It is my innate sense of justice, my need to know that what is right will win out in the end, that is – other than a belief in its politics – the main factor motivating me to vote for the Nationalist Party on Saturday. I cannot bear the thought of injustice, still less the reality of it. It’s true that life is unfair and that much of it can’t be helped, but where I can do anything to avoid unfairness or to set it straight, then I will.

There are situations which create so much disillusionment that they can seriously undermine our faith in human nature, in the hope that good will triumph over bad, that people will get what they deserve, that those who don’t deserve things won’t get them, that fortune will favour the brave and not the unworthy. Evidence all around us that this does not necessarily happen can make us angry. But rather than giving in to anger or disillusionment, it is better, and more consoling, to know that we have done our best to avert the triumph of the undeserving, in which those who have served us ill are rewarded while those who have served well are punished.

I don’t want Labour to win this particular election because it wouldn’t be fair. At so very many levels it would be extremely unjust. Lawrence Gonzi has just negotiated Malta’s package under the upcoming EU budget. In the face of enormous odds, with funds being hacked away and opposition from other states facing austerity measures, he and his team succeeded in obtaining twice what was offered: €1.2 billion. This money will cover the whole of the next government’s term of office. I find it unjust and unacceptable that the man who obtained this money for Malta is voted out while Joseph Muscat, who never did anything for Malta and actually worked against our interests by trying to keep us out of the European Union, will get to spend it.

It is not only that I don’t trust him and his strange assortment of would-be ministers to spend that huge amount of money well. I just don’t think it is right. Any situation is intolerable to me in which the lazy and undeserving benefit completely from the strenuous efforts of the hardworking and committed. It is thoroughly unfair.

It is not just the €1.2 billion which Muscat will have to spend when he did nothing to obtain it. It is also that the next five years will bring three major situations over which Joseph Muscat does not in any way deserve to preside. This thoroughly undeserving, inept and unsuitable fellow could not become prime minister at a more opportune time for him and his dreadfully pushy wife, or at a less opportune time for Malta. If it happens, because of the way people will vote, it should outrage our sense of justice at all levels – that is, if we are decent.

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of Malta’s Independence from Britain, a day that marked Malta’s birth as a nation-state. The thought that the ceremonies will be planned and presided over by the likes of Joseph Muscat, Karmenu Vella, Leo Brincat and other assorted ghouls of the Labour Party is deeply disturbing. Their rewriting of history, over the last five years since Muscat became leader, has been so complete that we can expect to see this commemoration of George Borg Olivier’s achievement turned into a tribute to Dom Mintoff. And quite frankly, the very thought these three smirking and grinning as they preside over the 50th anniversary of Malta’s independence, while the party that obtained it sits in the wings as a guest, disgusts me.

Then there is the hard-fought-for and hard-won Valletta 2018, European Capital of Culture. How grossly unfair that this should be left in a Labour government’s hands, in the hands of a political party that did everything it could to fight against and destroy our European identity, that derided and eroded any concept of culture other than Wardakanta and the absolutely ghastly productions of an ageing 1970s reject and failed playwright called Albert Marshall. Labour’s track record on the creative arts was to systematically mock and eliminate anything which did not fall into the Gensaschool of pseudo-political entertainment. Under Labour, carnival floats were the height of culture.

 

I have left the worst scenario for last: Joseph Muscat, president of the European Union. For most of us have forgotten, have we not, that Malta will hold the presidency of the European Union in 2017. Yes, it is truly shocking – an outrageous irony – that the very man who built his career on a campaign, many years long, to keep Malta out of the European Union, a man who voted No to EU membership, a man who did so much harm, deliberately and maliciously, to the very architects of Malta’s EU membership, will now find himself rewarded for the harm he did by having the electorate make him President of the European Union.

Because that is what it boils down to. If we elect the Labour Party to government, we are voting, effectively, to make Joseph Muscat president of the European Union in 2017. You might disagree with me on many things, perhaps even everything, but you know that in your heart of hearts you agree with me on this: the man simply does not deserve it. It would be wrong, sickeningly unfair. All those with a sense of decency and justice, whatever their political sentiments might be, know this.

It would be a tragic irony on a pan-European scale, not just for Malta. A Super One reporter, president of the European Union; the chief propagandist in the anti-EU campaign run for years by the only socialist party in Europe opposed to EU membership, president of the European Union; Michelle Muscat, personal assistant to Alfred Sant as he fought his terrible battle against EU membership, Mrs President of the European Union. It is wrong on so many levels. It doesn’t quite bear thinking about. But we shall have to think about it, deeply and well, before we vote. It would be thoroughly irresponsible not to do so, just as it is a bad thing to reward those who do not deserve it while punishing those who did all the work.