese, one reads and not “follows”.