From Dr M. Asciak

I have to first of all congratulate you on your election as leader of the Labour Party and personally wish you the very best in a post that will have both good and bad moments. This presently is part of the good ones so enjoy it while it lasts! I read your acceptance speech with some humorous comment in mind. I suggest that as a future suggestion you cut the rhetoric where it is meant for public consumption. Rhetoric is just hot air.

With your 34 years of age you must have been around 13 years old when the PN came to power in 1987. Your suggestion that your education is the fruit of the MLP in government does not hold water. First of all, your education is primarily the fruit of your own labours and foresight, possibly closely followed by that of your family and, a distant third, the opportunity provided by the incumbent government of the time.

I remember how I absolutely detested it when, while I was slogging away hard at work during my medical studies between 1979-1985, some nut would ostentatiously declare: “See what the government has done for you”! I used to reply: “not a quarter as much as I am doing for myself”. With the 200 yearly intake into university at that time, you may not have wished to be a university applicant, nor a university student, considering the atmosphere of the day.

Your rhetoric about the medical profession on the same lines is equally humorous, given the fact that to speak to the doctor about to deliver your beautiful twins in those times you might have had to need one or two interpreters! However, I will now turn to the serious fare. After the celebrations for your election are over, can I please take the liberty of asking you to let us know what your value systems are – that is, those you have the intention of basing your national leadership on – the basis of your family values and those on human life. There is an old Latin maxim that currently escapes me, but which is attributed to St Augustine, that translates into “Government of a people essentially has to be based on the concept of justice; if it is not, it becomes similar to government of a notorious syndicate”. Now since government of a

people is essentially government of man, we need to know not only your economic vision – we have had and will have umpteen of those – but also your anthropological one for our people, and your concept of what the “common good” involves.

A friend of mine, a functionaire in the European Parliament (not of the EPP), informed me that when the vote was taken on the embryonic stem cell law, prohibiting their use, you abstained (as did the whole Labour delegation) but privately expressed an opinion that you saw nothing wrong in their use. You may wish to illuminate us with the philosophy behind such an opinion and quote concrete facts in favour of it. The advice from your assistants will probably be to simply ignore me and not engage me on such a subject. But you see for some of us – cut the jargon – economics, law and all manner of government are ultimately there to serve Man, and unless there is a proper and real truthful vision of Man, all else becomes a superfluous exercise in a pretentious inflation of the human ego in which we are all irretrievably subject to engage. Maybe then, and only then, we may be able to really appreciate and evaluate your vision for our dear country.

Michael Asciak, MD