Like many others Michelle Mallia (TMID, 19 October) is twisting Dr Alfred Sant’s words. This does not surprise us knowing Ms Mallia is part of the Nationalist Party. This is and has always been their style.

I was not (and most probably neither was Ms Mallia) at the GWU congress but Dr Sant’s words came out loud and clear when he said that the GWU is a privileged partner of the Labour Party in the movement of the left.

He never said that the GWU would be a privileged partner in any future Labour government. If those who objected to this statement were honest enough they would admit that they cannot be a privileged partner in any movement of the left for the simple reason that they do not belong to this movement. But of course they still prefer to criticise every word that Dr Sant utters.

Ms Mallia also said that such statements brought back memories of the years between 1971 and 1987. May I also add that many people my age look back at those years with nostalgia.

They were the years when wages shot up; when children’s allowance was introduced for all; when education became totally free; when our health service became totally free; when university education became accessible to all; when workers were given the opportunity to own their own homes; when all jobs became pensionable; when leave entitlement went up from one to four weeks; and the list could go on and on.

1987 was the year when Labour lost power but left a surplus of hundreds of millions of liri in Malta’s coffers. Today after so many years of Nationalist government we are burdened with a national debt of more than one and a half billion liri.

Perhaps Ms Mallia is too young to remember all this but a little research and some pertinent questions to the right people will surely enlighten her.

George Busuttil

Marsascala