Angelo Micallef (TMID, 8 December) has taken to task Joe Cristina for writing that Malta needs a change of government because the PN has been in government for too long. Indeed Mr Cristina has been too generous with the PN!

Malta needs a Labour government because what we have had for so many years is “a clique” running our country, not a government of all the Maltese people!

Malta needs a Labour government, not because the PN has been running this country for so many years, except for a brief interlude of 22 month, due to the political antics of you-know-who, but because this “PN clique” has become an arrogant administration whose main aim has been that of fooling voters time and time again, in order to claim an election victory.

On local council elections, the MLP has not changed its position at all. It still maintains that local councils should not be an arena for partisan politics. The MLP also still maintains that it will immediately stop contesting such elections once the PN decides to follow suit.

On EU membership, Labour maintains that once the majority of the people had voted for membership, it is simply accepting the people’s verdict, something which the PN had refused to do in 1996 when it had lost the election and Labour’s policy was one of a “Free Trade Zone” with the EU, but not full membership.

Surely accepting the people’s verdict, even if obtained in a scenario of political deceit, is a much more democratic way of doing politics than refusing to accept an electoral result as the PN did in 1996.

Due to precious space of this newspaper, I will limit myself to what the residents of Qui-si-Sana and Tigne – the vast majority of whom have always voted for the PN – have told Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo during their general conference, as reported in another English language paper: “Thank you but we don’t trust the government, Qui-si-Sana residents tell Arrigo.”

Now if such residents, who have always voted PN in their vast majority, have finally realised that this “PN clique” have been fooling them time and time again, how can Angelo Micallef’s boastings be taken seriously?

Returning to the question of Malta’s membership of the EU, I challenge Angelo Micallef to reply and deny what I wrote in my letter: “When will Dr Gonzi stop telling fairy tales about EU funding,” published in The Malta Independent on Sunday (TMIS, 25 November).

Eddy Privitera

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