Is it the hot summer days that is making me sick to the pit of my stomach or do a massive number of people feel like I do, yet prefer to keep silent?

The banality of the cascade of balderdash thrown at each other from the two political parties does not augur well for our Maltese politicians. Every day we hear one politician being “astute” enough to assassinate his adversary’s character.

Every day on the news, in the newspapers, it has become a ritual for assaults between the two political parties that surely by now every bystander has become sick of.

Is this really what politics is all about? Is this what Maltese people vote for every five years or so? Why do our politicians behave like this? Is this the example they want to set their voters?

Once upon a time, naïve me used to think that politicians were there to be of service to their country. Serene, calm and untroubled, both parties – although with different principles – would express their sentiments by sound arguments, sense and sensibility, leading by example. But it is not the case.

How can children and young people be expected to look up to these politicians when the

latter are so prone to such conduct? It is precisely like parents being vigilant over their children in case they swear or use foul language, when they themselves fall into the same trap!

Why don’t they rebuild the Royal Opera House as a boxing ring where they can be as uncouth, furious and irrational as they please? Do us a favour, though, stop contaminating our country with your continuous mutilation of each other’s character in the media.

Valerie Borg

Valletta