Let me agree with Ms Valerie Borg (TMID, 9 November) that Dom Mintoff did eliminate beggars from the street – it became illegal to beg! Did that reduce poverty?

I have not been living so long in Canada that I forgot what things were like in the Mintoffian era. And after I left, I did not hibernate in a cocoon oblivious of what was taking place in Malta – far from it.

Why scare pensioners about having to pay for medicines when such an item is not even on the government’s agenda? Why scare them that after Mater Dei opens things will get worse and not better? Why do you always look at a half empty glass?

It is simply because you were brought up in a “gloom and doom” atmosphere within the MLP because they lack forward vision. Do not forget that when you cast gloom, you cast it on your supporters too, who by now, I figure, are also getting tired of the same old, worn-out messages.

The 22 months of the Alfred Sant government was not too short to introduce fees for certificates, medicine, much higher water and electricity rates and, to top it all, remove VAT and replace it with CET. Do you remember shop owners smashing their cash registers soon after the short-lived MLP victory, only to have to buy new ones because of CET which, by the way, was a total failure?

Why did two cabinet ministers resign during the first months of the short 22-month reign?

Dear pensioners, who would you trust? A government that presents its programme and follows through with its promises, or an opposition that makes U-turns at every political opportunity – an anti-EU opposition that recently turned 180 degrees to agree with EU membership and exhorted all “to take all possible advantages offered by the EU”?

Would you not trust a government that set out four years ago to put the

economy on a sound foundation and, when its efforts bore fruit, lessened the burden on the taxpayer? Or an opposition that tries to tell you it will cut the fuel surcharge by 50 per cent, when it cannot predict the international price of oil for next week, let alone in the coming years?

Of course the same goes for workers who are not yet of pensionable age. You are the ones who are carrying the majority of the tax burden and no tax, however small, is welcome news – ever. But fair taxation – taxation that bears fruit – improves the services you most often demand, better roads, better job opportunities and a higher standard of living. Maybe someone should statistically compare the standard of living in the Labour era, compared to the post 1987 era. That would definitely be an eye-opener! No doubt the MLP would say that this has nothing to do with Nationalist governments since, but was rather the continuation of Labour ideas!

A Nationalist government is a government of all Maltese, not just Nationalist Maltese.

Joe Martinelli

London, Ontario

Canada