I must credit a number of friends, some of whom involved in voluntary social welfare (whose names I will not mention), whom a met at a lunch table, with the following information and comments. These regarded the occurrence and level of poverty in this country and were shocking.

Some prevalent localities mentioned were Valletta, Cospicua, Birkirkara and Qawra. Some not surprising, but others unexpected. Such poverty is often self-inflicted – crime or drug related, but there are many genuine cases, where families, often with single parents, just can’t make ends meet.

I was told of cases where parents spend their children’s allowance on drugs, alcohol, cigarettes or gambling, with their children literally having nothing to eat and being fed by third parties.

Of mothers going off to ply their nightly trade as their only source of income, while father is in prison, and leaving the children alone. Again it is third parties who look after them and help them with their homework. In these cases “poverty” creates delinquents out of such children later on in life.

It is also closely related to truancy. There are many cases where truancy is “unavoidable”. And it is no use punishing parents here. One must go to the root of the problem. Do small children have the clothes to wear to school? Do they have food to take with them?

Can older age teenagers be allowed to go to school and abandon some family business or other enterprise, because they constitute free labour for their father or mother (not to say child labour)?

I was also perturbed by the recent statements made by our Minister of Education at MCAST that the participation of failed students in Matsec is remarkably low. But, on the other hand, where are the job opportunities being created by our globe trotting Government, which only has empty words for our social welfare at home?

We are going back to the eighties – increased public sector employment; reduced private sector employment. For decades, we have vaunted our welfare state as being second to none. So what has happened?

Effectively and regrettably, Labour has abandoned its social conscience. Effective state action all round is required. We desperately need a national action plan, which transcends political divides.

Since the Government does not seem too disposed, then the Opposition should take it up immediately. Especially for our poor and deprived.

If only the Prime Minister gave up his ill-gained compensation for the use of his private car and Ms Sai Mizzi a small portion of her pay package, many mouths of deprived children would be filled on a daily basis. We do not need to look at all the ads on international television imploring us to give £2 for this and £3 for that to feed a child in Ethiopia or somewhere else. Charity begins at home! Let’s get serious and going. And perhaps our President should be the catalyst for this.

As we are in the lull of mid-summer August, and particularly, what I describe to my foreign friends, as our sleepy week, it is indeed fortunate that perhaps most of our politicians have really decided to take a holiday (be it Romania or the Ukraine – I would choose my ancestral home in Scotland) or a just a nap – and God bless them.

Although I just cannot understand why certain political programmes still go on. They are boring and tedious and, like with all politicians, sanctimoniously orientated, especially when you get a pompous mouth or two, with empty, useless and insulting sweet talk – they’re all in the same boat (did not say gravy) after all. But that is the choice of our national television station.

Don’t know who establishes a political schedule in the middle of summer, but it is certainly totally out of order, a disservice to spectators and the country as a whole.

But, yet, as all this serious broadcasting misjudgement is going on, on PBS, which we choose to ignore, at least during our summer holidays, our Prime Minister and his close circle of friends “klikka” (mind you not his Cabinet of Ministers in any way – always excluded from the Machiavellian workings) between holidays, tea parties and fashion shows at Girgenti, is working out his diabolical plan for running us as of October.

Allow me to give a preview: (1) Confirm that “Malta Taghna Lkoll” off the agenda. (2) Confirm that “Min mhux maghna kontra taghna” on the agenda, and let's have him/her quietly and diplomatically thrown out. (3). Confirm that “Min hu maghna jilhaq” on the agenda, with ambassadorial posts and so on, and very advantageous salaries. Labour has not changed at all from the eighties. Have a happy Santa Marija Just the same.