I knew there was going to be throngs of people invading the streets of Valletta on 9 November. What I didn’t bargain for was the large number of them. It wasn’t a question of red, blue or green. It was a question of how you were going to end those sleepless nights with nightmares of whether you were going to eat well or pay those water and electricity bills.

You couldn’t do both. And no, I am not exaggerating. Who could stomach those water and electricity bills? Not pensioners, not single mothers, not the minimum wage earner and for certain not the widow. To think that the Nationalists made such a hue and cry over those tariffs way back between 1996 and 1998 when Dr Alfred Sant was in power.

There wasn’t a name under the sun they didn’t call him, especially your Thursday columnist. For shame, Dr Gonzi, talk of the pot calling the kettle black! Here we are in the year 2008 and the people who call themselves Nationalists – meaning loving the nation – are actually mutilating the pockets of decent folk.

Sure, indeed the Nationalists love the Maltese nation, and Barack Obama is coming to Malta next summer to build castles in the sand!

Valerie Borg

Valletta