Last week, the opposition party held a press point where they drew on the knowledge of an engineer who likened the fallout blast, should an floating gas facility explode, to 50 atomic bombs going off all at once.

Well, it turned out that the comparison was nothing more than hot air. The publishing house got hold of internationally recognised studies which said that the comparison just cannot be made.

It turns out that while the tanker would hold the same amount of energy, it would just not be the same volume of blast if it were, for whatever reason, to explode.

We will not go into the merits of how and why – that is not the purpose of this leading article. Our purpose, is, however, to point out that such alarmist statements should not be made, not in the name of politics, arument, nor reason.

Politics is a very complicated game, but such statements are downright irresponsible. We are in no way saying that the opposition should not voice its concerns, far from it. But what we are saying is that people should, first of all, do their research properly, and secondly, not resort to such alarmist statements.

The opposition also has every right to voice its concerns over safety, and also to suggest improvements and alternatives. But should it really be shooting first and asking questions later? There were other politicians in the past that were very adept at scaremongering, and ultimately, it just does not work. The Maltese people deserve better than that. For decades, our politics bordered on the infantile at times. And while the leaders of both parties pledged to change the way that they were done, it seems that nothing at all has changed. And it makes you wonder whether anything will ever really change.

As it stands, matters have been put into perspective. If the LNG floating platform comes to be, even if something went wrong, there would be no massive blast that would wipe out the country.

But we again question the wisdom of making such statements. We already heard how the value of people’s property in the Southern region began to drop as soon as the statement was endorsed by the Nationalist Party. The statements that were made could have had a severe financial impact on people’s livelihoods and way of life. And it again boils down to the cardinal point – scaremongering does not work. Pardon the pun, but it always blows up in your face.