Perhaps I should not be wasting my time and space to write about Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici.

But I cannot help thinking how this former Labour prime minister is being a liability to the party that he once led, and an asset to a beleaguered Nationalist Party. If he continues like this, he might become the PN’s trump card in the next election.

Joseph Muscat must cringe each time he hears of a KMB press conference, thinking that what he is trying to build could collapse with KMB’s solo effort. He must cringe even more when the media flock to the CNI headquarters to listen to KMB’s rambling, and then report what he has to say extensively.

KMB is still given more space in the media than the amount one would usually expect for someone who has been out of politics for nearly two decades, and this is simply because of the strange things he says.

KMB is no longer part of the Labour Party. He does not speak on its behalf. But each time he says something, most people associate what he says with the PL. Subconsciously and consciously, people still link KMB to the Labour Party, and especially the Labour Party of the 1980s. It’s as if the PL, or someone from the PL, is saying it.

Each time they see KMB on TV or read about him in the newspaper, people are reminded of what happened between 1984 and 1987, when KMB was the country’s prime minister in one of the darkest periods of the country’s history. It was the time when Labour were in power without having obtained the majority of votes in the 1981 election, and KMB had been named as Dom Mintoff’s successor, had been co-opted to Parliament without a single vote, and had eventually taken over the party leadership and premiership.

There followed three years of strife, violence and instability and KMB is the personification of those hard times.

Disgruntled Nationalist supporters, who are not too happy with the way their party and the government is operating and who might be thinking that it is time for change, have only to hear what KMB has to say to be pulled back quickly within the PN fold.

That KMB is still around in spite of all that took place during his years as PM, and that he still makes statements that are illogical to many, including staunch Labour supporters, can only be detrimental to the PL and beneficial to the PN.

While Labour stays silent on any KMB move and tries to distance itself from whatever he says, the PN jumps at each and every opportunity and gives KMB as much prominence as possible in its media. Who knows, maybe they will get him to address a PN mass meeting if they become desperate enough.

I think of KMB as the person who, as Education Minister, led a crusade to close down Church schools, which he did not succeed in doing because the people rose against the idea and protested vehemently against it.

I think of KMB as the person who spoiled my younger days – I was between 17 and 20 during his years as PM – and rendered them a struggle for survival rather than the best years of my life. Many people my age agree.

I think of KMB as prime minister at a time when the University was open for the few, and opportunities for us youngsters of the time were extremely limited.

I think of KMB as the person who was prime minister when people were deprived of going to Zejtun for a PN mass meeting, a week before Raymond Caruana was killed in Gudja.

The list could go on and on, and this is why the Labour Party does not like it when KMB speaks up, on whatever subject he might choose. Each time he does, people recall the hard times they had to live through in his years as prime minister and, even though they might not be having it so good these days, they are still leading better lives than those they had in the mid-1980s.

One thing I remember distinctly about KMB is when, as a representative of Sixth Form students, I had met him with two colleagues to protest against a decision that had been taken by the government to extend our work phase by three months without extra leave or sick leave entitlement. In those days, sixth formers used to work for a number of months, apart from studying.

The meeting was held in what used to be the Education Ministry at Lascaris (at the time KMB was also Education Minister). We had prepared ourselves with arguments and counter-arguments, but the meeting lasted a few minutes because KMB accepted our proposals immediately – and this without checking what they would have entailed. But the three-month extension was a way to keep unemployment low.

Later, as a young journalist for The Times – by this time he had lost the 1987 election and was Opposition Leader – I remember driving to two distinct locations in the north of Malta once or twice a week to hear him address ladies attending coffee mornings and playing tombola.

I did not mind those long distances, because there was always something that he used to say that was entertaining, to use a euphemism. Remember Gozo’s independence and EU membership and Aids?

He has not lost his touch, and last Monday he described Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as being an “arch-democratic dictator”. Apart from the contradiction in terms, by describing Gaddafi as being an arch-democratic ruler, KMB stooped to an all-time low.

But then, I guess, it takes one to know one. Probably KMB believes he was being democratic when he wanted to close down the Church schools and when people were attacked while trying to attend a mass meeting in Zejtun.

No wonder Joseph Muscat cringes.

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