Prime Minister Gordon Brown predicts that ‘it’s going to be a very difficult year. Families have already started to feel the pinch when shopping for essentials and paying the increased electricity bills’.

When one considers that fuel in England rose by 40 per cent and food stuffs like bread, eggs, milk, butter and other needs have also been hit by high increases, it is obvious that families are in for a hard time. Gordon Brown stated the obvious.

The same unpleasant picture is being painted all over Europe and it would be non- sensical were we to think that we will not be affected.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi was consistent, accurate and honest when he referred to the alarming international situation during the election campaign and repeated the warning that ‘hemm barra qed iberraq’. Of course the current barley and oil prices (soaring to unbelievable heights of more than $110 a barrel) should make us all ponder very seriously.

Despite these cloudy scenes, as a positive thinker, I firmly believe in the newly elected Nationalist Government. There are enough brains to tackle the problem with the best measures to relieve the citizens of unnecessary hardships.

During the last legislature, Dr Gonzi and his previous Cabinet did in fact face similar difficulties, and in the circumstances emerged from the ordeal using the best practical measures.

The man is a decision maker with a vision and is determined to see through his ambitious programme, which aims at excellence in various fields to be reached by 2015.

The broadening of existing tax bands obviously helps; the fact that 30,000 households are spared of energy surcharges is also worth emphasising. Obviously other measures must and will be introduced, but the co-operation of one and all – including the opposition – can hardly be overlooked. Together everything is possible.

TONY FORMOSA

Pieta