Reading Dr Gavin Gulia’s contribution You can take the horse to the water… but you cannot make it drink (TMID, 8 January), I was amused to notice that the Labour politician could not accept the fact that the last Christmas and New Year’s festivities brought about a positive wind of change to the business community on the islands.

He tried to hide his disappointment in all this by blaming a section of the media, which according to the Labour shadow minister blew this positive factor out of proportion. He forgot that even the GRTU felt very satisfied with the outcome of sales during the period.

When, in previous years, things were not this good, people like Dr Gulia trumpeted the doom and gloom that prevailed.

Some Maltese do not seem to be pleased when the going is good. No wonder Dr Gulia’s horse did not want to drink when taken to the water. It stank of political propaganda.

On a similar note, I watched the last two editions of Smash TV programme Realtà, conducted by presenter Brian Hansford. As guests on the panel in the two editions, Mr Hansford had some fortune-tellers who predicted what is to happen during 2007.

One of them, a certain Janette declared that the next general election is going to be won again by the Nationalist Party. Mr Hansford could not believe his ears. He started bombarding his guest on how she came about this conclusion.

This episode instigated the usual bunch of Labour televiewers to phone in, showing their resentment to such a straightforward answer. Here again, this time it was Brian’s horse that showed one and all that it was not going to be forced to drink “muddy” political water.

H.Calleja

San Gwann