A very full hall at the Hilton Conference Centre saw the launch of Lino Spiteri’s new book Jien u Ghaddej fil-Politika (PEG Ltd) last Thursday but, despite Mr Spiteri having been a minister in Alfred Sant’s 1996 to 1998 administration, no one from “New” Labour turned up.

There were two Cabinet ministers – Louis Galea and Dolores Cristina – three former ministers – John Dalli, Michael Falzon and Daniel Micallef and former MLP deputy leader George Abela.

There were also some in the audience, well-known for their support of the present Labour leadership, who afterwards were heard muttering that the book’s publication and its possible manipulation by the pro-Nationalist party media was “bad timing” on Mr Spiteri’s part.

Excerpts of the launch will be shown on Bondiplus on Tuesday.

The panel was made up of four speakers each of whom focused on successive eras in Mr Spiteri’s 40-year-plus militancy in politics.

Fr Arthur Vella SJ dwelt on the early stages of Mr Spiteri’s militancy especially the politico-religious conflict in the 1960s when Mr Spiteri himself, being under a Church interdict, could only get married in a church sacristy and suffered public ignominy.

Fr Vella praised the book for being objective about those dark days “whose consequences are still very much with us”.

The next speaker was Dr Martin Zammit, who was Dom Mintoff’s personal secretary for seven years.

In his book, Mr Spiteri makes much of what he calls the mutual antipathy between himself and Mr Mintoff due to the clash of their personalities but Dr Zammit said he never perceived this. Yet he agreed with Mr Spiteri’s blunt refusal to go and work at Castille, near Dom, for “he would have ended up as just another Wistin Abela – Mintoff’s sounding board on everything and anything. Mr Mintoff wanted an audience for whatever he did, Dr Zammit said, even to give his Christmas greetings on television.

Dr Zammit also confirmed Mr Spiteri’s version of what took place in Cabinet at its first meeting after the 1981 election had put it in power despite getting fewer votes than the Nationalist Party. He also confirmed it was Mr Spiteri who persuaded Mr Mintoff to agree to the Constitutional amendment that the party which gets the majority of votes gets the majority of seats.

Sometimes he (Dr Zammit) would get the brunt of Mr Spiteri’s ire when he was ordered by Mr Mintoff to call in Mr Spiteri at some inhuman hour such as 11pm. He also remembered Dr Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici telling Mr Spiteri: “Of course, Dom does not like you: you contradict him in everything!”

Dr Zammit also said that Mr Mintoff did to him what he did to Mr Spiteri: when Mr Spiteri was about to go to Oxford to further his studies, Mr Mintoff tried to hold him back telling him he would learn more if he stayed at his side.

Nevertheless, whenever Mr Spiteri came to Castille great peace reigned, Dr Zammit said: this did not happen when other ministers turned up as things with Dom tended to get very hot.

The third speaker was Joe Sammut, who was Cabinet Secretary from 1983 to 1987 and lately Ombudsman. He praised Mr Spiteri for being very careful not to get civil servants into trouble: something not all ministers are careful about. Mr Sammut also said he was not present when most of what Mr Spiteri recounted about those times took place.

The final speaker, Noel Grima, dealt with the turbulent (for Mr Spiteri) 1990s.

He began by recounting how he and Mr Spiteri happened to be chatting at the Ta Qali counting hall when news came that Labour had won the election. Turning to him, and quoting a sentence he (Mr Grima) had used some days before in a The Malta Business Weekly leader, Mr Spiteri said: “Adesso viene il bello”. Those words were to prove prophetical.

Mr Grima noted the coincidence of dates: the launch date (22 March) was very near to the date of the MLP leadership election in 1992 (26 March) as well as the date when Mr Spiteri resigned as minister (26 March 1997).

The book speaks about the MLP leadership election in 1992 and what led to his resignation in 1997. Yet, although the two events were very powerful ones, Mr Spiteri’s treatment of them is far less forceful than the way he created some of the fiction stories he wrote such as Fejn Jixrob il-Qasab and Mal-Hmura tas-Silla. He tells the same story in this book that he narrates in his other book Meta Jdellel il-Qamar, and even here the fictionalised version is far more powerful than the rather bland account he gives in the book being launched.

There are far more people who can, and should write their autobiographies so that tomorrow’s history students will know what really took place.

As for Mr Spiteri’s account of what happened at the Rialto during the Labour leadership election, there is nothing that is unusual in the new book, Mr Grima said, adding that he thought the book’s account does not say all that had been said in public about that event.

Nevertheless, he added, it seems that something happened and whatever happened then is still having an impact today.

As for Mr Spiteri’s resignation, he realised that by allowing his candidature for Parliament to go through in 1996, despite the party fighting on a platform about which he had not been consulted and which, as an economist and also as a politician, knew could never be implemented – the removal of VAT – he was living, in his own words, a lie. Mr Grima praised Mr Spiteri for having the moral courage to back out of a position he knew was based on a lie.

We are living in a time when cracks are developing in the two main parties, Mr Grima added, and now more than ever people are needed who have Mr Spiteri’s brand of moral courage.

Although the book says that when Dr Abela tried to hint to Mr Spiteri he could get him elected President and Mr Spiteri had promptly replied that once out of politics, he intended to stay out of politics, Mr Grima said he very much doubts this: the very fact that Mr Spiteri wrote his political autobiography shows he has no intention of being reduced to silence. He may not come back to the political arena or make it to some institutional post, but he will still be a moral voice of conscience that will be heard by one and all.