The report by Michael Carabott is typical of the way the “independent” press reports on the ongoing campaign. Cheer on the PN, behave fairly enough towards the MLP to give yourself some room to claim objectivity and damn anybody else.

The American-style debate between the leaders of the four political parties was hijacked by the PN, despite the best efforts of InSite, the University’s media organisation.

This fact in itself rendered the whole exercise pointless for when a crowd of around 600 is determined to cheer one leader, boo the other and ignore the rest, what is there to report!

Mr Carabott’s report in fact can be highlighted by what he did see and what he didn’t hear. Unbelievably, he failed to hear the greatest gaffe of all times, when Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi described the Whistleblowers Act he is proposing to introduce in the next Parliament as one intended to protect to a criminal for “grassing” on his fellows when it is a law meant to protect people like Carmel Caccopardo, who saw rampant maladministration going on and was prevented from exposing it by a government that boasts of its democratic credentials. But then I suppose, if Dr Gonzi doesn’t know what it means, I can hardly blame Mr Carabott.

Mr Carabott didn’t hear the PM’s gaffe but he saw far more hands claiming they were from the south than there actually were. I believe that here Dr Josie Muscat scored a good point, because despite all statements issued by the Education Division, the gap between north and south on this island is growing, and I believe that is what Dr Muscat meant to emphasise. Naturally that gap, as we all know and accept, echoes the political divide of this tiny island.

Mr Carabott failed also to hear the sickening, mocking sigh that went up from the PN youth band when Dr Sant mentioned cancer. I would have expected the generation from which we are supposed to pick our future leaders as being more understanding. One hopes that those leaders won’t be coming from that particular crowd.

Mr Carabott perhaps did not see Dr Gonzi off. The way he was whisked away from the University, surrounded by a thick cloud of bodyguards as if he were a George Bush in Iraq was funny – unless one prefers to cry at what the once fairly-humble Lawrence Gonzi has become.

Incidentally InSite’s youtube opinion-gathering exercise at the University corrects the impression created by the crowd in the Sir Temi Zammit Hall: not all students are mindless adherents of the Tribe.

Karl Littlejohn

Santa Venera