There are four things that can never be altered once the “action” has taken place.

A stone after it has been thrown and hit someone;

A word or a statement after it has been uttered;

An occasion after you have given it a miss and; last but not least

Time after it has passed.

The government of Lawrence Gonzi can never erase any of these.

Instead of stones, the government has showered us with taxes which no doubt will hurt the individual who pays them like a real stone. True, if Dr Alfred Sant regains power, these taxes can be eliminated – if not all at least some of them – but the fact remains that it was the Nationalists who have literally suffocated us with them.

As for words and statements, these are countless. Suffice it to say that employment is not running after people, the Maghtab landfill is raising the eyebrows of tourists who believed that there were no mountains in Malta, and a sound future is nowhere to be seen or heard, not when usury, drug addiction and theft, and derelict and crumbling buildings, are all around us like flies in summer.

On various occasions Dr Gonzi could have imposed fewer taxes on people by economising on something else. An occasion which he gave a miss is the pink card that entitled diabetics who go to St Luke’s Hospital certain medicine for free. Now it’s a well-known fact that all diabetics are entitled to this pink card.

Without any malice towards the rich, why should people with different earnings be equal when it comes to free medicine? Surely Dr Gonzi missed the occasion. He should not have handed out any pink cards to the rich but given them only to those who earn a minimum wage, thus enabling him to have to gather less taxes.

Time, and moments that have passed and will not return, is the way a PN government did not listen to the people. The Nationalists spoke thinking that the Maltese would keep on believing what they promised to deliver but actually did not. The government of Dr Gonzi had ample time to mingle with the Maltese to note their dismay about this, that and the other, but he preferred to do it “his way”.

That is why the PN will lose this coming election, whenever it comes.

Valerie Borg

MLP Councillor

Valletta