This is a country where there is a huge chasm between what we preach and what we do, between what we say between ourselves and what we say when we for example, write letters to newspapers. And it is like this because we can get away with it so easily.

Most of the country agrees, at least in public statements, that divorce is wrong. And yet a staggering number of people manage to get annulments which allow them to marry again and start new families and new lives.

This is a country where there is almost unanimous approval, in writing at least, to abortion being prohibited, although we know that when we say this, the situation is not final at all, because it is very easy to say you disagree with it and yet go abroad and have an abortion if you want to.

So many, or most, go with the flow and continue to live their own lives and make the same decisions as many who live in Europe do.

It is very easy for us to make decisions and pretend we agree with all of the pronouncements of certain leaders, because we don’t have to live with the consequences of those decisions.

It is a country of ketchup morals.

Have you heard the story of the UK businessman whose email has left him very red-faced? It transpires that this chap emailed his secretary, who had just returned to work following the death of her mother , asking her to refund him £4 it cost to have his trousers dry-cleaned after she inadvertently dropped some tomato ketchup on them!

This bright spark of a secretary, in the best form of revenge, chose to humiliate him and forwarded this email from him to many others, and her reply is equally priceless.

“I must apologise for not getting back to you straightaway. Due to my mother’s sudden illness, death and funeral I have had more pressing issues than your four pounds. Obviously your financial need as a senior associate is much greater than mine as a mere secretary.”

So why, perhaps, are you asking what comparison there is between this country’s morals and the morals of this man?

Because on paper he is right. She stained his trousers and she should pay the cleaning bill. But obviously he should have been compassionate about what she had just been through with the death of her mother.

And, most important of all, when you are so much richer than someone else, as most businessmen are compared with their secretaries, it is extremely mean-spirited to try and claim the cost of a dry-cleaning bill.

And that’s the whole point of morals and morals which are too strict, isn’t it? On paper they are fine. But when you apply them to real life, and real people, and real situations, they begin to appear very shaky indeed. So, on paper it is easy to claim that bringing in divorce would destroy the fabric of Maltese society. But are we really as sound as we seem?

After all, if it’s your 25-year-old daughter who found her husband in bed with another woman (and he doesn’t want your daughter back) all the decent Maltese dads I know do not believe that their daughter should have a life sentence of not marrying again.

Some find ways round it. Some go abroad for a divorce. Some obtain an annulment by claiming all sorts of things – even when their marriage is one where children have been produced. But ways around things are found by many middle-class people.

Perhaps it’s useless to complain about this. Perhaps we should all accept this ketchup country hypocrisy, and just do our own thing, while pretending we agree with the great and the good.

And yet I do wish that more people would say in public what they say in private. More are doing, so the tide may be turning, and we should not let anyone discourage us from being compassionate and less rigid than we have been in the past.

This is a country where politicians are asking us to be compassionate about the plight of irregular immigrants, to respect their courage. By the same token, our leaders must show compassion for those whose lives have not followed a straightforward pattern and, most importantly of all, who find it harder to sort out their problems.