From Mr A. Gauci Cunningham

“L-gholi tal-hajja jifnik” (The high cost of living wears you down). Do you remember this slogan?

Do you remember how on one particular occasion in the 1996 election campaign a Labour MP, still very much in the front line of the party, had been scandalised by the fact that women were going to work because they couldn’t afford to buy an air-conditioner? Do you remember Dr Sant with his shopping trolley before the election telling the poor souls of Malta how the Nationalists had ripped them off and how they couldn’t make ends meet because of the capricious, arrogant and corrupt Nationalist government?

I bet you forgot! And I bet you’ve also forgotten that some months after this crusade the MLP was swept into power!

What exactly happened under Dr Sant’s premiership? Did the price of food go down? Did they at least stabilise a bit to give a “breath of fresh air to the self-employed” as had been promised? Or did inflation go up? What did the MLP government do to cushion the effects of higher prices?

Well, for starters it introduced higher water and electricity bills and lumped everyone (from high up to low down) with a Lm24 door tax (meter tax).

Then it increased car insurances, introduced the much disliked airport tax to the tune of Lm10, introduced a 50c charge on each medical prescription, reduced the stipends by half, increased the prices of alcohol and cigarettes and the prices of the Gozo channel trip, and all the “pro” inflationary measures you can think of!

How many Smart Cities and collective agreements, like the ones with the nurses, doctors, police, and soldiers signed lately, did the MLP in government create/sign? Did the number of people looking for work increase or decrease?

I can already hear some MLP apologists reminding me that Dr Sant was only in power for 22 months: well that’s his problem. If he wasn’t capable of keeping his party intact he should have resigned and anyway that is not the point.

The point is that when the same leader and the same MPs (who today are trying the same old “song”) were given the responsibility of running this country, not only did the cost of living not go down but the government also implemented measures that encouraged inflation!

Now that’s what I call a load of crappy rhetoric and endless clichés right down the drain!

Albert Gauci Cunningham

ST PAUL’S BAY